On the last day of school, Ontario’s education minister announced that the province will be taking control of four more school boards due to “mismanagement.” Paul Calandra said the province has appointed supervisors to the Toronto District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board.
The province’s inadequate funding
The decisions come after financial investigations into growing deficits. This move follows the Ford government’s latest legislative proposal that grants the Minister of Education additional powers to easily place elected school boards under supervision and that forces the presence of police officers in schools. The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has criticized these moves, saying, “This is not education reform; it’s authoritarianism cloaked in the language of accountability, designed to deflect blame, suppress dissenting voices, and tighten political control over a public education system this government has failed to adequately fund.”
Calandra has pointed to some egregious examples of poor financial decisions from the Thames Valley District School Board such as a $40,000 staff retreat or a $190,000 Italy trip from trustees in the Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board. But at the heart of the issue with the four boards placed under supervision this week is that the boards can’t afford to balance their budgets with the funds they receive from the province.
“School boards are being forced to do more with less,” the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) said in a social media post. “Since 2018, the Ford government has taken more than $6 billion out of the classroom and funding has fallen FAR behind inflation.”
The province has touted this year’s education budget of $30.3 billion as a “record investment in eduction.” However, a report last year from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that Ontario’s core education funding has dropped by $1,500 per student since 2018. As the ETFO pointed out in a statement on Ontario’s Bill 33:
“It is no coincidence that this announcement comes shortly after yet another provincial budget that fails to meaningfully invest in public education. Instead of addressing Ontario’s growing class sizes, the escalating teacher recruitment and retention crisis, and rising school violence caused by unmet student needs due to a lack of resources and supports — not the absence of police – the Ford government is choosing to impose unnecessary measures to distract from the funding crisis it created, which has resulted in a cumulative funding gap in public education over the past seven years of approximately $6.35 billion.”
An attack on democracy and equity
This move by the province is an attack on both democracy and equity. When Calandra says school boards should “focus on their core mandate” it means shutting up about issues like racism and colonialism and cutting arts and sports programs that make school special for students across the province. How do they plan to force students to “focus on the core mandate?” By bringing police back into schools.
To push back against these attacks on students, education workers and democracy will require educators and community to come together to fight for the common good. Less control for the educators who know their students and communities means less engaging education, less voice for students and teachers, and greater alienation and suspicion that undermines public education. Let’s unite and fight for better public education for all.
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