The PC education platform was scant, at best.
It made no mention of addressing the $15.9-billion of disrepair that plagues Ontario’s publicly funded schools nor did it mention fixing the flawed provincial education funding formula that has allowed our schools to accumulate such a gobsmacking level of disrepair. They would have been well served to dig back in the PC archives to read the 2002 Rozanski report, commissioned by the last PC Minister of Education, and still an incredibly relevant document today in terms of pointing the way forward for public education funding in this province.
As per the PC “Plan for the People“, here is what the PC party has committed to do over the coming four years:
- Get back to basics: Scrap discovery math and inquiry-based learning in our classrooms and restore proven methods of teaching.
- Get back to basics: Ban cell phones in all primary and secondary school classrooms, in order to maximize learning time.
- Focus on the fundamentals: Make mathematics mandatory in teachers’ college programs.
- Fix the current EQAO testing regime that is failing our kids and implement a standardized testing program that works.
- Respect parents: Restore Ontario’s previous sex-ed curriculum until we can install a new one that is age appropriate and based on real consultation with parents.
- Uphold moratorium on school closures until the closure review process is reformed.
- Mandate universities to uphold free speech on campuses and in classrooms.
- Provide an additional $38 million in funding for all children with autism, above and beyond the funding already in the government’s plan.
Our new provincial government has not promised to ensure that Ontario’s schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. In fact, they do not mention protecting the $1.4-billion/year provincial funding for school repairs that we fought so hard to obtain and that is really the absolutely minimum acceptable amount.
When the Fix Our Schools campaign began in 2014, annual provincial funding for school repairs was a mere $150-million/year for all 72 school boards in the province. Our work between 2014-2016 highlighted the need for increased provincial funding for school repairs. Industry standards suggested that a minimum of $1.4-billion/year was needed simply for routine maintenance and repairs on Ontario’s schools and, in December 2015, Ontario’s Auditor-General confirmed this figure, also citing $1.4-billion/year as the minimum provincial funding required for school repairs.
In June 2016, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government finally did what ought to have been done years earlier, and announced that it would increase annual funding for school repairs to just shy of $1.4-billion. With constant pressure from Fix Our Schools, this new annual level of funding for school repairs was protected by two successive Liberal budgets.
Will Doug Ford’s PC government protect this annual level of funding for school repairs and ensure that a minimum of $1.4-billion per year goes to Ontario’s school boards for school repairs? At this point, we have no idea.
What we do know is that 30% of elected PC MPPs signed the Fix Our Schools Pledge, personally committing to eliminating the $15.9-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s schools and to developing a standard of good repair for Ontario’s schools. In fact, 47% of all elected MPPs signed the Fix Our Schools Pledge. What we also know is that school conditions matter and that the 2-million children who spend their days in Ontario’s schools deserve to learn in buildings that are safe, healthy and well-maintained.