ROZANSKI REPORT ON PUBLIC EDUCATION

Feb. 3, 2006

From the Ontario Council Pre-Budget Brief:

While CFUW Ontario Council commends the government for making progress in funding smaller elementary class sizes and increasing education funding in several targeted areas, we have noted that recommendations from Dr. Rozanski’s 2002 report, Investing in Public Education, have yet to be fully funded. Funding should be fair, equitable, respond to student need, focus resources on the learner and promote accountable decision making for student success. Basic services should be funded adequately with enriched funding for local priorities.

… initiatives, however, can only succeed in the long run if the government is willing to provide schools with the necessary financial and staff resources.

There has been a decrease in full time administrators, physical education teachers, music teachers, teacher-librarians, guidance, fine arts, family studies, and technology specialists.  We share the concern of People for Education (2005 Elementary and Secondary Tracking Reports) that in spite of increased funding, the decline in specialty teachers continues.

…

Of specific concern:

• In the elementary sector, 47% of schools with ESL students had no ESL teacher.  Some schools in Toronto reported in People for Education Tracking Reports that 80% of the students require ESL.
• A study by Dr David Watt and Dr Hetty Roessingh, of the University of Calgary's Faculty of Education found that high school drop out rate for ESL students in Canadian urban schools to be above or approaching 70% which also speaks strongly for the need to monitor and support ESL students all the way through to graduation.
• In its 2005 report, the Auditor General of Ontario expressed a number of concerns about ESL training for Ontario students, including the lack of resources, little accountability concerning funding, and concerns about lack of standards.   
• Special education conditions are especially dire. In elementary schools, the average percentage of students requiring help has increased, with one-third of schools reporting that they have students who are not receiving any help.
• While we applaud the class size reduction and the extra teachers, we are concerned that the supplies for the extra classrooms can not come out of current funding.
• We also applaud the 20 minutes of physical education but are concerned about the management of this.
• Many school boards continue to use ESL and Learning Opportunities Grant funding to cover salary and operating costs.

Feb. 4, 2003

From Ontario Council Pre-Budget Brief:
CFUW/Ontario Council believes high quality universal public education safeguards the economic and legal status of all Ontarians but in particular that of Ontario’s women and children. In October 2002 at our Annual General Meeting we passed policy in which we:

Urge the Ontario government to provide high quality public education in Ontario, with funding to meet the individual intellectual, emotional, psychological and physical learning needs of each student in Ontario; and affirm public education as a key priority. (Canadian Federation of University Women/Ontario Council, Resolution as passed, Oct. 2002)

Funding continues to be a key issue for education in Ontario.  Many of the problems in public education cannot be addressed without adequate funding.  Long waiting lists for special education evaluation, the loss of daily physical education and specialists to teach it, cuts to teacher specialists with training in music, the arts and library sciences, increases to average class sizes, long bus rides to school and reductions to ESL support have all resulted from the increasingly tight budgets and the dwindling reserve funds that school boards have been forced to work with.

In the spring of this year the Ontario government undertook to review the education funding formula through the Education Equality Task Force.

We applaud the Ontario Government for this effort to re-evaluate the current public education funding formula, and we appreciated the opportunity to make our presentation to the task force. 

It is our sincere hope that the government will fully implement the 33 recommendations of the Education Equality Task Force.   (Education Equality Task Force, Investing in Public Education: Advancing the Goal of Continuous Improvement in Student Learning and Achievement Mordechai Rozanski, Commissioner. Dec. 2002)

Through his recommendations, it is clear Dr. Mordechai Rozanski agreed with our assessment that the current levels of education funding in Ontario are not sufficient to meet the individual intellectual, emotional, psychological and physical learning needs of each student in Ontario.

We support Dr. Rozanski’s recommendation that the Ministry of Education update benchmark costs for all components of the funding formula to reflect costs through August 2003.  Since 1996, school board budgets across Ontario have decreased by as much as 20%, in real dollars, and school boards have lost financial resources necessary to implement the curriculum because inflation has reduced the value of its allocations.

We applaud the government for acting quickly on recommendations to provide an immediate grant for the current round of collective bargaining, as well as the release of special education allocations for claims approved up to the end of cycle 3 of the comprehensive review of Intensive Support Amount funding.  But, the 2003-4 budget needs to include additional allocations for all approved Intensive Support Claims.

School Renewal Allocations need to be included to address both the most pressing school renewal needs and deferred maintenance.  School boards with older facilities have been forced to delay maintenance in order to balance budgets.  The Greater Essex County District School Board estimates a need for $17 million annually to keep its 76 school in good repair.  Since 1996, the maintenance allocation has been less than $5 million annually, an annual shortfall of over $12 million.

Increases to the Geographic Circumstance Grant as described in recommendation 15 will protect student and staff safety by insuring that small schools in single school communities have full time principals, secretaries and custodial staff to monitor traffic in and out of the school, as well as ensure a safe, clean and well-maintained school.

Student social, psychological and physical health can be protected by implementing recommendation 13 and integrating services for children and families.  Currently, Dr. Gail McVey, Director, Ontario Community Outreach Program for Eating Disorders, reports difficulty in coordinating efforts to teach students healthy lifestyles and prevent eating disorders.  Providing for integrated services could promote the implementation of prevention programs such as hers in schools across Ontario.

The effect of changes in education funding and delivery since 1996 has been to reduce the cost of education, but the fallout of the changes is that they prevent local school boards from providing programs that meet Ontario’s students’ needs.

Implementation of Dr. Rozanski’s recommendations will increase the cost of providing public education, but it will also result in improvements to the education being provided.

The government of Ontario needs to affirm public education as a key priority by investing in public education funding.

Dec. 10, 2002

The report of the Education Equality Task Force, 2002, chaired by Dr. Mordechai Rozanski Investing in Public Education: Advancing the Goal of Continuous Improvement in Student Learning and Achievement was released.  This can be found at www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/task02