ORDERS OF THE DAY
EDUCATION AMENDMENT ACT
(LEARNING TO AGE 18), 2006 /
LOI DE 2006 MODIFIANT LA LOI
SUR L'ÉDUCATION
(APPRENTISSAGE JUSQU'À L'ÂGE
DE 18 ANS)
Ms. Wynne moved third reading of the following bill:
Bill 52, An Act to amend the Education Act respecting pupil learning to the age of 18 and equivalent learning / Projet de loi 52, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation concernant l'apprentissage des élèves jusqu'à l'âge de 18 ans et l'apprentissage équivalent.
If passed, the bill would require students to continue learning until the age of 18 or graduation. I think it is notable that 1954 was the last time the school leaving age was adjusted. That's a long time ago. The reason for this action is clear, I think. There are too many students dropping out of school and starting their adult lives with significant financial and social barriers. In fact, the statistics are really heart-wrenching. Studies show us that if a student leaves school before graduation, that person will be four times more likely to spend time in jail, twice as likely to be unemployed, and five times more likely to need income assistance. So I think the argument for putting in place structures, legislation and programs that would help students to stay in school and graduate is absolutely indisputable.
In total, there are about 30,000 16- and 17-year-old students who leave high school each year before they graduate, and unfortunately they put themselves in a deep hole that they then have to climb out of, rather than on a level playing field with the graduates of high school.
The graduation rate stood at 68% in 2003-04 when we were elected, and that is unacceptable. We need to stop presuming it's okay for our students to drop out of school and that there is nothing we can do to motivate them. In short, we are not going to give up on these students. We need them in our schools. Instead, what we need to do is to insist that our students are as well-prepared as possible, and with 21st-century high schools that provide the kinds of programs and incentives that are relevant to students.
Dans l'économie du savoir d'aujourd'hui, il est plus que jamais primordial que les élèves du secondaire reçoivent une éducation de haute qualité et enrichissante qui les préparera pour diverses destinations postsecondaires. De plus en plus, les employeurs recherchent des personnes ayant une formation avancée pour combler des postes de débutant.
Young adults entering this kind of job market without a high school diploma are at a serious disadvantage. In order to turn things around, we took a serious look at the high school system. We sought out top educators in the province and across the country and we looked around the world. We even hired a few of them. This is important, because it is important to note that the ideas we are putting in place come from people who have huge experience -- people in academia and people on the front lines. Many of the ideas that we're putting in place come from the teachers in this province who are working in our schools, know the kinds of programs that work and have been working with students for many years.
What they told us boiled down to this: Respect students as individuals; students do not benefit from a one-size-fits-all education. That's where the phrase "We need to reach every student" has come into play, because we know that every student does not learn like every other student. Students who find value in their high school education are much more focused than students who question the value of what they are learning. They also feel more engaged in learning if they are allowed to match their education with their planned career path.
One of the things I know about young people today is that they are much more aware of their options. One of the things the Internet and the information age have done is allowed young people to have a vastly broader understanding of what goes on in the world and what their options are. They may not know how to get to where they want to go, but they have an idea of where they want to go to.
To quote William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." And Plato said, "Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that they may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each." In other words, we do not ascribe to the empty pail, the empty vessel, philosophy of education. We believe that children bring qualities, affinities and interests with them on which we and the education system must capitalize. That underpins everything we are doing.
We're confident that by doing this, we'll raise the graduation rate to 85% by 2010-11. We think, again, that that is a goal, to have 85% of students graduating from high school, that everyone in this House could agree with. Introduced in December 2005, the learning-to-18 bill, Bill 52, if passed, contains several amendments to the Education Act that would help us get there. If passed, the bill would change the school-leaving age to 18 or graduation. As I said before, that hasn't happened in more than 50 years.
The rest of the world certainly has moved on from where we were 50 years ago. I know there are examples of people, such as Albert Einstein, Ed Mirvish and others, who never finished high school. But that was before the moon landing, before the first home computer and decades before the Internet, e-mail and globalization. So I think it's safe to say that things have changed. The world has sped up. We need our youth not just to maintain the pace but to cross the finish line in front of the pack. We need them to be critical thinkers. We need them to have opportunities that will enrich them and allow them to be fully participating citizens. We would also, in doing this, be among the Canadian pioneers to make the move to age 18 for school leaving. New Brunswick is the only other province that has been bold enough to take this route.
Most importantly, the bill, if passed, would create a framework for more opportunities for learning that takes place outside of the classroom. On that issue, I want to be clear that we understand the central and pivotal nature of classroom learning in our education system. It is where the bulk of the formal learning takes place. This bill would, as I said, provide a framework that would allow for other opportunities that would be referenced to the classroom where the high school teachers are doing their work. At the same time, it would require that these opportunities be approved. Whatever those alternatives, whatever those other opportunities outside the classroom, they would have to be approved by the Minister of Education to ensure quality and relevance.
The proposed bill is about learning to 18. We want to give struggling students a high-quality education in a learning environment that works best for them. We're providing hands-on instruction, we're providing more opportunities for hands-on learning, so that students can discover for themselves the exciting links between classroom learning and the work environment. That cry of, "We need education to be relevant" has been around for many years, but we're actually making that link real. We're actually saying, "We're going to do something about making learning relevant to the students in our high schools."
We heard from one student last year who said, "In my regular high school classes, there were too many students, noise and other distractions for me to focus on my studies, so I ended up dropping out several times. My school then offered me a chance to recover and complete my remaining grade 12 credits through some opportunities at my local college. It was self-directed with more one-on-one help available and now I'm a full-time college student with a high school diploma." That's an example of a student who was able to complete his high school credits and, at the same time, get a taste of what it might be like to go on to college and, in fact, he has been able to do that.
Of course, we'll set out policies and standards for any of these new programs and partnerships. We continue right now to work with the education sector and other partners to ensure that the expanded menu of programs meets our highest standards.
The quality of education would also be maintained through the bill, especially by only allowing principals to issue credits for learning outside of the classroom. So that link between the school and the learning environment is not being cut. It is principals who will issue the high school credits. That's a key point, and certainly in conversations with the teachers' federations, it's one that we've emphasized. It's a concern they brought to us, and we were very happy that in the amendments we were able to make it clear that that was the intention and that that's what will happen.
Ontario publicly funded education will remain in public hands for the public good. Principals and teachers will remain the backbone of the education system in this province. I think that is certainly what underpins everything we do in this House.
Down the road, the proposed bill would give judges the power to suspend driver's licences of students convicted of truancy, and this would add one more penalty available to the courts. But I think it's important to say -- because there's been a lot of discussion about the driver's licence provision, which has been significantly altered -- that as it stands now, this would be only a last resort and would only be put into force when high school students have access to a full array of new learning opportunities. So even that last resort that a court would have to remove a driver's licence will only be put into place when there's a full array of learning opportunities around the province.
In addition, the maximum fines for parents and employers would rise to the same level as the fines for students. What this does is it recognizes that adults have an important role to play in supporting young people's continuing learning. Over the years that I've been a parent activist and a trustee and then an MPP, I have heard countless times in meetings on education how it takes a village to raise a child. And so what this provision does is acknowledge that reality, that indeed it does take a village to raise a child and it does take a village to educate a child, and so the adults who are involved need to take some responsibility for the continued learning and keeping those kids in school. However, those penalties will also be delayed until a future date decided by the government.
Of course, those are the formal penalties, but the real penalty to struggling students will not come from any of those proposed new measures but in fact by permitting the continuation of the "can't do any better" attititude, that mentality that says, "That child can't do any better. That child can't graduate from high school." That's what really is the penalty, and we can't accept that.
Ontario expects the government to lead, and this is exactly what we're doing. We would be the second province in the country to raise the school leaving age to 18, and we would be the first Ontario government in over a decade to respect students as individuals and give them an education that matches their personal needs and goals. This proposed bill would be a vital piece in our student success strategy to ensure all high school students can reach their full potential. It would also be a bill created through partnerships with so many individuals and organizations in the education community, and I want to thank them for their support in helping us to craft this legislation and helping us to craft the programs that we're putting in place.
I'm really very excited about the impact of this bill, the impact that it would have in the lives of countless students across the province. What we're doing is building a stronger, smarter society, and this bill would help us to do that by graduating more students who are prepared to lead in our communities.
Our focus on helping more students graduate is one of the top three priorities, and I've spoken about these many times in the House. We're also focused on helping 75% of grade 6 students achieve the provincial standard in reading, writing and math by 2008, and we're focused on reducing primary class sizes to 20 students or fewer. We're committed to these goals because we know that they will help us reach every student, they will help every student succeed, and they will help this province move forward. All of these goals will stretch the minds of a whole new generation of people in this province.
I'd like to close by quoting Horace Mann. He said, "Education is the great equalizer of the conditions of man" -- and I'm sure he would have said "women" -- "the balance wheel of the social machinery."
Je suis convaincue qu'en modernisant le système d'éducation publique, nous donnons à chaque enfant la possibilité de grandir, de s'instruire et de se développer pour devenir l'individu qu'il veut être.
That must be our goal, to allow every student to become the person that he or she can to fulfill his or her potential.
Our Premier and I and our caucus share the same vision. We see a publicly funded education system that respects students for who they are and respects them for where they want to go. I strongly believe that this legislation, Bill 52, is going to help us to get to where we need to be to be the strongest province in the country, and with the most educated and most prepared citizenry that we can have.
So I'll be watching carefully as they skate around the very touchy issue that providing dumbed-down credits is not what anyone wants. I know the minister doesn't want them, but certainly quality is the measurement of the success of this, and that is yet to be seen. We need to make sure the children and the young people have the skills to contribute to their own life, indeed to the economy, in their own particular way.
The bill itself is sort of the McGuinty promise, but the deliverables will occur some time after the next election, I suspect.
I rise in the House today to basically echo the remarks of our wonderful Minister of Education and her reference to the importance of the proposed "learning to age 18" bill. I would like to take some time this afternoon to explain just how it fits within our overall strategy to help more high school students succeed and indeed work towards their graduation.
Our government is confident that this proposed legislation, along with many other student success initiatives, will move Ontario closer to our graduation rate target of 85% by 2010-11. That would be a significant increase from the 68% figure we saw in 2003-04. So when this target is achieved, 20,000 more students will graduate every year compared to that 2003-04 base.
I'm proud to say that early results show that Ontario schools are getting back on track to make this target, with 71% of students graduating in 2004-05.
Other recent results also demonstrate student achievement is on the rise. The pass rate on the grade 10 literacy test increased from 72% to 84% for English-language students and from 78% to 81% for French-language students between 2002-03 and 2005-06.
Some 22% more students took co-operative education in 2005-06 compared to 2004-05. That's important. I come from a small place known as Waterdown. My daughter is a recent graduate there; she's at Ryerson now. I could name -- I won't, because I can't do that legally here -- at least 20 students off the top of my head who are staying in school because of the co-operative education options that are available. That's very good news for all of us, as it demonstrates to us that we are making significant forward progress to reach every student in high school.
A few moments ago, our Minister of Education mentioned that there are initiatives already under way in Ontario's high schools that would complement this proposed legislation. I'd like to highlight six ways our government is helping our teens to graduate.
Our specialist high-skills major programs are currently being piloted across the province. This acknowledges in a very pointed way that not all students learn the same way. This program allows some students to focus their studies on an industry sector, such as agriculture, manufacturing or hospitality. By earning a major, students will be more focused on a career path, and hence better prepared to continue learning to become a leader in their chosen field.
For example, at the district school board of Niagara, 20 students are currently enrolled in the new construction major. One component of the program is building homes with Habitat for Humanity for low-income families. These students are not only doing something tremendously important socially, but they're bringing their classroom knowledge to the construction site and making a real difference in their community. I'm sure members from the Niagara area have seen this and would bear witness to this incredible opportunity and initiative.
At the same time, high school students in Clinton are majoring in agriculture and preparing for agricultural careers, apprenticeships or college technology programs -- agriculture, the second-leading industry in Ontario.
One student from that program told us, "I hope to take over our family farm and I figured that the more information I could learn about the equipment involved, the better."
Another big initiative we have undertaken is creating student success teams in every single high school in Ontario. These teams include a student success teacher, the principal, the guidance department head, the special education department head and certain other appointed staff. This was made possible through a government investment of $110 million this year to fund 1,600 new high school teachers, and the plan is to fund 300 more next year. In addition, we are funding a student success leader in every school board to help coordinate these efforts. Together, these teams identify and support students who need extra help to succeed, provide more options for learning and monitor student progress.
The dual credit program is the third way I would like to spotlight. An estimated 2,300 students are now enrolled in 50 pilot programs this year, up from the 14 dual credit programs that ran in 2005-06 for some 361 students. These pilot programs allow high school students to earn a number of credits by participating in apprenticeship training and college courses that count towards their high school diploma, college diploma, college certificate or apprenticeship certification. A student from South Porcupine who took a dual credit last year wrote me these words: "This program has me thinking of my future now, whereas a year ago I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go in life.... I feel as if I have more confidence in myself and can accomplish virtually anything that I put my mind to."
Another student said, "When I got picked for the program, I felt special. I was getting attention, not detentions."
Students at risk of dropping out during the move from elementary to secondary school also have the support they need. Earlier this year, we introduced a transition plan that includes more teachers, intensive professional development and improved tracking of struggling students and their progress. It is estimated the plan is already helping some 20,000 students build momentum towards their eventual high school graduation.
Student success lighthouse projects like the one at Waterdown District High School are helping more than 10,000 struggling high school students through increased support, extra guidance or the creation of a different learning environment.
The Ministry of Education has funded 159 projects in 2006-07 through a $12-million investment. These projects were developed by individual boards to meet the unique challenges faced by their students, schools and communities. Some of these projects provide students with the opportunity to return to a classroom course they failed and receive the additional support they need to complete the remaining work required for the credit. Other projects create links to colleges and workplaces for struggling students who are more engaged in those types of learning environments.
I heard from a principal in northern Ontario who is running a successful lighthouse pilot project for aboriginal students.
By the way, do you know that some 71% of our First Nations or aboriginal young people never finish high school? It's a tragedy. Unless and until we can find ways to correct that terrible situation, what a wasted opportunity. Sorry about that. That's a little off script, but I wanted to share that.
Through our funding and guidance, she, the principal, has built an alternative learning centre featuring more aboriginal literature, music and art. The centre has built self-esteem amongst aboriginal students by honouring and acknowledging their rich culture, bringing it into the school and giving them a real sense of belonging. More aboriginal students are attending school now and participating in the classroom because they feel the educational system is directly tailored to them.
Finally, I want to mention that two co-op credits earned after September 2005 can now be applied to a student's 18 compulsory credits required for graduation. Previously, students earning co-op credits could only count them towards the 12 non-compulsory credits to complete their 30-credit requirement for the Ontario secondary school diploma.
More students now have access to co-op placements with strong links to classroom subject areas, while benefiting from the knowledge and skills gained through the real-life work environment. This also gives more students a chance to start working and to test-drive their career options.
In total, we will invest $1.3 billion in our new student success strategy to ensure that we reach every student and help them, in turn, to reach their full potential. I'm very, very proud of these initiatives and our proposed learning-to-18 legislation. They are based on choice and respect. They are also built on partnership and a shared vision.
Before I finish, I want to take a moment to thank our partners in the education community for working with us to shape the proposed learning-to-18 legislation. In particular, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association and l'Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens have been instrumental in partnering with us to find solutions that work.
Last week, Donna Marie Kennedy, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, had some very kind words for us, and we like kind words from time to time. We hear a few of them in the House; not as many as we deserve, but from time to time we hear a few kinds words. She said, "This government heard teachers' concerns about maintaining the integrity of the secondary school diploma." The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation thanked us for amending the bill to ensure that "the quality of Ontario's publicly funded education system will be maintained."
Home-schooling parents, who were out in droves at the public hearings, also contributed a great deal of energy to the process, and we thank all of them for that. We believe sincerely that we met the concerns they raised.
I also want to thank the thousands of parents, teachers, principals and other education advocates who have shared their thoughts with us on this proposed bill. Whether it was a comment from a student in Leamington or a teacher in Toronto during these public consultations, everyone made their mark on this proposed legislation. This was certainly a bill created through co-operation, not isolation.
Together, we will make Ontario's publicly funded high school system the very best in the world. Thousands more students will graduate with a more promising future ahead of them because of this legislation. These young adults will drive our economy for many decades to come.
John F. Kennedy, one of my boyhood heroes, once said, "Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource." Nelson Mandela said, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." A favourite poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, added, "Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation."
As you might imagine, I agree with all of these great people.
More students earning their high school diploma means more young adults bringing innovation, leadership and motivation to the workplace. They will help us compete on the world stage and they will help this wonderful province of Ontario prosper.
No initiative is more essential to Ontario's economic advantage than this government's plan to ensure our young people keep learning in a classroom, apprenticeship or workplace training program until at least age 18. Ontario won't give up on its youth. Instead, our government will challenge and engage young Ontarians by making their learning more relevant.
I am proud of the hard work our government and our education partners have put into this place and into this bill to ensure that each and every one of our students achieves and becomes all that they can be. Ontario's best investment portfolio is indeed a strong public education system. I'm honoured, in some small way as the parliamentary assistant to a wonderful Minister of Education, to work with a government that gets it and to have the opportunity every single day to try to advance the cause of student success in this great province of ours.
No student should be left behind; that should certainly be well known. I guess you have to look at the broad horizon in education and education reform. There's an ongoing case study in education and education strategies.
Most people here have served outside prior to their role as an MPP. I personally was on the provincial parent-teacher association, I was a school trustee, and I am a parent of five children. Education is the only vertical mobility tool that we can offer children, so no child should be left behind without opportunity. Without hope, a person might be defined as being dead. So this is a very important bill to get right. That's what's most troubling here: I'm just not sure if they have it right.
I would go back and say that what's important is his quote -- I was waiting for the quote from Machiavelli's The Prince, because most of what he was saying was written by the scribes in the back room. The few times he was off-script he was very good. The John Kennedy thing was excellent.
Now, being a University of Toronto alumnus, I'm lucky to get a copy of some of their distributions in the mail. This is one that I was reading, on leaders in education: "Carol Rolheiser Reforms Education by Getting Inside of It." It's an excellent article about leaders in education today. She went on to say in this article that one of the places where she's doing a lot of work is the York Region District School Board, where over the past five years she's been talking about making teaching a science. She mentions co-operative learning and co-operative education, which are extremely important --
I want people to tune in at approximately quarter to 5 and listen to what I have to say about this bad bill, because I believe it to be one of the worst things the Liberals have done here; I really do. I have to say that this is something I expected from the Tories, the Conservatives, and when you introduced this before the election and then introduced it as a bill, I was so amazed, shocked and surprised. Six months ago, I even believed that you were not going to introduce this bill. I really did, because the polling showed that they don't agree with what you're doing, by and large. They really believe you should change the programming that we offer in our high school system, our elementary system, as a way to solve some of these educational problems, these social problems, but not this. So tune in in approximately half an hour and you'll hear what I have to say.
Despite all the negativity, despite all the opposition's talk about this bill, it's a very important step towards increasing the success rate in the province of Ontario. I believe that this measure, which has been taken by our government since we got elected, has proven its success. This step is a great step in the right direction in order to achieve our goal, which is 85% success by 2010-11. It's a very important investment in education. It's a very important investment in public education.
I had the chance to sit in the committee where we were listening to many different stakeholders. Teachers, principals, many people came before us and said many different things. I'm very pleased to see the Minister of Education and our government listening to them and amending the bill in a fashion to address their concerns, because we have one goal, only one goal: to see the success rate go up. We have no desire to cripple our movement, because I believe we're going in the right direction. We're going to do whatever is possible to assist our students, to assist their educations, and to maintain all students in public education.
I want to tell you something: It's a very important bill. That's why I'm going to support it.
I think, when they made reference to the issue of loss of instructional time for every student, that's something that the minister would want to take very seriously and consider; when they raise the issue of student safety in elementary schools and secondary schools; the role of the principal as an instructional leader; the issue of class caps in secondary schools and their effect on programming; class caps in elementary schools, where they took issue with the way the government has attempted to cap class sizes. Even though the government promised a hard cap, they have delivered something quite different. They raised the issues of peer review at the Ontario College of Teachers' hearings, private school funding and provincial bargaining -- some very interesting ideas that I think ought to be given serious consideration by the government.
The principals play a very important role in our education system as leaders in the schools across the province. I certainly believe that every excellent principal is worth their weight in gold, because they can create the kind of learning environment that will create the kind of schools that we want and we need and we expect.
So I would like to offer that suggestion to members of the House. I know our member for Oak Ridges was quite pleased with the work that he did on committee on this bill and the effort that he brought forward to seek amendments. I want to congratulate the member for Oak Ridges for the work he does as our critic.
The member for Trinity-Spadina, on the other hand, needs to go out and talk to some of the people in our schools. He needs to talk to the folks at Central Tech, which I think is in his riding. He needs to talk to the folks who know that we've had an uptake in co-op programs because students can now count two co-op credits as mandatory credits. He needs to talk to the people in the schools who understand that the programs we're putting in place are indeed the substance of this student success initiative. He needs to talk to the teachers who are very happy that we're putting student success teachers in every one of our high schools so that there are more human resources to help those students at risk to recover credits, to design their programs going forward and to look at the options. He needs to talk to the people who have been engaged in articulation agreements with colleges -- I believe there's been one at Central Tech for many years. That is exactly the kind of arrangement we are trying to encourage across the province.
If he talks to those people, he will learn that this is a very popular idea. It resonates with people in our communities who know that students need to graduate from high school. We need to make sure they have the programs that will keep them interested so that we can have every student in this province with a high school diploma going on to the workforce.
It's important, as I begin discussion about Bill 52, to describe the environment we find ourselves in in the Legislative Assembly today. As the Speaker knows, today, November 29, 2006, was to be a day of committee hearings on Bill 107. Bill 52 has had committee hearings -- we're back at third reading -- and I think the committee hearings were quite helpful. I know from listening to my colleague from Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot and to the minister herself that they would say the bill was improved through the committee process after second reading.
The concern we have today is that Bill 107, unlike Bill 52, is facing a guillotine motion; that debate has effectively been cut off on a very important piece of legislation impacting on the Human Rights Tribunal. It was rather shocking when we found the Attorney General breaking his word that hearings would continue by abruptly ending them, with very important stakeholders and individuals with a lot to say about the bill completely cut off.
Mr. Klees and other members of the assembly will have ongoing concerns about Bill 52, but at the very least, committee allowed us to see some improvements from the original version; no one is arguing about that. All I am saying, my colleague, is that I wish Bill 107, a weighty bill itself, had had the same opportunity for extensive committee hearings. I think it would have been improved substantially. Certainly, when you see the former commissioner, Mr. Norton, and the current commissioner, Ms. Hall, and well-known advocates like Mr. Lepofsky criticizing the government's approach on Bill 107, I say, with great regret, that it would have been much better to see --
I do want to note as well that I plan on bringing some comments from a number of sources. Today I had the pleasure of meeting with representatives from the Ontario Principals' Council who have some very important concerns about the handling of education by this minister, I think caused, really, by the actions of the previous minister in an unprecedented intervention in local bargaining.
My colleague from Peterborough said that he asked a question on behalf of the principals' council. We would call that question today a softball of beach ball proportions. It's important, I guess, and I appreciate the member from Peterborough bringing forward questions, but I had certainly hoped they would actually get to the true matters at hand from the principals, as opposed -- and I don't think the member from Peterborough wrote that. I think somebody from the minister's office asked him to read that. Did you write it?
Let me relate some of the concerns of the principals' council, because I know they met with a number of members today who are here in the Assembly. We will recall that Minister Kennedy, at the time, had an extraordinary intervention into the public bargaining process.
For example, as my colleague well knows, as part of the standard agreement, the minister, for the first time, has imposed caps on supervisory time for teachers on the elementary side. The caps initially were 120 minutes, I believe, for a six-day cycle and 100 minutes for a five-day cycle in the first year of the agreement, and then down to 80 minutes in the second year of the agreement. The minister did so without providing any additional funding to help cover the increased costs to the schools.
I know the principals' council would have related to my colleagues opposite on the government side the ramifications of that move. For example, they said that in many elementary schools now, playground equipment is off limits because of a lack of a supervisory presence of teachers or others in the school. It's hard for me to imagine that you would have elementary school children on recess who couldn't access playground equipment, much of which has been raised through some very challenging fundraising by parent councils and supporters of schools.
A second example that was even more disheartening to learn of was that many principals are forced to use educational assistants to cover lunchroom duty, because the caps on teacher supervisory time gives them no other alternative. So picture this: You have an educational assistant who is there to give additional help to special-needs children. The educational assistants are assigned to special-needs children to help them overcome the challenges they face. It's an individual relationship, and it's important to make sure that it's carried out throughout the school day. But when you take the educational assistant away from the child for something that's not really part of their job description, I would say, to supervise the cafeteria, for example, that special-needs child is left without the benefit of the educational assistant. The educational assistant would then have his or her lunch break, and again the special-needs child is left without the benefit of an educational assistant.
Now, I hate to think that the Minister of Education at the time, Mr. Kennedy, went through with this initiative for political purposes. I suggest he's an intelligent individual. He had the benefit of the Ministry of Education and the advice of boards, principals and teachers' unions, who would have told him that these are going to be the impacts of his extraordinary intervention in the collective bargaining system. The Minister of Education at the time, Mr. Kennedy, decided to ignore that advice. As a result, we've seen a significant reduction in supervisory time of students. When you hear about special-needs children not getting the assistance they deserve, paid for by taxpayers, it certainly causes great despair to principals, parents and the teachers in that particular school.
Similarly, on the secondary side we have seen classes that have had to be cancelled because of the cap on on-call and supervisory time. Often for grade 12 students, and perhaps grade 11 students as well, when the teacher is sick and the principal has no wherewithal, because of the caps on supervisory time, to call in a substitute or on-call teacher, the class is cancelled.
So basically what Gerard Kennedy, the then minister, did, I would suggest to raise his own profile as he made a platform to run for the federal Liberal leadership, has given a very difficult situation to the new minister, Ms. Wynne, when she took over that portfolio. I know we all heard from the principals' council today about Mr. Kennedy effectively downloading on the principals, the individual school, the supervisory duties by capping supervisory time -- very strict caps -- without providing the resources to assist and to make amends for the lack of supervision or the stealing of educational assistants away from the special-needs children they are there to assist.
The principals' council had a number of other concerns related to the foundation grant, for example, because, as my colleague from Durham indicated, the vast majority of boards, or a significant number of boards at any rate, are in a deficit situation, barely holding on. Because of these unfunded mandates from the Minister of Education to purchase political popularity for himself, the boards are effectively taking from the foundation grant and therefore there are little or no resources available for principals, vice-principals, secretarial support etc.
I suggest that the previous Minister of Education never admitted, never stood in the House, in the assembly, and explained why he was doing this. In fact, I bet he denied that this was the case, though when it comes to somebody who's positioning himself to run for a leadership position versus the principals we heard today, I'm going to take the word of the principals. I hope the current minister is going to be able to solve the situation handed to her by the Minister of Education. Unfortunately, I do not see that solution in Bill 52.
In fact, at a meeting I had just on Friday with representatives of OSSTF from the Grand Erie District School Board, from the Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk area -- I represent the Dunnville area in that board. Kelly Morin Currie and Noel Beach, the representatives on behalf of OSSTF Grand Erie board, had some serious concerns about the government's -- how should I put it, Mr. Speaker? -- jettisoning of the Rozanski report. Dr. Rozanski was hired, consulted broadly -- an eminent individual -- and gave some very solid recommendations for reinvestments in education and improvements to the funding formula. Mr. Rozanski's report was being initially implemented by Premier Eves. There was a change in government, and the Dalton McGuinty government effectively trashed the Rozanski report -- not shelved it, but basically took it and threw it into the wastebasket. As a result --
So it's obviously very frustrating, when we hear the government trumpeting its policies on Bill 52, when we hear serious concerns from the principals' council here today, when we hear serious concerns from the OSSTF -- and I do have a number of letters written to me from constituents objecting to Bill 52 that I hope I have a moment to get to.
But, very importantly, I think we need to remind those who are watching today, those who are following the debate, that while we at least have the opportunity to debate this bill that has gone through committee, Bill 107 remains under the shadow of the guillotine. In fact, today is the last day of that, Mr. Speaker, and so I have no recourse but to move adjournment of the debate.
All those in favour will say "aye."
All those opposed will say "nay."
Call in the members. This will be a 30-minute bell.
The division bells rang from 1642 to 1712.
Will all those opposed rise and remain standing.
I mentioned that I had a number of letters from constituents objecting to measures that were contained in Bill 52. I believe the current minister has backpedalled at a rate that would probably cause her to win a sprint on the provision that linked the driver's licence with completing school to the age of 18. Certainly, it was hard to find many who supported that initiative. I think the minister now refers to it as a last resort; nonetheless, I did have a number of constituents who objected to this.
I have a letter from Cheryl Hozjan. Ms. Hozjan, who lives on Highway 56 in Binbrook, Ontario, speaks boastfully about her daughter, as she should: "My 19-year-old daughter has been driving and working since she was 16. In the fall, she plans to attend university to become a music teacher or social worker. She has purchased her own car, pays her insurance and pays for her gas. She has achieved conservatory grade 8 piano and has pursued her interest in literature at home and night school. She loves to read and debate. Right now, she is working full-time as a certified snowboard instructor at Glen Eden. Last summer, she worked at Scott Mission Camp, a camp designed to help the special needs of the underprivileged in Toronto. Last year she completed a college program where she learned outdoor leadership skills. At 16 she spent a month in Peru learning the culture and helping those less fortunate than herself on a missions trip. She was chosen to attend as a leader at a young people's conference designed to help young people become godly leaders. She has been asked to sing on a worship team and diligently seeks to advance herself musically as well as academically.
"Now after stating these facts about my daughter's life I would also like to say she has not attended one day of primary school or high school. But remains an excellent Canadian citizen!
"My concern about Bill 52 is that it may affect my other two children's lives, it may affect my future grandchildren's lives, and generations of young Canadians."
Obviously, Ms. Hozjan's daughter, of whom she's very proud, and justifiably so with that kind of accomplishment as a young woman -- there are going to be extraordinary accomplishments by this young women in the times ahead -- was home-schooled. I have a significant number of parents who choose -- as is their right, and I congratulate them for it -- to home-school their children. Of course, there were provisions in Bill 52 that were offensive to parents who choose to home-school their own children. Marcel and Jeanette Otten on Moote Road in St. Ann's, not too far from my home in Wellandport, raise similar concerns: "Bill 52 extends by two years the time allowed to parents to justify themselves to the government, or fear having to justify themselves to the government, for home-schooling their children. This is especially a problem where students may have completed high school early, or want to incorporate apprenticeship or other learning experiences into their later high school years without having to justify it as satisfactory instruction."
There are similar letters from Jeremy and Maria Bout on Rittenhouse Road in Vineland; Carl and Monica Oosterhoff on Yonge Street in Vineland; Derek Lemstra on Chestnut Street in Jordan Station; and Marissa Lemstra on Chestnut Street in Jordan Station. Those are just some of the letters I have. I do regret, though, that the committee does go on under the government's guillotine motion. We find that objectionable, and that's why I move adjournment of the House.
All those in favour, please say "aye."
All those opposed, please say "nay."
In my opinion, the nays have it.
Call in the members. This will be a 30-minute bell.
The division bells rang from 1717 to 1747.
Will all those in favour of the motion please rise and remain standing.
All those opposed to the motion, please rise and remain standing.
I just can't help it. To the member from Erie-Lincoln, I'm not quite sure he heard the minister when the minister said that they consulted -- God, I don't know who. They said they looked around the world before they came up with this bill. They looked at the high school curriculum in its totality, more or less, give or take a word. They consulted academia on this, the front lines, and then she said that these ideas came from teachers. For the life of me, I don't know where the academics were in the hearings. For the life of me, I don't know where the teachers were, because I didn't hear teachers saying, "We're just so happy to get this bill in because we know it's going to create stronger, smarter kids, and it will help to build a stronger, smarter society."
Where were they? Where were the academics? Where were these ideas that these people picked up from all over the world where they've done this -- except, they say, another province and a few American states that have done it, where there is no measurable difference in terms of academic achievement.
I don't know what experts you consulted and where in the world you went to get this great idea for this bill. But I've got to tell you, I'm looking forward to debating this bill for the whole hour next time we meet so that I can talk a little more about this.
There was some reference to OECTA, which came out with a news release that reads:
"Ontario's Catholic teachers are endorsing the McGuinty government's strategy to help students at risk....
"Members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association ... applaud the plan to match individual students' strengths, interests and career goals...."
Later they said, "The government heard teachers' concerns about maintaining the integrity of the secondary school diploma. We look forward to working with the government on the details of implementation."
I could read on, but I do want to comment on the member from Erie-Lincoln, because there's always, notwithstanding what he has to say, at least some gem of wisdom; you have to look hard for it sometimes. He talked about safety, and that certainly is a concern. We heard the principals' council when they were in today, and the minister has already met once and has some other meetings set up to talk about that issue. There was no discussion about the Provincial Stability Commission, which is sorting out about 80% of these concerns, and that's something that needs to happen.
Finally, on the driver's licence issue, I want to just say that I was one of those on this side of the House -- and there were many -- who had some real concerns as I listened to people. I heard from the Ontario Student Trustees' Association, which had some real views on it, and I'm pleased to say that the government listened, as we normally do.
The member from Trinity-Spadina, in the last 10 years -- I know he comes from a school trustee background. He has knowledge and passion on the topic, so I am interested in listening to his comments for the next five minutes. I intend to get a copy of Hansard and pay attention.
But like many members here today, I did meet with members of the Ontario Principals' Council, not specifically Blair Hilts, but a couple of the principals. They did speak to the issues with respect to Bill 52, but they spoke specifically about school safety. We all read in the papers today about school security and who's responsible for that security. If you don't have a safe learning environment, you have jeopardized that learning environment, and the trust that parents place in the principals and teachers is unfair unless they provide the resources. But this bill -- quite frankly, there have been a couple of amendments. Some of them are postdated until after the next election.
There were concerns that had arisen with regard to the driver's licence, and that certainly was an issue from the rural communities. I do want to make special emphasis that there was an amendment that came forward, and those concerns have been addressed. So it reinforces that we are listening and acting and taking forward the concerns. More specifically, those concerns primarily came from the rural communities, so I'm very pleased to say that those concerns have been addressed.
We talk about, "What do our youth need? What tools do they need to build a strong foundation, to have a successful future?" I especially want to take this time to talk about one of the programs that is available in the most beautiful riding in the province of Ontario, that being Huron-Bruce: the high skills program that is available at one of my local high schools. It is working with our agricultural community and our business community. They all came together, as we do, as many communities do, took that opportunity, and agricultural courses are available in our schools. How could it be more appropriate? We are the leading riding in agricultural product in the province of Ontario, and our agricultural community needs tools to give to our young people that will encourage them to choose that as their career. The future of the agricultural community must remain strong so that we can ensure food safety for all the citizens of Ontario. So when we talk about, "What do we need in communities to give to our youth and what can we do?" this is just another example of meeting those needs.
My colleague from Durham had mentioned that we had a number of e-mails and letters, which I wanted to continue reading into the record.
Wilf and Natalie Wikkerink of Ninth Street in St. Catharines wrote to me. They say, "Home-schooling is an excellent means of educating our children. Instead of delegating their responsibility, parents take on the task of educating their children using a variety of excellent programs which are becoming increasingly available. The child is not restricted to learning at the same rate as [his] classmates, but instead their education is tailored to meet their gifts and needs."
Their concern was that "Bill 52 will restrict some of these benefits of home-schooling. Those children finishing their high school education early will have to justify their apprenticeship or other learning experiences to the government."
Similarly, a letter from Kim Bakker, living in Vineland, Ontario, in the Niagara Peninsula, of course, who boasts proudly of her 16-year-old son, presently finishing his grade 11 studies, who has now come across a setback in his desire to obtain his G1 licence. He was required to show a student card, which of course he did not have, because he was home-schooled. "Instead we reapplied for a health card to have the required photo ID. Everything seems to be fine, however it is our understanding that if this Bill 52 is passed" -- as it was at the time -- "that my son who will be 17 when he completes his studies may find it difficult or impossible to get his G2 or even employment without the permission of a board or principal of a local school." Ms. Bakker goes on to express those concerns.
Evening meeting reported in volume B.