Remedial lessons latest victim of Harris education "reform"

Shades of Brave New World: New bill forces "mandatory voluntarism" and reduces teachers' availability to kids who need help

By: Pat Daley

  Children who need remedial help will be much less likely to get it due to the latest changes being thrust upon Ontario schools by Ontario's Harris government.
  The government has managed to unite teachers and school board trustees in opposition to its Bill 74, the Education Accountability Act. It is well known that the bill limits teachers' bargaining rights and makes boards accountable to the province, not to the people who elected them. What is less known is that it will make it virtually impossible for teachers to deliver remedial help - which almost every child needs at one point or another.
  When Bill 74 is passed - and it will in a legislature dominated by Harris Tories - extracurricular activities will be determined by the school community and the principal will be responsible for assigning teachers to any activities for which there is not a volunteer. The Bill prohibits collective bargaining on this issue.
 

Jim Smith, President of OECTA, wonders where teachers are going to find the time to give those kids some extra help if they're spending more time in the classroom with more kids. (Photos from www.oecta.on.ca)

  Jim Smith has 26 years experience as a high school English teacher. Smith, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, says every student needs remedial help at some time in their career, whether it's for two hours or two months. He wonders where teachers are going to find the time to give those kids some extra help if they're spending more time in the classroom with more kids.
  Earl Manners, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF), says that the inclusion of remedial classes in the definition of instructional time doesn't guarantee they will exist next year. Under Bill 74, he says, the minister "will be able to decide through regulation or decision whether or not she likes a school's timetable or the way a school board deploys its teachers."
  Public high school teachers in Ontario are into the second day of a secret ballot, workplace vote on the government's most recent intrusion into the way schools run. Also today, local presidents of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) are gathering in Toronto to consult about a plan of action. And yesterday, the association representing public school trustees released an open letter to Ontario citizens that calls on the provincial government to stop its "unending interference in local democracy."
 

Bill 74 is strong legislation that brooks no dissent

  Bill 74 is raising hackles all over the place. It makes formerly voluntary extracurricular activities mandatory for teachers. It allows the minister of education to fire and fine locally-elected trustees who stray from government orders. The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) Executive Vice-President Irene Harris says it shows "a government drunk on its own power, moving into areas of authoritarianism, complete with thought control police, never before contemplated in this province."
  Strong words. But Bill 74 is strong legislation that brooks no dissent.
  It all started with Mike Harris's education reform introduced in 1997 through Bill 160. That law increased the amount of instructional time that secondary school teachers are required to provide. Despite government rhetoric, the move would not have increased the amount of time a teacher spends with his or her students. Instead, it would increase the number of students each teacher sees by adding an additional course to the teaching load. The intent was generally understood to be a reduction in the number of teachers and, therefore, more cuts in education spending.
  Most of the province's school boards and teachers managed to negotiate collective agreements that met the requirements of Bill 160 by including the time teachers spend with students on remedial work as instructional time. Except in the region of Durham, coincidentally the home riding of the minister of education.
  Both public and Catholic secondary teachers in Durham ended up with arbitrated settlements requiring them to teach seven out of eight periods. In response, the teachers withdrew from extracurricular activities.
 

The Bill allows the minister to intervene, investigate, fire board emloyees, fine trustees and ban them from re-election if they do not comply with government rules on curriculum implementation, class size, instructional time, co-instructional activities - the new term for extracurricular activities - and the way education grants are spent

  When Bill 74 was introduced last week, Mike Harris threw a little fuel on the flames by saying that he expected most teachers would welcome the legislation even if their unions oppose it. That's why OSSTF took yesterday and today to conduct a secret ballot, workplace vote on the question: "As a teacher, do you favour the passage into law of Bill 74, the Education Accountability Act?" The results should be released next week.
  Meanwhile, the Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA) has also come out swinging against the bill. Earlier this year, trustees at the Greater Essex District School Board voted to run a deficit rather than carrying out further cuts imposed by the province's funding formula. Bill 74 makes sure no other school board gets similar ideas. It allows the minister to intervene, investigate, fire board emloyees, fine trustees and ban them from re-election if they do not comply with government rules on curriculum implementation, class size, instructional time, co-instructional activities - the new term for extracurricular activities - and the way education grants are spent.
  "We call on the provincial government to stop this unending interference in local democracy," OPSBA President Liz Sandals said yesterday. She noted that, more than ever since Bill 160, boards are being held accountable by their communities for the way they interpret and implement provincially-driven policy. But with Bill 160 the province removed the power of boards to make financial decisions or freely negotiate collective agreements by taking away the power to raise money through local taxation.
  "Local voters will lose the right to elect people who best represent their vision of public education in their community," Sandals said in an open letter to Ontarians. She accused the Harris Tories of acting "in a punitive and arbitrary manner, in order to discourage and ultimately silence local governance."
  Sandals gets backing from OECTA's Jim Smith who says it's a "fundamentally poor decision" to allow the community interest to be overtaken by political considerations on the part of the provincial government. That so many of the different players in education seem to be reading from the same textbook could end up being one of the most important outcomes of Bill 74. Earl Manner's says it is designed to create adversarial relationships in the school community.
  "It's encouraging students, parents, and others to go to the labour relations board individually and rat on trustees or board employees who are heard to criticize or promote action against government policies," he says.
  The OPSBA open letter says the government is again targetting two group - trusteees and teachers - and asks: "Why us, why now?"
  The Harris Tories, speculates Manners, feel they lost the battle over Bill 160.
  "This legislation," he says, "is looking back through a rear view mirror and making sure there is no opposition or dissent ever again."

Get More/Do More
Do you support the changes to education in Bill 74?
Tell Straight Goods

For backgrounders and comment on Bill 74, check out:
 - Ontario Ministry of Education www.edu.gov.on.ca
 - Ontario Public School Boards Association www.opsba.org
 - Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario www.etfo.on.ca
 - Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation www.ossstf.on.ca
 - Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association www.oecta.on.ca

Pat Daley is a freelance writer and editor in Athlone in Simcoe County, Ontario.

Other articles from the Daley dispatches

[ Front Page ]