Here is a very different perspective which I support. I see the Rozanski report as 'smoke and mirrors'.
Take care,
Brian McAndrews
----------------------------
Rozanski validates Tories
IAN URQUHART
For anyone looking for fundamental reform in the way our schools are funded, the report of the
Mordechai Rozanski task force is a huge disappointment.
Most will focus on Rozanski's recommendation that the government pour another $1.8 billion into
schools.
That sounds like a lot, but it is to be spread over three years, or $600 million a year. Given an over-all
education budget of $14.2 billion, that's an annual increase of just 3.5 per cent.
And the government may not even have to spend that much. It could put the savings from the elimination of Grade 13 - estimated by the Ministry
of Education to be $100 million - toward meeting Rozanski's target figure, for a net increase of just $500 million a year.
That, perhaps not coincidentally, is the figure contained in a recently leaked memo from Finance Minister Janet Ecker's office.
"The Premier (Ernie Eves) was musing about maintaining the annual increase in education funding of $500 million for the next three years," it said.
So Rozanski has essentially recommended that the government spend what it was already planning to spend on education.
And he has also validated the province's "student-focused funding formula."
That's the complex mechanism with which the government has controlled every dollar spent on education in Ontario since it took the responsibility
away from school boards five years ago.
Rather than recommend that the funding formula be blown up, Rozanski calls for some fine tuning.
His report repeatedly mentions the need for "flexibility" in the funding of education because the needs and demands differ so greatly from board to
board across the province. The provincial government "cannot be, and should not try to be, a micromanager," he says.
But Rozanski then proceeds to ... micromanage.
He recommends enhancing "the demographic component of the learning opportunities grant" to help urban boards with disadvantaged kids in their
schools; funnelling more money to ex-urban boards through "the geographic circumstances grant" to keep small schools open in single-school
communities; creating a new "deferred maintenance amortization fund" to allow cash-strapped boards to build new schools; and so on.
Dismissed, in one sentence, is the idea of giving school boards back the power to levy their own taxes - say, up to 10 per cent of their budgets, as
recommended by previous task forces. That would ensure the boards have the necessary money to deal with local priorities rather than having to look
to the provincial government for a grant to cover every need.
"I oppose such a restoration ... on the grounds of equity," Rozanski says.
So, the provincial government will remain solely responsible for raising money for education and will continue to dole it out with strings attached.
It will, in other words, keep on micromanaging the system from the Mowat Block at Queen's Park (home of the Ministry of Education).
Rozanski's report disappoints in other ways. For example, he avoids the sticky issue of how teachers' salaries are determined. Currently, individual
boards are responsible for collective bargaining with the teachers' unions, but the province decides how much money is available for pay increases.
It is an absurd division of responsibility, and some had hoped (feared?) Rozanski would recommend a move toward province-wide bargaining. He
does not.
Nor does he tackle the problem of excessively large school boards - one in northwestern Ontario is the size of France - that make local decision
making difficult, if not impossible.
Instead, he recommends that the "minister of education review ... the education governance structure."
It is, in brief, a safely bureaucratic report.
That is not surprising, because Rozanski, president of the University of Guelph, was heavily dependent on the Mowat Block bureaucracy for his
research and information. He commissioned no independent research.
No wonder, then, that the government embraced his report.
"I am pleased that Dr. Rozanski has confirmed that our student-focused funding formula is an effective way to foster excellence and bring fairness for
all students," Eves said yesterday.
Rozanski has given Eves and the Tories what they wanted: He has bought them time on the education file to get them through the next provincial
election, expected in 2003.
Fundamental reform will, apparently, have to wait until after that election.
For in the long run, the status quo - a centralized education system run entirely out of Queen's Park - is untenable. The same problems that
prompted the government to appoint Rozanski -deficits, inadequate funding of different sectors, school closings and so on - will raise their ugly
heads again in a few years' time.
Additional articles by Ian Urquhart
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Even the right leaning Globe and Mail appears to believe that one way to fix a vital but crumbling public service is to put some money into it. From today's editorial page:"Rozanski's prescription Thursday, December 12, 2002 - Page A24 Mordechai Rozanski has just done for education in Ontario what the one-man royal commission did last month for Canadian health care. Reporting to the provincial government, he argued that a lot more tax money be spent: roughly $2-billion a year, on a $14-billion system, by 2005-06. But not without strings; in particular, he wants the system to account more transparently for its spending. He makes a good case that a high-quality education system requires a high level of public investment. "Britain and other jurisdictions came to this realization," he says. A footnote points to an essay asserting that former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher challenged the schools in the 1980s to improve by instituting new tests and standards, but did not provide support for teacher training or address inner-city needs. The result? Conflict and demoralization. Much the same happened in Mike Harris's Ontario. A rigorous new curriculum, new provincewide tests, publication of results, more equitable funding of school boards -- all are sound policies. But much went awry in implementation. The funding remained stuck at 1998 levels; Dr. Rozanski would add $1.08-billion just to keep up with student growth and inflation. Expected savings from amalgamating small boards did not help rich boards whose funds were siphoned off for poor boards. Teacher training suffered. So did special-education pupils. The result has been a series of strange goings-on, in which school-board trustees in Toronto and Ottawa broke the law by passing deficit budgets, and the province (now Ernie Eves's Ontario) appointed a supervisor to take over and cut costs. All this while Dr. Rozanski was hard at work, about to recommend that the money be put back and more added. Dr. Rozanski, who was presumably not chosen by the Tories for being a wild-eyed radical, embodies the virtues of Canada's public schools. The child of immigrants, he became the president of Ontario's University of Guelph. Public schools gave him, in his words, "the promise of a future." That promise does not come cheaply. In education, unlike medicine, Canadians have a choice: They can opt for the private alternative. And they have done so. Between 1995 and 1999, private-school enrolment grew by 40,000 in Ontario, rising to 103,000. The public system, with an enrolment of 2.1 million, must be protected; it remains the key to social progress and mobility. Wisely, Dr. Rozanski insists that school boards, principals, teachers and other staff be accountable for using their resources effectively, a point never fully embraced by trustees. For instance, more flexible and beefed-up grants for local priorities and for inner-city children should receive greater public discussion and there should be follow-up reports on what has been achieved. And he has found a way out of a shameful box on special education. Absurdly, auditor Al Rosen criticized the Ottawa school board for offering separate classes for special-education students, a criticism made not on pedagogical grounds but because the board could not afford to bus them to those classes. Yesterday, the province said its first action would be additional financing for special-ed, including transportation. Ontario needs to be fiscally responsible, but it has promised parents better schools. It is appropriate to begin the rebuilding with those most in need." Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 3:14 AM Subject: Crumble and despair in our education policyCharles Clarke, the present Minister for Education, is seriously proposing that head-teachers should have the power to fine parents whose childrenareskipping school. The proposal has only just been released this morning. It will, of course, die a death almost immediately because it's more than a step towards the sort of totalitarianism of Communist USSR or Nazi Germany but, nevertheless, it's yet another indication of the depth of despair that politicians in the present Labour government have about the fast-crumbling state education system in England. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
