education

Thursday March 5, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 5, 2020

I’m An Ontario Teacher But I Chose To Go Where Teachers Are Respected

February 4, 2020

“One of my kids threw a chair today.”

“My kid locked himself in the classroom at lunch and then threatened to run away.”

“A parent told me I should have noticed the signs of her daughter wanting to self-harm.”

It was 2018, and my college classmates and I were swapping horror stories as the final year of our teacher’s program came to a close. Tales like ours were the norm — 70 per cent of educators see or experience similar situations  in their classroom — so I would often think of the teachers I’d admired in my youth and wonder, “Were we this difficult for them?”

May 6, 2015

I always hoped I’d be like those teachers, one day: kind, fun and respected by all. But, I realized that I would not be able to start my mission to be that kind, fun and respected teacher if the drama outside the classroom continued to escalate in Ontario’s education system, year after year.

For all its prestige, I knew I couldn’t root my career in Ontario.

A job there didn’t always seem undesirable. I’d accepted my offer to a concurrent teacher’s college program straight out of high school in 2013, with the intent of graduating and immediately securing a job teaching French in Ontario. It was an easy decision: I loved working with kids, I wanted to use my French at work. I even dreamed that I’d teach at my old elementary school.

May 26, 2015

Yet, over the course of teacher’s college, I saw the reality facing Ontario teachers.

My mentors were burnt out from dealing with a lack of funding, administrative miscommunication, overly demanding parents, and governments that didn’t value the students’ opinion in their education. They arrived at school in the morning dreading the day ahead, tired from the work they took home the night before.

They often said that their work outside of the classroom detracted from their job inside of it. Even as a student teacher, I felt the same — and I didn’t even have to take the lead in all of it. It affected my mood  and the atmosphere in the classroom, and I knew that was no good. I would not be able to teach my students well like this.

Despite the challenges, the public expects teachers to be complacent when the government wants to make cuts that hurt the kids more than they do us.

August 20, 2012

Teacher contract negotiations always blow up into a province-wide scandal. It happened when teachers went on strike in 2003, and again in 2012 and 2015. Each time, I had to hear my family members and the public voice their discontent.

Naysayers drag the profession through the mud and harp on the pay, benefits, retirement packages and vacation time that teachers earn. What isn’t considered as often is how much of their own money teachers all over Canada spend  on their own class supplies and resources, and how many of the activities they do are voluntary.

November 13, 2019

In the latest strikes, Ontario teachers are once again taking action with students in mind. Since Premier Doug Ford assumed his role in 2018, the changes to the education system have been moving the province backwards: increasing class sizes, reducing funding for school programs and moving away from a much-needed inclusive curriculum. A student-teacher ratio reaching as high as 40:1 and e-learning won’t set students up for success.

I’ve seen this drama play out over and over again in Ontario, and I decided I wasn’t going to be part of it. After graduating in 2018, I moved to China instead. (Continued: Huffington Post) 

 

Wednesday February 19, 2020

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday February 19, 2020

Ontario’s newly-designed license plates just hit a speedbump. Call it Plate-gate.

A little background: The Canadian province’s new design was unveiled by the provincial government — led by center-right Ontario Premier Doug Ford — last year.

April 9, 2019

Almost immediately, people started comparing the plate design unfavorably to a box of Q-tips.

The plates also had a new slogan – “A Place to Grow” – which drew the ire of some critics, who preferred the previous “Yours to Discover” which the plates had sported since 1982.

Then there was the palette: Observers noticed that the new plates had the same blue color scheme as Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party.

Journalists at Toronto’s CTV network wanted to see if they could recreate the problem, so they shined a light on the new and old plates while slowly moving away. In their video, the old plate remains plainly legible, while the letters on the new one quickly disappear into a blaze of white.

In an emailed statement, Ontario’s government says it “consulted with key stakeholders to test the readability, reflectivity and functionality of the new high definition plate design. Ontario’s new high definition licence plates were tested using advanced plate reader technology under multiple visibility conditions, and plates were successfully read under those conditions.”

But it acknowledged that “some Ontarians are reporting concerns with readability to the naked-eye under certain light conditions,” and says it is looking into the issue.

One silver lining? The plates are so new that very few vehicles have them. (NPR) 

Meanwhile, Students, parents, the government and school boards prepare for a province-wide strike by teachers set for this Friday. (CTV) 

 

Tuesday February 4, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 4, 2020

Ford blames union leaders again as teachers plan week of walkouts

Ontario Premier Doug Ford again dismissed the widespread walkouts planned this week by the province’s three largest teacher unions as a matter of union bosses forcing their beleaguered members to march against their will.

January 18, 2020

“They’re getting frustrated that the heads of their unions are forcing their teachers to walk out,” Premier Ford said in Wiarton on Sunday morning, insisting he has teachers telling him they don’t want to strike. “I have had numerous texts from teachers saying ‘I don’t want to be doing this.’”

Negotiations between Ford’s government and the unions have seen little progress since the summer, as he is asking all unions to accept larger class sizes, a hard one-percent cap on wage increases, and two mandatory e-learning courses for all secondary students.

His argument that union leadership is forcing teachers to engage in strike action flies in the face of strike votes held by all three unions, where between 95 and 98 per cent of members in each union voted in favour of strike action.

“I support the frontline teachers I think the men and women who are serving out there work their backs off, they do a great job,” Ford said. “I don’t support the heads of the unions who are causing all these problems right across the province.”

November 22, 2019

Ford said he takes his tone from what hears from the public, and said that all over Ontario, people keep telling him “don’t buckle” to the teachers, who are asking for wage increases in line with inflation.

For their part, the unions say they are acting in the interests of students and the public is behind them.

Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation (OSSTF) President Harvey Bischof said on Sunday that he is “convinced” his members want to engage in strike action, and if Ford feels they’re being forced, he has things he can do to find out.

“If he believes I am the impediment to a deal, he has the right to put a vote directly to my members, to require them to vote on his offer. So let’s see if his offer of reduced course options, larger classes and mandatory e-learning are things my members are willing to accept.”

The three largest teacher’s unions in the province are planning strikes that will impact some or all of the GTA’s school boards every single day this coming week. (CTV) 

 

Friday January 31, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 31, 2020

Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce’s sad state of affairs

January 18, 2020

It was largely inevitable that there would be a conflict between Doug Ford’s Ontario government and the province’s teachers. It happened under former Tory Premier Mike Harris, and it’s happened with various right-wing administrations in other provinces. Put simply, teachers are not popular with conservatives, and their unions have been used as scapegoats by conservative governments for decades.

Teachers are considered liberal, and condemned for having long vacations and leaving work at 4 p.m.. The truth, of course, is profoundly different. Because they receive payment for the summer, teachers are paid less for the rest of the year; and their working days certainly do not begin when students arrive at school or end when they leave. Even so, the optics are perfect for the political right, and nobody plays optics and sound bites with such relish as Doug Ford.

Young Doug Ford: The Series

Public education is terribly under-funded, the Ford government appears to be far from committed to its long-term health, and this dispute is more about the future of schools than the salaries of teachers. As such, it’s particularly irksome that the government rejects the unions’ demand for more money to be invested into public education, but is willing to pay up to $48 million a day to compensate parents! That is money that could be invested directly into the education system.

The government wants to increase class sizes, wants children to take more online courses, and wants to introduce aspects of the private sector into that online teaching. And it is now willing to spend millions of dollars not to help parents but to try to defeat unions. That’s a deeply sad state of affairs.

The last place teachers wants to be in the middle of an Ontario winter, or any other time for that matter, is demonstrating outside of schools. It’s unlikely that this latest Doug Ford gimmick will be successful, but it goes to the heart of the problem, and no bribe can change that inescapable conclusion. Hey, Premier, leave those parents alone. (Michael Coren, Maclean’s) 



 

Saturday January 18, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 18, 2020

$60 payout ‘putting money back in parents’ pockets’, education minister says

May 4, 2019

The minister of education is offering parents money for childcare costs incurred during rotating teachers’ strikes.

Stephen Lecce says parents can apply for amounts from $25 to $60 per day for children under twelve.

Lecce says if all unions were to walk out, subsidies for childcare would amount to $48 million a day.    

“Just for clarity, every day that all unions withdraw services, that full withdraw saves the government $60 million dollars in salaries,” Lecce said. “So the concept here is we know that’s not our money, it’s our tax dollars, we’re using it. It’s the savings from their withdrawal of service.”

November 22, 2019

Parents of pre-schoolers at school-based child-care centres affected by the strikes will get the most money. Those with children in grades 1 through 7 will get less and parents of high school students will get nothing.

Lecce said the government’s motivation for the payout was to put money “back in the pockets of working people in Ontario.”

“At the end of the day the greatest constituency that bears the costs of this are parents and middle and low-income families who have to find childcare on short order,” he said.

As for criticisms that the payout was a bribe to parents, Lecce said he wasn’t surprised it was being spun by teachers’ unions as such.

August 29, 2019

“I think union leaders, respectfully, must accept the premise that there’s a cost when a child is staying home,” he said. “We have examples, real human examples, of individuals and low-income families and single parent families where they have to take vacation days.”

“Those will eventually add up,” Lecce said. “So it is absolutely in the interests of the taxpayer to return that money to them to make their life a little bit better and a little less difficult during this time of turmoil.”

“And it underscores our commitment to standing with families against this escalation.” (CBC)