From a slower move to full-day kindergarten to squeezing middle-income students from the new tuition rebate and considering user fees for some school bus routes and extra high school credits, few corners of Ontario’s schoolhouse have escaped Don Drummond’s fiscal knife.

The economist advising Queen’s Park on how to wipe out the deficit suggests sweeping changes to the sector on which Premier Dalton McGuinty has staked his reputation, arguing the province has hiked per-pupil spending by 56 per cent in the past 10 years, while enrolment has plunged.

In one of his most extreme recommendations, he calls for the province to flat-out cancel its signature full-day kindergarten program because its eventual $1.5 billion yearly price-tag is “inappropriate in this current fiscal climate.” But in the likely event the “Education Premier” balks at such a recall, Drummond suggests he at least slow down the rollout of the program by three years to finish in 2017-2018, rather than 2014-2015.

He also suggests scrapping the current full-day kindergarten model of one teacher and one early childhood educator for an average of 26 kindergarten children, to a smaller class of 20 with just one teacher.

Drummond also tackles one of the first planks of McGuinty’s signature education reforms; smaller classes. Arguing that there is no solid proof smaller classes actually lead to better test scores — even though both have happened since the Liberals took office in 2003 — Drummond suggests Ontario could save money without seeing achievement backslide by letting primary classes grow to 23 children between grades 1 and 3, up from the current 20 children, which is now the maximum in 90 per cent of Ontario grade schools.

In grades 4 to 8, he suggests hiking the recommended average to 26 from its current target of 24.5, and in high school he says the average class size could grow to 24 from 22 without jeopardizing the gains Ontario has made in lowering the dropout rate and boosting achievement.

The class cap has proven difficult for schools to work around, forcing many split-grade classes and even some triple-grades or awkward splits of kindergarten and Grade 1. One additional student in September can force a principal to have to create an entirely new class after children have started school.

Drummond also suggests school boards lose a staggering 70 per cent of the 13,800 extra non-teaching staff it has provided funding for since 2003 — a move bound to be unpopular since these include such heavily used support staff as psychologists, education assistants, guidance counsellors and library assistants.

He also closes the door on the so-called “victory lap” that some 14 per cent of high school students now take in a fifth year of high school to polish their marks and hike their chances at higher learning. Drummond suggests letting students earn 32 credits for free at high school — two more than needed for a diploma. High schools could charge fees for any extra credits.

Ontario ended the fifth year of high school a decade ago, but students are still allowed to take more time to finish their diploma. In Ontario some 19,650 students who started Grade 9 in 2005-6 came back for a fifth year — a little more than 13 per cent of the 150,000 students in that cohort.

In a move sure to cause outrage among the families of students with special needs, Drummond says he does not believe there is a problem with the special education funding formula — something many families would dispute. Instead, he calls for a sweeping review of special education to make sure “every dollar goes to where is will have the most impact.”

Drummond notes the growing cost of busing students to school, and suggests scrapping a recent moratorium on putting bus contracts out to tender. Even so, he recommends school boards consider charging user fees for school buses if needed, although special help would be offered to students of lower income, special needs and rural areas.

He also recommends closing the traditional provincially run schools for some 800 children who are blind, deaf and have particular learning disabilities He argues that having school staff be employees of the provincial government is “not the best governance arrangement” and recommends letting school boards take in these students in new expanded programs, and leaving one provincially run school for the deaf.

As well, Drummond suggests tightening up the rules about teachers receiving grants for getting extra qualifications, so that an independent body would review whether the teacher deserves it. He also suggests school boards no longer be allowed to offer teachers “retirement gratuities,” which cost taxpayers some $1.7 billion.

It suggests the province have the power to order school boards to sell unused buildings – closed schools – and also suggests merging grades 7 and 8 with high school to use buildings more efficiently.

With regard to post-secondary education, Drummond states flatly that quality of higher education in Ontario has been “undermined” by rapid expansion with the lowest funding level in Canada. He cites larger classes, more part-time instructors and less contact with professors.

“You really shouldn’t be doing multiple-choice exams in third- and fourth-year of university,” said Drummond Wednesday, referring to the growing move away from essay questions that take longer to mark.

He recommends a more deliberately two-tiered system of universities; some that focus on research but others that specialize on undergraduate teaching, a suggestion that many smaller institutions have charged unfairly clips their research dreams. But Drummond says universities should not be chasing research dollars at the expense of teaching the booming ranks of undergraduates.

He suggests the government establish clearer “mandate agreements” with colleges and universities that sharpen the focus of each school and reduce duplication – and these should be put into play in 2013-2014. He suggests the province name a blue-ribbon panel to figure out which programs are worth expanding. He also recommends considering how well professors score on student satisfaction surveys as part of the measure of quality.

Drummond recommends keeping the longstanding 5 per cent cap on tuition, although he suggests universities and colleges be allowed to tweak particular program increases within that average. But he recommends reducing the number of students who would qualify for the new 30 per cent tuition rebate – just launched in January – by lowering the income ceiling from its current $160,000 a year annual income.

“Student assistance should be targeted to those who need it most,” he stated.

While Drummond called the surge in tuition fees in Ontario “troubling” – the average undergraduate tuition is now $6,400 per year, the highest in Canada – he says a tuition freeze are not in students’ best interests because the squeeze it would put on campus coffers would end up leading to a “further deterioration of the student experience…there must be a better balance – excellent research should not trump excellent teaching.”

Drummond suggests universities should be encouraged to be flexible enough in their contracts with professors to reward strong teachers as well as strong researchers.

He also suggests post-secondary spending grow by no more than 1.5 per cent until 2017.

Drummond also suggests making it easier for students to move back and forth between colleges and universities. Some college students should be able to move to university after two years of study in certain situations.

In a move sure to upset community colleges, Drummond suggests they not be allowed to add any new degree programs – something colleges say are a growth sector for them. Indeed, the province says no new programs at all should be added unless institutions can make a solid business case.

It was not clear exactly what Drummond meant by suggesting that funding for institutions be tied to the number of students who graduate – “degrees awarded” – rather than students who are enrolled.

He suggests compelling universities to consider whether they can shrink four-year degrees to three years by letting student study over the summer.

He suggests scrapping post-secondary tuition tax credits and investing them in upfront grants to students.

< http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1131852–larger-classrooms-among-sweeping-changes-suggested-to-education?bn=1 >

The Ontario government’s plan for a sleek new system of online higher learning that would help students mix and match online credits and train profs to design better web-based courses appears to have stalled nearly two years after it was unveiled.

The Ontario Online Institute was announced by the McGuinty government in the 2010 Speech from the Throne and cited again in a speech by MPP John Milloy last May, when it also was touted on a government website as coming “in late summer 2011.”

But it still hasn’t materialized, despite a 150-page feasibility report delivered to Queen’s Park last spring.

A ministry spokesperson said it has been neither shelved, nor given the go-ahead.

“We’re putting an awful lot of work into looking into the best way to move forward; there may be ways that we can do more, but I can’t say any more,” said Heather Wright, director of communications for the ministry of training, colleges and universities.

While there has been no announcement as to why the institute did not launch last summer, MPP Glen Murray, the new minister of training, colleges and universities, has mused publicly that one of the government’s promised three new Ontario campuses might be “online.”

But students are “disappointed at the lack of progress on this project almost two years after it was announced,” said Sam Andrey, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Alliance.

“We know demand is going up — there were 495,000 online course registrations in a year in Ontario — and we were excited at the opportunity to see Ontario take it to the next level, remove some of the barriers and take steps to improve quality,” said Andrey, whose organization represents about 150,000 of the province’s 400,000 undergraduates.

The Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario, said it was surprised the institute did not launch last fall to serve the growing number of students who “often need a course for their program that isn’t offered at their institution, so they turn to online courses for that flexibility,” said president Sandy Hudson.

Neither group wants the province to create an actual online university; they would prefer a “portal” to serve as a clearinghouse for the often confusing myriad of online courses now offered by colleges and universities — a place where students could do one-stop shopping to find the course they need.

A two-month feasibility study commissioned by Queen’s Park by Maxim Jean-Louis, chief executive officer of the Contact North distance learning network, noted that in 2008-2009 there were more than 20,843 courses and 787 programs offered online in Ontario. Online course registrations constituted 11 per cent of all post-secondary course registrations in colleges and universities in 2010, the report said; a total of 495,716 registrations.

“If Ontario is to achieve the ambitious target of a 70 per cent post-secondary attainment rate for its workforce, an Ontario Online Institute should target underserved groups: aboriginal students, first-generation learners, new Canadians, people with disabilities and students in small, rural and remote areas of the province,” said the report, which suggested the government earmark about $7 million a year on the project.

“It is still difficult for a student in an Ontario college or university to take online courses from other institutions, either outside or inside the province, and count these credits towards their degree at their home institution,” noted Jean-Louis. “This is a particular challenge for students wishing to take online courses, especially lifelong learners, who often want to ‘mix and match’ courses from different institutions.

“This partly explains why more than 40 per cent of Alberta’s (completely online) Athabasca University students come from Ontario.”

< http://www.thestar.com/news/education/article/1123294–long-promised-ontario-online-institute-still-far-from-launch >

She has $70,000 in student debt, a 14-year-old child, five university courses and two part-time jobs. Yet single mother Melissa Rae Stewart can’t get Ontario’s new tuition rebate.

Why not? Because the 33-year-old waited more than four years after high school to decide to go to university — she had a child when she was 19 so didn’t go back until she was 26 — and she does not qualify for the $1,600 annual rebate launched earlier this month.

That’s the fine print many failed to notice about Queen’s Park’s $430 million rebate plan that gives $1,600 back to university students and $730 back to community college students whose annual family income is below $160,000: it does not apply to students who have been out of high school for more than four years.

The plan was meant, said Premier Dalton McGuinty, specifically to help high school students overcome any immediate financial roadblock to higher learning.

“But I’m baffled — I pay $880 a month in rent, plus hydro, plus the costs of raising my daughter, so why am I less qualified for help than a kid out of high school who has the luxury of living in a house with four other students and paying $250 to $300 in rent?” said Stewart, who is finishing an honours degree in political science and certificate in ethics at the University of Western Ontario.

She is one of thousands of Ontario students whose age will exclude them from the rebate. Cindy Brownlee has been talking to many of them as director of education and equity for George Brown College’s student association. She said dozens of students have been rushing into her office every day for tips on how to apply, but only two or three actually were eligible; the rest were mature students like her. The 26-year-old single mother will graduate this spring with her diploma in early childhood education and autism and behavioral science.

“I waited a few years after high school to go to college because the cost of education put me off so I took time to save some money, but I still have about $31,000 in student debt and that rebate would have helped,” Brownlee said.

The ministry of training, colleges and universities explains on its website that while mature students are excluded, as are part-time students, graduate students and Ontario students enrolled outside the province, mature students often qualify for more student aid than other students.

Still, mature students are doubly hit by the rebate because the province scrapped a $150 textbook grant to be able to afford it, leaving some 100,000 mature students without either, noted Sam Andrey, executive director of the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Association.

Because people with children and aboriginals both tend to be older when they enter post-secondary education, both groups appear worse off under the rebate plan.

“You’d think if you’re going to spend $400 million on something new, you’d make sure it benefitted the most needy groups,” said Andrey.

The Canadian Federation of Students’ Ontario office has had more complaints from people excluded from this rebate than they have on any other issue in recent years, said treasurer Nora Loreto. The group will target the rebate plan in its Feb. 1 day of protest about the high cost of tuition.

However Premier Dalton McGuinty told the Star’s Brandie Weikle recently that the government doesn’t “have all the money in the world,” and it drew the line at mature students partly because many have access to help from a re-training program called Second Career.

McGuinty said “the decision we made was to focus on the earlier experience to help kids make that jump from high school to post secondary education.”

< http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/1115343–older-students-not-eligible-for-ontario-tuition-rebate >

Even the bank teller didn’t know what a Canada Learning Bond was when Arlene Pimentel showed up to get one.

Three years after arriving in Canada from the Philippines, the new mother had no job, no income and no home of her own, but she knew something that more than 1 million Canadians like her do not: Ottawa will give low-income parents a nest egg for their child’s higher education.

Because she acted on this tip from her community centre, her son Luke, who is one, will have a $500 savings bond for future tuition, to which Ottawa will add $100 a year up to a maximum of $2,000. They need not kick in any money.

Luke’s father works at a car wash, his mother may need years to upgrade her nursing credentials and they all live with his grandparents in a townhouse near Regent Park.

“We don’t have anything, but at least we have education for our son — education is important to the individual and to the world,” proclaimed Pimentel, 37, who heard about the Canada Learning Bond at a Regent Park program called Parents for Better Beginnings. The Omega Foundation ran the workshop as part of its goal to spread awareness of the plan and boost the financial footing of Canada’s poorest families.

And it was easy, said Pimentel. They got Luke a social insurance number by applying online, then opened an RESP at the bank and applied for the learning bond, at no cost.

Yet in Toronto, some 78,000 eligible families don’t claim the Canada Learning Bond, even though it is open to any child born since 2004 whose net family income is no more than $41,000 a year.

Across Ontario, an alarming 405,000 eligible families don’t apply, according to Omega Executive Director May Wong.

“Research shows the impact of having even $2,000 saved for a child’s education is staggering, because it sends the expectation they will go to post-secondary education,” said Wong. “The mere existence of educational savings makes a child 50 per cent more likely to pursue post-secondary education,” she added, citing one Louisiana study where 11-year-olds spent more time on homework when they knew there was money saved for them for college.

The federal government has been trying to boost awareness of the program through forums such as one it hosted May 14 at the Scarborough Civic Centre, where 14 bankers from RBC who spoke a range of 17 languages helped 130 eligible families to apply. The Omega Foundation runs its “SmartSaver” information sessions at schools in low-income neighbourhoods and has planned a forum July 8 at Centennial College on Progress Road.

But now a province-wide student group wants Queen’s Park to help promote the federal plan as a way to fight the widening gap between low-income and high-income students’ participation in higher education. The number of low-income students enrolled full-time in Ontario universities has risen in the past 10 years to 50,000 from 40,000 — at the same time as the ranks of high-income students nearly doubled to 110,000 from 60,000, noted Sean Madden, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Alliance.

“We think it would be perfect if the province automatically gave parents information on the program when they apply for a birth certificate or register their child for kindergarten, as a sort of one-stop portal,” said Madden. “We see the Canada Learning Bond as a way of levelling the playing field for low-income families.”

MPP John Milloy, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, met recently with the Omega Foundation and says he is “open to taking a look at ways we could help promote this excellent program, but I also wonder what the federal government is doing to promote it?”

Education minister Leona Dombrowsky sent a letter to parent involvement committees across the province in January, urging them to inform parents about the Canada Learning Bond. And the five largest banks are looking at ways of raising awareness, said Robin Walsh, vice-president of communications for the Canadian Bankers’ Association.

< http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/money/educationalsaving/resps/article/1015294–canada-learning-bond-helps-low-income-families >

Canada could be producing 4,200 more home-grown university grads a year and reap an estimated $401 billion more in economic productivity over 25 years if it wiped out the “tragic” learning gap between natives and the rest of Canada, says a First Nations lawyer and activist.

“The aboriginal population is growing at three times the national average but only one in 33 earns a university degree, compared to one in five Canadians overall — a story of tragic missed opportunity,” Roberta Jamieson, president of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, said Monday at conference on natives and higher learning.

If that learning gap were wiped out, some 5,200 more native students would earn a degree each year than the current 1,500, she said.

While many, including Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, are sweetening the financial pot for foreign students, native youth here still lack the funding to help fight “poverty and bullying, gangs and drugs, lack of confidence and a lack of motivation and the gap is getting worse,” she said at Queen’s University.

Most reserves have waiting lists of students hoping for federal funding for tuition, which has been capped at 2 per cent each year for more than a decade, while the population — and demand for higher learning — has grown.

National Chief Shawn Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations called on Canada to “smash the status quo — there is a funding gap of $2,000 to $7,000 per student that is completely unacceptable,” he said in a speech at the conference.

“In some parts of Ontario, only 28 per cent of aboriginal students finish high school . . . yet we need another 65,000 students in university in Canada to achieve parity with mainstream levels.

“This failure must not continue,” Atleo said, sparking applause from the audience of some 170 educators from across the country. “We cannot afford to lose another generation to poverty and despair.”

Atleo welcomed news Wednesday that Ottawa may support bilingual schools in the Inuit language — a far cry from the horror stories of a generation ago when “native children would have their tongues pricked with a needle if they were heard speaking their native tongue.”

< http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/1008081–native-grads-would-soar-if-learning-gap-closed-activist-says >

The troubled hearts and minds of children are becoming a campaign issue in Ontario.

A broad new coalition of hospitals, social workers, children’s aid societies, psychologists, teachers, students and trustees cites the turbulent mental health of today’s students — from anxiety and depression to suicidal feelings — as the “number one issue facing schools today.”

The new Coalition for Children and Youth Mental Health, a network of 26 province-wide groups, has asked each political party to spell out a plan for coping with what some call the “sleeping giant” in schools.

“We wouldn’t let a child walk around with a broken arm, but kids with mental illness suffer just the same,” said Catherine Fife, head of the Ontario Public School Boards Association, part of the coalition.

The coalition’s figures are stark. One in five children suffers from a mental health problem yet some 80 per cent get no help. Ten per cent of youths admit they have tried to kill themselves. Waiting lists for help are growing longer. Budget cuts have caused school boards to cut back on mental health professionals. In a 2009 study of Ontario school boards, a staggering 96 per cent said they were “very” or “extremely” concerned about mental health issues, especially anxiety, mood problems, low self-esteem and thoughts of suicide.

It’s a world-wide worry. In a 2009 study of 1,100 principals in 25 countries, 90 per cent expressed mounting alarm about mental health problems, with Canadian principals more likely than others to say one in five students needs help.

“It’s been the sleeping giant, the elephant in the room for so long — mental health plays a huge role in the school experience yet we have no plan in Ontario for how to deal with it,” said Fife, whose coalition will host a summit Thursday in Toronto on the issue.

Ayesha Jabbar will attend the summit to share her personal story of how a school can provide a lifeline. She was in Grade 9 at Scarborough’s R.H. King Academy when her parents’ marriage broke up and she was diagnosed with clinical depression. She tried to kill herself twice in the following years.

“My family is from South Asia, where depression is seen as something you should just snap out of,” said Jabbar, 21, a social work student at Ryerson University, who now feels she is on a solid treatment plan.

“But the great part was, I had a guidance counsellor who reached out to me when I wasn’t coming to class — otherwise they would have suspended me,” said Jabbar. “She arranged accommodations for me when I was on an emotional roller coaster; they let me take three courses instead of four. I could go for a walk if I got upset. I would work from home for a week or two if I needed space.

“I lucked out; it’s about having someone notice where your head’s at and not jumping to conclusions. Teachers really need Mental Health 101. I can’t imagine where I’d be now if I hadn’t got help.”

Other groups are joining the call for action.

Advocacy group People for Education released a dramatic report Wednesday on the shortage of help for students with special needs. Another coalition of mental health and addiction specialists, including CAMH, met Tuesday in Toronto to make mental health a campaign issue.

But it’s not about turning teachers into psychiatrists; it’s about training them to be an “early warning system,” to know when and where to connect kids with expert help, said Dr. Ian Manion, executive director for the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Children and Youth Mental Health at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. “Teachers are like family doctors; they lack training in mental health issues.”

Some children have true disorders, but others wrestle with anxiety sparked by their parents’ unemployment, or the violence of media images from war zones, or even the pressure of getting into college or university, said Manion. “The pressure to succeed on today’s kids is enormous.”

Psychiatry professor Bruce Ferguson, of the Hospital for Sick Children, points to a growing “deficit of adults in children’s lives — we work and commute longer hours and have less time with our kids to deal with their worries and reassure them.

“It’s a stressful world. Kids need a lot of support.”

< http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/schoolsandresources/article/1001024–mental-health-top-issue-facing-schools-coalition-says >

The Ontario government no longer will let colleges and universities decide where to set up satellite campuses — as many small and remote schools have done to gain a foothold in the populous GTA. From now on, Queen’s Park alone will determine if, and where, there will be new spinoff sites.

The change is a bid to avoid uneven clusters of higher learning in parts of Ontario that leave other corners starved for post-secondary programs, MPP John Milloy, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, said in a speech Monday to the Canadian Club.

But it throws into question a new campus Wilfrid Laurier University has been planning for three years with the boomtown of Milton. Laurier president Max Blouw said Monday he hopes Ontario will agree Milton needs a university campus so Laurier can bid on the contract. In January, Laurier signed a second memorandum of understanding with the town, which has been dreaming of a 60-hectare “education village” that might include a campus of Sheridan College.

“We really don’t know what this new policy means, but it’s clear it will involve a bidding process, so we’re going to prepare a fabulous bid,” Blouw said.

“Laurier has grown more quickly than most universities, but we value the small, intimate model, so we don’t want to add on to our Waterloo campus,” he noted.

A spokesperson for Milloy would say only that the Milton proposal “will be subject to the new process, which means the government determines where satellite campuses need to go.”

Until now, universities have tended to negotiate deals with local municipalities to open satellite campuses, and then inform the provincial government, which would then provide funding for each student.

“What if we turned the process around?” asked Milloy. “What if government — with a careful eye on the province’s growth plans — identified key areas that might be suitable for satellites?

“And yes, it means that government will have the right to say no to requests because they fail to align with system-wide priorities. But it will give Ontario students the reassurance that our system is evolving in a way that focuses on quality and excellence.”

< http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/999754–province-to-decide-on-satellite-campuses-for-colleges-universities >

They are the most at-risk children in Canada, in more danger of dying young and living poor than any of their peers.

Aboriginal children born into the 49 fly-in reserves that dot the vast woodlands of northern Ontario have long been more likely to drop out of school, remain illiterate and attempt suicide than young people anywhere else in the province. They are among the young Canadians with the least hope.

Yet a five-year push on literacy in these remote reserves is starting to make a difference, Grand Chief Stan Beardy told Ontario’s elementary teachers in a blunt speech Wednesday in Toronto.

He said free summer literacy camps sponsored by the Ontario Lieutenant-Governors’ office are fuelling a new interest in learning that teachers report they began noticing in the fall.

“They’re telling us the children’s attitudes are more positive, they see a sense of purpose among students and really, a sense of hope starting,” Beardy said Wednesday after addressing the annual meeting of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.

“Even their contact with outside youth who come to work as summer camp counsellors helps them know that other young people care about them, and gives them hope,” said Beardy, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

The 500 delegates voted to renew the union’s financial support of these aboriginal literacy programs by raising their annual donation to $45,000 a year for five years, from a previous $35,000 a year.

“I think our students here in Toronto should know the experience of these northern children,” said Toronto teacher Frances Greenidge, “and start to think about offering the same kind of help to aboriginal children in Ontario as we offer to international disaster victims.”

The union is one of a number of groups that support the camps set up by former lieutenant-governor James Bartleman, an aboriginal who credits books with lifting him from poverty. Current Lieutenant-Governor David Onley has maintained support for the camps, as well as continued book drives for communities with no public libraries, no book stores and few books in private homes.

“It’s a long way north, and 40,000 people live in this region characterized by poverty, a suicide rate almost seven times the national average and dire socio-economic conditions that combine to create Third World conditions,” Onley told the teachers.

Victoria Wabasse is a parent and kindergarten teacher in the remote reserve of Nibinamik First Nation, who has written to the lieutenant-governor’s office to praise the program.

“I send my four children to the camp, and my children tell me about the books they read, the arts and crafts and games they play. Some of my students who went to camp this year seem more able to pay attention when I am reading or telling them a story.”

Ennis Jacob is director of education at Webequie First Nation, and noted the camps “provide a healthy outlet for our children during the summer so they are not bored and get into mischief. Over the years the number of our youth who stay in school and move on to high school is increasing.”

< http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/849493–teachers-pledge-fresh-support-for-northern-reading-camps >

Ontario’s largest teachers’ union is calling on Queen’s Park to slap a two-year freeze on the annual testing of Grade 3 and 6 students, so it can ask the public what it thinks of the standardized quiz in the 3 Rs.

“These standardized tests disrupt class routines, put intense pressure on students and force teachers into a narrow focus on literacy and numeracy — standardized testing is a costly exercise that is failing students,” said Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, which represents 76,000 teachers and school workers across the province.

He warned many people, including real estate agents, use the test results as a way to rank schools and even neighbourhoods.

“Ultimately we’d like to see all province-wide tests eliminated, but a two-year moratorium would allow for public consultation on the value of this testing regime,” Hammond said Monday at the federation’s annual meeting in Toronto.

But education minister Leona Dombrowsky told the Star such a freeze “is not our plan. Provincial testing came into effect because parents wanted an independent body to assess their children’s progress, and it provides us with important information around how we can better support students, especially those who perform just below the provincial average.”

It costs about $32 million a year for the province’s testing body, the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) to test some 125,000 students in Grades 3 and 136,000 in Grade 6 in reading, writing and math. Another 101,000 Grade 9 students are tested in math each year and about 142,000 in Grade 10 literacy, which students must pass to graduate from high school.

The teachers’ union has long opposed province-wide testing, arguing it takes away precious teaching time, and has produced a 10-minute video of teachers criticizing the tests, which it hopes teachers will show at home and school meetings.

Dombrowsky, who is slated to address the teachers Tuesday morning, noted Ontario already changed the test in 2005 to address teachers’ concerns, cutting the testing time in half and holding the test later in the school year.

However Hammond suggested that if the government really wants to shrink the deficit, it could start by scrapping the EQAO tests all together and also the $70 million Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, which provides teachers and schools with extra help for struggling students. The proposal will go Wednesday to a vote before the 500 teachers attending the meeting this week at the Sheraton Hotel.

“There’s $100 million in savings right there, if you include scrapping the EQAO tests,” Hammond noted, but Dombrowsky said her government has no intention of scrapping the Secretariat.

Other motions to be voted on this week by the teachers is an immediate freeze on any new educational initiative from the government for two years to give teachers more time to teach without having to be distracted with new programs.

Union locals around the province have also proposed that the federation endorse a call for more mandatory physical activity each day, voice-care workshops for teachers in music, gym and language, and that the curriculum include information about the labour movement.

< http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/848694–teachers-union-calls-for-two-year-testing-freeze >

Ontario has unveiled the program schools will use for full-day learning — it’s a little bit kindergarten, a little bit daycare and a whole lot of play.

Contrary to what some have feared — a sort of Grade 1 lite with tests and homework — the new curriculum simply gives children more time at the sand table, book corner and drama centre to learn the building blocks of the 3 Rs and how to play nicely with others.

“It’s not like a little Grade 1 with tests and it’s not just duplicating what they did in half-day kindergarten; it’s a true blend of the best of kindergarten and the elements of early learning,” said Michelle Despault, spokeswoman for Ontario’s education ministry, which will oversee the first phase of the full-day learning program in September at 600 schools for about 35,000 children.

The program, which will be tweaked next year if problems arise, will ultimately replace the current kindergarten curriculum when full-day learning is fully rolled out in 2015. It introduces the basics of language, math, science, arts, physical activity and personal development — all through activity rooted in play.

“It’s not about adding extra content to be learned; but adding the opportunity to learn more broadly and deeply. There’s more time for the child to explore at the sand table what they might have heard from a story,” said Despault.

The 111-page document, posted Wednesday on the education ministry’s website, is a hybrid of the existing kindergarten curriculum and a 2007 document designed for use in early-learning centres, called Early Learning for Every Child Today (ELECT). Both lean heavily on play as the way to help children discover the basics of learning.

Since full-day kindergarten classes will be led by a teacher and an early childhood educator, the new document includes elements of both programs: a kindergarten-style list of concepts children are expected to grasp by the time they approach Grade 1, plus the real-life anecdotal teaching tips found in the ELECT guidelines.

“At the sand table the children retell the story The Gingerbread Man, based on a book they have just heard in a read-aloud,” suggests the document. “They use props that have been intentionally placed at the sand table to retell the events they remember from the story.”

The new program emphasizes oral language as the springboard to reading and writing, and suggests literacy materials be sprinkled throughout the class.

“Children could examine books about fire trucks at the block centre as they make a fire station; they could use writing materials to make signs or maps for their roads at the sand table or they could look at menus as they learn about ordering foods in restaurants at the dramatic play centre,” suggests the new program.

It also stresses the importance of “complex socio-dramatic play” and providing a rich array of props, as well as providing “hands-on experiences that encourage talking, reading, writing and viewing media texts, and motivate children to attempt new things such as writing using approximate spellings — and show they value these attempts.”

Children should also be helped to think more critically by answering such questions as “I wonder how you knew that?” or “How did you figure that out?”

The ministry will begin training teachers and early childhood educators at the end of the month.

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