Presentation to the Education Equality Task Force Studying the School Funding Formula

Jim Challis, President, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Peel Local

September 20, 2002

Thank you for this chance to speak, today, about the impact of the funding formula. My name is Jim Challis. I am president of the Peel Local of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. This year, my membership will exceed 5,000. We are the second largest local body of public school teachers in Canada. On behalf of my members, I will offer statistical analysis, personal testimonials, and perspective upon the context and the long-term impact of the current funding model upon our public schools.

Student Focused Funding is a deliberate attack upon the public schools of Ontario, and upon society as a whole. Student Focused Funding does not represent merely the neglect of the public schools, or a misunderstanding of what schools need. Neither is the funding formula just about saving money in the short term. The evidence, taken in context, suggests a purposeful plan to undermine a bedrock provincial institution.

Let me examine the evidence. No doubt you are familiar with the results of the latest survey of public schools conducted by People for Education. While briefly referencing some of their findings, I shall give examples of how under-funding has affected my members in Peel.

Class Size

The government has declared its support for early childhood education, but actions speak louder than words. This government funds secondary school classes at 21 students while funding elementary classes at 24.5. Decades of research tell us that these numbers are backwards.

Classes of 24.5 students are too large for young children. For many of my members, things are even worse. For nearly my entire thirty-two-year career, classes in kindergarten to grade 2, at my schools, have ranged from 19 to 22 students. Today, twenty-four per cent of my members teaching these grades have classes larger than 25. This is wrong.

Libraries

In its current television campaign, the government claims to promote student literacy. The government’s foul treatment of school libraries suggests otherwise. Under the funding formula, only 2% of schools are funded for a full-time teacher librarian. Forty-one per cent of schools have no teacher librarian at all.

Before student focused funding, in 1997-98, Peel serviced 60,366 elementary students with 115 teacher-librarians. Our Partners in Action initiative, for fifteen years, saw classroom teachers and librarians working closely together to foster literacy. Today, the formula funds only 105.4 teacher-librarians for 81,072 students. That is, 9.6 fewer teacher librarians for 20,700 more students. So much for commitment to literacy.

My member, June Heximer, is the 0.5 teacher-librarian at a satellite location from one of Peel’s huge elementary schools. June’s job is to create a school library at that site. At the same time, she must provide planning time for the other teachers. Funding for library and planning time is so tight that June must try to do both. She cannot simultaneously move sand and water tables from the former kindergarten room, retrieve old library books from a storage closet, and provide planning time coverage for her colleagues. The stress upon June, from conflicting obligations is great.

Special Education

Last year, a television advertisement proclaimed the government’s commitment to the early diagnosis of student learning problems. People for Education report that, provincially, the special education waiting list for 2001-2002 grew to 39,700 students from 37,000 the year before, which had grown from 34,700 the year before that.

Last year in Peel, my members could not obtain diagnostic testing for any students until late January because Peel’s psychologists were tied down by the grueling exercise of unnecessary government paperwork that robbed them of time better spent assessing students.

My member, Bonnie McIlveen, special education teacher at a Mississauga middle school, talks about the shrinking resources for special education programs: computers and software, texts, novels, and, structured program materials. She tells of students moving from contained special education classrooms to regular classrooms, with help from the In-school Support Program teacher, but without qualifying for the Teaching Assistant support they need when the ISSP teacher is assigned elsewhere.

My member Rhonda Lennie tells of the grade 8 student who never became a priority for diagnostic testing because he was never the most severe case on the lengthy waiting list. Emotional problems related to learning difficulties finally produced informal testing that suggested a learning exceptionality. The student went to secondary school without a proper assessment, however, losing years of learning that can never be replaced.

ESL

People for Education report a drastic decline in ESL programs and teachers despite the continuing high numbers of students who do not speak English. Children who speak no English do not qualify for ESL support if they are born in Canada or arrive in Canada from an English-speaking country. ESL students lose their ESL support after three years whether or not they are fluent in English.

Says my member, ESL teacher Erlene Shea, "The present point system generating money for ESL service...is...inadequate. [A] student born in Pakistan, speaking no English, and entering Canada via England receives fewer points than [a] student born in Hong Kong, arriving from Hong Kong, [and] speaking fluent English. ... The funding formula does not take into account the well researched time [it takes] to learn English."

In Peel, the number of ESL teachers has held steady at 167 since 1996, but the number of students needing ESL support has risen from 6,251 to 12,503. The student teacher ratio has risen from 37:1 to 75:1 and of the 12,503 ESL students, only 6,826 generate funding.

Guidance

Choices into Action is the government’s demanding guidance program for grades 1 to 12. The funding formula does not adequately staff the program in the elementary schools. Secondary school guidance is funded at a student/teacher ratio of 1:385. Elementary guidance is funded at 1:5,000. This barely meets the needs of grade 7/8 students. It does not meet the needs of all students in grade 6/7/8 middle schools.

Fundraising for the Basics

The survey reports that school fundraising for the basics has increased by 68% in five years; that amounts raised by schools ranged last year from $0 to $65,000; and, that the top 10% of schools raised as much as the bottom 60%. If inequities in what schools offer children existed before Student Focused Funding they certainly have been exacerbated by the need to fundraise due to chronic under-funding.

Sabina Freemantle, of a junior public school in Brampton, reports, "While trying to meet the needs of my special education contained class for three years, I had to purchase every item that was used in my program, including fiction and non-fiction books, texts, and other resources which spanned kindergarten to grade 8. I have yearly receipts for these items that range from $600 to $4,000. At my last school, students would come from classes from all over the school to sign out my books because their classes had no books. When I left my last school, students commented that it would be totally different next year because they wouldn’t have access to books."

Member Sharron Raymond explains, "When the new curriculum was introduced, the government provided start-up money for materials with no provision for a sustaining budget. ... There was never enough for the needs of a whole class. ... I had 82 students but only 15 textbooks. ... I also taught technology to grades 6, 7 and 8. By March, the consumables, such as wood glue, batteries and wire had run out. A Canadian Tire money drive was undertaken to supply essential materials. At other times I dipped into my own family’s money. No student should have to rely on Canadian Tire money or the goodwill of a teacher to meet curriculum expectations."

Principals and Vice-principals

Only 43% of schools are funded for a full-time principal. School boards receive too little funding for principals and vice-principals. One Peel elementary school containing 1,400 students is administered by a full-time principal, one full-time vice-principal, and one a half-time vice-principal. With thirty new teachers on staff and the new teacher performance appraisal regulation in effect, these administrators have up to 90 performance appraisals to complete this year - one every two days. I understand that despite the impossible nature of the task, the Ministry will allow, "no exceptions" to the meeting of its timelines. Too few administrators and unrealistic expectations have produced crushing stress upon this staff.

One has to ask - whether about class size, ESL, libraries, special education, or basic materials - one has to ask, "How on earth is Student Focused Funding putting kids first?" It’s not.

I will speak now of context. Teachers elevate the lives of ordinary people. Under-funding public schools impedes teachers’efforts in this regard. Under-funding the schools is consistent, though, with many government initiatives that hurt the vulnerable, augment the rich and powerful and erode democracy. These include cutting welfare cheques, repealing workers rights, fostering two-tiered health care, amalgamating local governments, eliminating trustees, and MPPs, resisting public hearings, and taking control of school boards.

In public schools, large classes, diminished library and guidance programs impede learning and social and emotional development. Stingy funding of special education hurts our most needy children. Refusing ESL support for non-English speaking children born in Canada blames families for children’s language experience. Privatization, tax cuts, reduced public spending, and centralized decision-making suggest government by a narrow segment of society for the benefit of a narrow segment of society.

Public schools cost tax dollars and foster citizenship. Consider that the struggle to create the public schools was won by farmers who pooled their pennies to give their children a chance to participate as citizens in their community. Consider that they faced, in opposition, a Tory party backed by a rich and powerful business class opposed to public spending on the needs of common people and unwilling to share decision-making power. One can conceive, now as then, that the under-funding of public education serves the dual purpose of trimming "wasteful" spending and limiting opposition to an agenda of privatization and tax cuts. John Strachan, leading Tory of the 1830s and 40s, and chief opponent of public schools, preferred, instead, grammar schools for the children of Upper Canada’s elite. Said Strachan, "The purpose of education is to teach the ruling class how to rule." Our current government is weakening public schools by diverting tax dollars into private schools. Bishop Stachan would be pleased.

We are in a political struggle over the funding of public education. Brazilian educator Paolo Frere said, "Education is politics. It can be used to liberate or domesticate a people." Current education policy, including the funding formula, is not about liberating students. It is about domesticating a workforce. How else should we interpret the removing of the media literacy course from the school curriculum at just that moment, four years ago, when partisan television ads about health care and education hit the air waves.

Today’s crisis will pass. These things are cyclical, but a lengthy cycle can damage society. I know that this task force must work within parameters, one of which is affordability. I would argue that affordability is a false premise. It is an arbitrary construct. This government has chosen to create false dichotomies. The choice between tax cuts and school funding is one example. In the end, citizens will choose the schools. If this task force fails to recommend adequate changes to the funding formula and restore the schools’ ability to cope; if it fails to acknowledge the damage being done by inadequate funding, then, history may view this task force as but one obstacle which the people had to overcome to rebuild the public schools. I hope that would be a legacy that no one on the task force would want to leave.