It appears Ontario’s public education system is once again heading toward crisis and disruption.
As reported in the news this week, the unions representing elementary and secondary school teachers are respectively in various stages of preparing for a strike vote. The unions are unhappy with the nature and the pace of their collective bargaining with the Ministry of Education.
We offer no opinion on the substantive issues being bargained by the teachers and the Ministry. Nor do we find any detriment or fault in the right to collectively bargain conferred upon teachers’ unions. Indeed, employees’ rights are sacrosanct in a system such as ours that extolls the virtue and protects the dignity for everyone in honest labour.
We do point out however, that some weeks ago, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce announced the introduction of new legislation and regulations aimed at “getting back to the basics of education.” Indeed, he touted the measures as proof that the government had listened to the priorities of parents “putting common sense at the centre of our education system.”
And yet, despite the self-congratulations by the Minister in his announcement, something clearly has gone wrong. The possibility of further educational disruption for our children following relatively closely upon the sustained, harmful Covid-related disruptions not so long ago, is untenable. It suggests a dysfunction in the overall system.
Against this background of apprehended educational disruption, we point to an op-ed published one year ago in the Ottawa Citizen by David Hunt, education director at Cardus, entitled Instead of strikes, how about ‘human scale’ schools in Ontario?
Hunt’s article was not a polemic against unions or teachers’ rights. Rather, it was a plea to all the educational stakeholders to bring new thinking to the delivery of education to our children. “We’re used to a model of schooling designed for a long-gone industrial era,” Hunt wrote. “The size, architecture and structure of our schools still reflect industrial-age thinking. Worse, Ontario’s education system has been steadily and intentionally bureaucratized, increasing the distance between the policy room and classroom.”
He suggests modernizing the system along the lines already undertaken throughout most of the Western world. “We need “human scale” schools that close the gap between those who set teachers’ salaries and those affected by their decisions, including students and their families….. why not design schools that put students first, while rewarding teachers — and respecting parents?”
Hunt points to “Ontario’s nearly 1,600 independent schools, which are designed from the bottom-up”, as a possible model for part of the change that could be incorporated into our current publicly-funded education system.
“It may sound surprising,” Hunt continued, “but funding all students, regardless of school attended, is the norm in the advanced world — especially in Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, there are 36 different education systems, with a seemingly endless variety of school types that students can access using public funds….
“Imagine how this would improve the work environment for teachers. I favour paying teachers more, but I also hear regularly from teachers whose greatest challenges are not remuneration but classroom management. Imagine the change in behaviour that would result from students attending the school where they learn and fit in best.”
Hunt concludes his article by casting a challenge for multilateral cooperation and fresh thinking in which no-one feels assaulted or considers their interests threatened. “Rather than close schools again, let’s look for win-win solutions and reimagine education on a human scale.”
GAJE commends Hunt’s approach. It not only brings independent schools into the definition of publicly-funded schools, it also and more importantly brings our publicly-funded schools into the modern age of the most advanced, student-centred, best practices that are more likely to achieve the highest educational results for our children and that will eliminate, finally, the discrimination and unfairness that are shameful hallmarks of Ontario’s current educational funding system.
The Hunt article is available at:
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/hunt-instead-of-strikes-how-about-human-scale-schools-in-ontario
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Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
August 18, 2023
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 