With Good Reason

Given that far too many of Ontario’s school boards’ elected trustees cannot be trusted to manage the public interest regarding board budgets and what goes on in Ontario’s schools, that model should be completely abolished in favour of the New Brunswick model of “School Districts.”

Yesterday, for example, Ontario’s Education Minister Kathleen Wynn, had to take over the Toronto Catholic Board’s financial affairs by appointing school finance expert Norbert Hartmann, because she no longer had confidence in the ability of its trustees to do what needed to be done. (I wrote on this last month here.) 

No doubt many other Ontario boards have also been found to be negligent in their public responsibilities. And, just try to imagine how much all these trustees are costing — money that could be going to school resources — such as membership fees in their associations, their stipends, attendance at conferences and retreats and mileage.

Back in 1995, when I was working for an Ontario PC MPP, the Mike Harris government had to take away Board of Education taxing powers because of a similar “trustee” entitlement culture. At that time it was called the “Who Does What” process but, being on the inside, I can say that much of the downloading was done so as to take away the ability of boards to continually raise education property taxes.

In fact, because I was the MPP’s communications advisor, I can remember writing that the education tax increases over the Rae government period had been 160% and there was no end in sight. And, the reason is simple. Trustees are not able to make financial decisions because they are either related or married to union representatives or are on friendly terms with them. In small and rural communities, everyone knows everyone. And, in larger communities, they go away to conferences and retreats together. 

As a result, there simply is no arms-length relationship. So, when it comes to contract negotiations, the trustees simply give in to the demands placed upon them. In other words, they push paper and provide spin, but hard decisions are rarely made.

So, given that trustees no longer control local property taxes for the education portion, why do we need them? They cost a great deal of money and the public is obviously not getting any return for that money. An excellent model that we know already works is the New Brunswick model.

Based on school districts that basically would replace the school board infrastructure, the superintendent of education and the Minister of Education work together. But, as it states on Page 3 of the document, it is the Minister of Education who decides on education standards, as well as:

• maintains an environment that supports learning;
• provides money and other resources as required;
• provides an appropriate legislative and policy framework;
• identifies and reflects…the social and economic needs and desires of New Brunswickers;
• identifies and communicates provincial expectations;
• encourages and enables the work of dedicated education professionals.

In other words, everything that is done today by Ontario’s Boards of Education administration and staff would continue to be done. The only real change would be one less layer of bureaucracy and expense. Put another way, no board employees would lose their jobs. They would be able to work directly with the Ministry of Education and, I suspect, get a lot more done.

Since the McGuinty government already seems to be moving towards a provincial type of teacher union collective bargaining, completely centralizing that process would help as well since unions would not be able to deal with friends and relatives, but directly with the Minister and Ministry of Education staff.

So, Mr. McGuinty, you continually say you are the Education Premier. I  have also heard you say you can make tough decisions.  Well, it may not be politically popular among board trustees for you to fire them all, but my bet is most Ontarians would be cheering you and your minister every step of the way.

In other words, isn’t it long past time you were doing what is in the best interests of all Ontarians and our children and grandchildren – not just trustees who feel they are entitled to so much largess at public expense.

H/T Jack’s Newswatch and C/P. Also C/P at Crux-of-the-Matter.