The Ontario Liberals more than doubled spending on elementary and high schools during their time in office. Why? A bursting at the seems system. Nope…
In 2004 there were 112,235 teachers overseeing 2,129,742 students in the province’s elementary and secondary schools. In 2018, by the time the Liberals left, we had 125,980 teachers plus 9,054 early childhood educators overseeing 2,020,301 students.
As always, there’s more….and it will shock.
When your country is overrun by third world illegal alien invaders and fourth world illegal alien invaders, along with their “youfs”, what else would you expect? No amount of money will ever fix the lack of intelligence. No matter what Your Betters might insist.
This wealth redistribution is what Canadistan is all about. Government employees stealing the wealth of tax payers. Brought to you by Liberal scumbags, enabled by stupid, ignorant voters.
And redistributing it directly to their pockets and pensions.
These are not “teachers”. They don’t teach your knowledge or values.
They are parasites. They will suck your blood until you die.
today’s teachers for the most part are useless, they have only one concern and one concern only, how much are we getting paid. in the interim students are graduating from high school unable to put a sentence together and unable to do simple math without a calculator
“A bursting at the seems system” ????? Surely not. Certainly demonstrates something about education.
Don’t call me Shirley.
In a long-distance, but related story … my wife’s UNION will reveal the STRIKE vote, they took last week, later today. And there is NO DOUBT the UNION members will have voted to Strike. Soon, the OUSD will be ON STRIKE for a 12% pay raise and smaller class sizes (i.e. MORE teachers)
Nevermind that the OUSD projects a $30M deficit this year, rising to $50M the following year … without paying the teachers MORE $$$. So WHERE does the UNION expect the $$$ to come from? Only Gov. Gav. can supply MORE $$$ … yet the leftist State Gov. only pays lip-service to funding primary and secondary education. The UC system is awash in $$$ … but the vast majority of education in the State has not seen significant increases for years. Gavin CANNOT PAY the teachers MORE $$$ when he is promising FREE medical insurance for every illegal alien in the State. Gavin knows he can get away with TALKING about how he carrrrres about teachers … while giving-away their $$$ to illegal aliens.
Here is how the Oakland teachers are performing …
https://www.areavibes.com/oakland-ca/education/
Note the HORRIFIC test scores and graduation rates have NOTHING whatsoever to do with the dysfunctional one-parent “families”. Nothing to do with the demonizing of “traditional heterosexual two-parent families”. Or the huge number of ESL school kids. Foreign-language speaking immigrant children and parents. Or the huge number of psychologically-damaged discipline cases … all as compared to those “awful white suburbs”.
Who wouldn’t want to PAY MORE for failure?
Meanwhile the media continues to back Comrade Horwath’s hysterical rants that Ford is destroying education and health services in Ontario. She is releasing dribs and drabs of a government paper stolen by one on Wynne’s civil servants and making it look like Ford is bringing Nazism to Ontario. Fight for socialism!!
That fat pig can eat shit.
You think when she gets sick or sprains a cankle she doesn’t go to the front of the line for health care?
She’s a foul whore of a stain on the province.
What seems to be missing from this discussion is the impact on teachers and classrooms of the current wave of immigration. Schools are obligated to take in students who may know no English, and are in fact illiterate in their mother language. Such students require a huge amount of individual attention, and still will make only slow progress, far below the grade levels to which they were assigned. All it takes is in a class of 30 students is perhaps 3 ESL students and a mainstreamed disabled student, and the teacher is hamstrung. The performance of all the students in that classroom are likely to suffer as a result, and the classroom quickly becomes dysfunctional, no matter how hard the teacher works.
100% spot on
I had to deal with situations like that while I was a post-secondary educator. The answer I got from my “masters” was: “You work with what you’ve been given.” That meant that I had to deal with students who had inadequate academic preparation, several with discipline problems, and many who had a poor grasp of English.
And people wondered why I quit my “good” job….
my oldest brother taught auto body at the local trade school/high school. ie specifically targetting those whose ummm, literacy was far less than skills with a wrench and micrometer.
his complaint consisted of getting bafflegab and excuses when asking what to DO with the class clowns
whose intent was to disrupt, disrupt, disrupt.
yawell yawell yawell theys comes froms disadvantaged home situations yep yep yep.
*but what do I DO when they act up in class?*
yawell yawell yawell.
All this while schools are closing due to lack of students. Of course more schools are being built in some areas, after all Ontario has duplicate publicly funded systems, one for Roman Catholics and the other for all the rest. Strangely the Catholic schools have been accepting non Catholic students to bolster their numbers which begs the question, why do we need duplicate systems? Would our schools in smaller areas be closing if all students regardless of religion attend one system?
It’s a social disgrace and an economic disaster at this time in history.
LizJ, Ontario does not have two publicly funded systems, it has four! From the Ministry of Education website, “In Ontario, four school systems are publicly funded: the French public system, the French Catholic system, the English public system and the English Catholic system.” No need for duplication when you can quadruplicate!
So why do you think that non catholic parents want to send their children to catholic schools? Must be a reason right?
I’ll tell you the reason.
our kid spent all of a week in the public high school and was so intimidated by wtfever, she begged me to fix it.
a few phone calls later, she’s full time at the catholic high school about 4 blocks further away and graduates with a scholarship.
AND won her graduating class award for writing skills.
the staff, teachers, students, all, ALL a cut above the public school.
Saw Horwath/Horvath on TV this morning.
Spewing “Secrets” and getting a tongue bath from the media.
One question sprang to mind,”Why now?”
Especially from a Wynn enabler.
Why would any Ontarian give this Wormtongue the time of day.
If she cared about the citizen,Wynn would have been forced out of power tears ago..
You have to be extra braindead to support a person like her.
Democracy fails when the twin wolves vote with the lamb,over who is for lunch.
Those who take from the public purse cannot be permitted to vote on its distribution.
This is a poisonous conflict of interest.
If you chose to serve,you have to give up self service.
Which will never happen,human nature being what it is.
I am so tired of the blatant hypocracy of our progressive comrades.
As for education?
The results walk amongst us,speaking for themselves.
Remember “Math is hard”.
4 out of every 10 Canadians is a government employee.
The wages the 4 are paid exceeds the taxes paid by the 6.
So where does the difference come from?
Yet 60% of the graduates of our education system cannot work this out.
Independence for the West.Seems maths gets easier when all you do is pay.
As a note,if you cannot understand the conflict of interest involved in being a voting “public servant”, perhaps you lack the ethics necessary to perform the function.
And redistributing it directly to their pockets and pensions.
To improve the existing “system” you would have to end mainstreaming, and funnel off non academically oriented students to trade schools. Class size could be dealt with by paying teachers piece rate (so much per student who successfully completes their grade). Such reforms will never happen in the unionized bureaucratic mess of the socialist system. Therefore, offer vouchers of say $10,000 per student aged child per year to parents, contingent on it going towards a private or non government school of their choice. The vouchers could be phased out over a decade or so after the nightmare of socialized education has gone away.
Yeah, but what would stop it coming back?
It would take a miracle to get there in the first place let alone worrying about relapses.
There is much to be said about education and the state of it in Ontario. The increase of money does prove one thing: it’s not necessary to educate students. It’s not even used to educate students. Ford can anger the unions if he wishes but what he really needs to do is to convince the public that the unions are the problem. Most teaching aids are inexpensive and attentive students and parents can get a lot done. The only thing that unions accomplish is more Liberals at Queen’s Park and that is all.
The “system” is not working but no politician of any stripe has the guts to change it. It’s billions of dollars not well spent.
No where do we see how far socialism has come than in our schools systems.
Our health care system in Ontario is another mess. We have the likes of Andrea Horwath screeching on about private health care, when it is already entrenched. We have doctors who operate clinics, we have dentists who operate their own offices, we have hospitals like the Shouldice hernia hospital, all qualify as delivering a private service and paid for by OHIP plus any fees added on by providers either out of pocket or private insurance.
How did we ever get so damned stupid in this country? Just look at what we elect then put up with for answers.
and LizJ, we have buffalo health care:-)))
You are correct, we have had Buffalo health care for some time.
We created puppy mills and child-minding centres for overfed union schlubs.
That’s one way things went wrong.
You can moan all you want about the faults of the Ontario education system but it can’t out do the New Brunswick system for abject failure. We are the worst in Canada. Take that, you Upper Canadians.
Well as long as Ontario schools continue to teach transgender, black history, whiny indian, sexual perversion, and global warming scams, that is all that matters. Besides Great Leader Justin stated at his last town hall that he was going to get involved in Ontario education, even though its a provincial responsibility. What could possibly go wrong?
Number of students divided by number of teachers = 16. So why do we have class sizes of 30?
Joe:
At any given time, approximately half the teachers are off on union business, pro-d days, stress leave, maternity/paternity leave, and other perks too numerous to mention.
My teacher wife has missed about 2 days max. per year over her entire career. Her UNION contract requires the District reimburse her for all her “entitled” days not missed. She is going to get a big fkcuing check on the day she retires. And the District will still come out ahead for not having to pay for a substitute all those days.
Not bragging again … except to say there are still some quality people employed as teachers. The REAL problem is that the UNION prevents public school districts from weeding out the dead weight.
To cut expenses they should eliminate preschool, grade 1 and grade 12 and have students in larger classrooms of 30+
All unions, teaching assistants, and school superintendents eliminated.
@Nancy
You’re being facetious, right?
The times call for serious measures. I’m very serious. Ontario has been taken to the cleaners by their own kind, the educators who blew the province away. These people never really worked in the real world for any length of time so they were not only imprudent but greedy.
@Nancy:
Well I must disagree with your suggestions, it’s way too drastic(especially eliminating the 3 grades) and will make things much worse. I would go along with curbing the unions, but not outright elimination but look at the pay scales. And you do need some officials like superintendents(smart ones) to run things. Rudderless ships don’t do well. I would look at strict curbing of student behavior when warranted, removing the special Ed students because(sadly) they can and are a disruption and distraction and expense(this is a big problem in NB). Class size can be enlarged as the students mature with age. But 30+ is too many for the lower grades. Plus a good hard sensible look at the curriculum to weed out the useless PC stuff.
You make some good suggestions for special-ed children and curriculum changes.
In my opinion though, all unions should be canceled in every aspect of the Canadian workforce, they are a cancer to society. They are bullies and sycophants.
The number of superintendent jobs ought to be cut 90% unless they can justify their existance.
In the boomer era there was no such thing as kindergarten or pre-school unless one’s parents sent the children privately. This was a good thing, as this encouraged choice and individuality.
In the baby boomer era, class sizes were huge. Most times students helped each other and this encouraged team effort and spirit. In my time there were about 65 to 75 children in grade one. We went half days* until second grade then were placed into two classes. By the time we went to high school in a more distant section of the city, our class sizes were even larger but there were 5 of them. We were about 175 to 190 in the graduating class. We graduated at the end of grade 11 at 17 years of age. Having grade 12 is useless, kids are into adult stuff, by then. I believe Quebec is the only province that has no grade 12.
*Going half days was wonderful. As a six year old I was more well rested, than those whiney 7 year olds who went full days and were too tired and needed a nap. I sometimes went skating or did some other creative endeavour. I was an exceptional hyper vigilant child. I once saved 17 people during my half day off. Living in a 4 unit apartment building our unit caught fire and as flames were licking the ceiling, I yelled my head off! The busy adults then put the fire out. There was no such thing as PTSD, they sent me to school that afternoon!
@Nancy:
I am also a baby boomer and yes, I did not experience kindergarten, I entered Grade 1 and knew nothing, not even the ABC’s. Looking back, I don’t blame my parents for that, they both worked at full time in demanding but not high paying jobs, my father drank a lot on his days off and my mother worked, cooked and cleaned, no time nor energy for bedtime stories. As for your large class sizes, I never experienced that. I have my Grade 4 class picture and there are 28 students in it. Probably 30 was the max of any grade. I seem to recall the high 20’s as the norm. Same for my high school classes. We are on the same page partially, I just think your anti-union stance is a mite extreme(an understatement for sure). I do agree that their power needs to be curbed. For example incompetent teachers should not be protected at all costs as happens now.
@ 4:43 pm C – NB
We agree to disagree. That’s fine. I do know where you are coming from as I lived in your province for 18 years.
The best jobs there, are in fact, Union jobs. The show of hands in public for voting purposes in some Unions is not something that the members were enamored of. It is used against them afterwards, sometimes. But I digress.
The fact that some Unions charge extortionate rates without the opt-out out choice is what is disturbing. The pay increase would be worth it. If it were me, I would rather deal with management myself.
Fact is, one should strive for promotions just to shuck the Union off of one’s back.
Just look at what happened to the Unionized Canadian car industry, they killed their own jobs. Ditto, all the corrupt government people, only they stay but the taxpayer can’t get rid of them. However, if you took a poll here at SDA, I guarantee that over 50% would be against costly Unions. Only Liberals love Unions.
It has been great to exchange thoughts with you.
P.S. Weren’t you the fellow who wrote that you wished you had seen Eric Clapton and his group ‘Cream’ back in the day when they played for free at the old Expo’67 grounds? I think it was you. Sorry you missed out and were disappointed.
Hey you wanted government in charge of education. Why did any of you expect education ro turn out better than the roads? I personally have never driven on anything in my life, in Saskatchewan, that didn’t have potholes. No street. No highway. No back alley. No grid…
You listen when the government tells you what to eat, what to think, what to say, how to get to work, how to get home after work, … don’t be surprised when the biggest problem your “poor” people have is obesity after the Canada food guide arrives.
( Re: your last 6 words…
It’s out. It’s Vegan. You have to starve now. Shhhh)
And how many $100k administrators?
Our high school in the early to mid 70s had 52 teaching staff and 1100 students.
Now there are two high schools (the French wanted their own empire) with a combined enrollment of just under 600 students and a combined teaching staff of 81.
“…Class size could be dealt with by paying teachers piece rate (so much per student who successfully completes their grade). …”
What could possibly go wrong? This would lead to teachers working the system to pass students who haven’t achieved the standard. And their union will try to protect and encourage this because the union will act in the union’s interest (even against the members’ interests if necessary, if the members will allow themselves to be taken advantage of.) This isn’t original or peculiar to the sort of criteria you are proposing, it’s part of human nature. Any system will only work as well as the operators make it work.
So the potential good in your idea depends on the managers employed to make the teachers do it right. That’s the government, the hired managers. And they will suffer from the same corrupting human trait of using the system firstly to benefit themselves, and the potential good they might do depends on the people who hired them knowing how to keep on top of them and caring enough about their own self-interest to make their hirelings do the job properly. That’s the voters.
Now, where are we going to get a couple of generations of voters informed and trained on how this all works, where it goes wrong, what to do about it, and conditioned to care enough to stay on top of it …
“Government, like fire, is a troublesome servant, but a terrible master.” (I think that’s how he put it, and I think it was Benjamin Franklin.) We need it, and we must feed it, and if we don’t keep a close eye on it it will escape our control and consume everything we have. There is no way we can put off the work indefinitely without suffering from the consequences of neglect.
Actually, I threw out “piece rate” because the unions would go berserk rather than allowing it as it would differentiate the good teachers from the useless ones and that goes against their efforts (job number one) to protect the mediocre and useless at any cost. Public education with unions as we know them is beyond reform and that’s why, like most bureaucracies, they must be destroyed, abandoned, privatized, replaced and or disrupted with better technology.
Your plan is, essentially, already being put to use … by the Catholic Schools. However, there is one little glitch in your system … the Catholic schools and teachers get to cherry pick the best students. If your kid can’t sit still, disrupts the class and is intellectually thick … then they’ll get booted (actually never admitted) from the the Catholic schools. I’m not complaining, that’s a GREAT THING for the students who are there to LEARN. The problem with Public schools is that the parents and the school district legal representatives (lawyers) run the schools defending the students “rights” to be a little shit! The students “right” to disrupt classes. The students “rights” to be socially promoted even though they cannot complete the most basic requirements for promotion.
Piece work is great! So long as you can cherry pick the BEST students, with the best families.
I brought up many of the same issues you mentioned shortly after I started my teaching position. I was told by one of the VPs that since the institution advertised itself as a catch-all school that accepted just about anyone who applied (which would have worked in the early days more than 50 years ago, when the secondary schools expected their graduates to actually know something), it had to maintain that policy.
The result was, as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, people with inadequate academic backgrounds, poor discipline, and, in some cases, a marginal command of English, if any.
As one colleague in a different department once put it with respect to a class he taught, a third of the students were in jail, a third ought to have been in jail, and the rest were on their way to jail.
Your last paragraph … hahahahahaha ha. Each Fall, when my wife photographs her new class … I play a game … based entirely on the “look” and “body language” revealed by the photo. I predict which one of her 1st graders will be in Jail (tried as an adult) or getting her 1st abortion by the 8th grade. Just by LOOKING … I am about 90% correct … based on their classroom misbehavior. Sad. But true.
Ralph Klein was afraid of the teachers union. He folded when he shoulda took them on.
They (teachers) act as baby sitters and if the skool is closed all hell breaks loose because both parents work. What to do with these kids if you can’t send them off to be looked after?
Ralph didnt want a prolonged fight and caved. This emboldened the teachers union and they closed the deal with red ed stelmach. He topped off their pension shortfalls which they had originally agreed to look after themselves. He wanted no part of a teachers strike.
So here we sit. Unable to move on and now with Redd in charge. She may give the teachers/ nurses…or whoever a huge increase and saddle any government with a signed union agreement that they once again can do nothing about. Nice.