Ignorance Incarnate

Ontario's Financial Accountability Office has crunched the numbers. And Victoria Gibson reports that:

Ontario is set to lose more than 10,000 teaching positions over the next five years, due to the Ford government’s changes in class sizes and new requirement that students take a number of their courses online, the legislature’s financial watchdog has found.

In a new report published Thursday, the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario estimated that 994 elementary positions and 9,060 secondary positions will be eliminated from Ontario’s publicly-funded education system by the 2023-24 school year.

The report also estimated that there will be 2,826 fewer teachers in Ontario’s education system this year — 967 fewer elementary teachers and 1,859 fewer secondary teachers.

The FAO also concluded that:

the province’s assertion that the reduction in teaching positions could be achieved without layoffs, saying that Ontario’s new $1.6 billion Teacher Job Protection Fund “should provide sufficient funding” to allow the new class sizes to be achieved without dismissals. News of teacher layoffs have sent tremors through the education system as recently as early September, when in Toronto alone, a local union told several media outlets that more than 150 high-school teachers were without full-time contracts due to what they billed as provincial cuts to education funding.

It's easy to lose sight of what was behind these cutbacks. When he came to office, Doug Ford claimed that the province's deficit was $15 billion. He has recently revised those numbers down to $7.4 billion -- not far from the deficit of $6.7 billion Kathleen Wynne was projecting in her last budget. Ford used the inflated figures to radically restructure the education system. There has been a deluge of criticism:

The FAO report Thursday was followed by swift criticism from Ford’s opposition. Marit Stiles, education critic for the provincial NDP, said the loss of more than 10,000 teachers would “hurt students in every region of our province.” “Parents and educators are sounding alarm bells about the negative impact these cuts will have on our education system – damage that will only get worse as our population grows over time,” Stiles wrote in a statement, urging Ford to reverse the changes that she billed as “deep cuts.”

Michael Coteau, the Don Valley East MPP who has announced his bid for leadership of the provincial Liberal Party, also framed the changes as ‘deep cuts’ in a statement released Thursday. “This will lead to class sizes increasing by up to 27%, on average. In some schools, the damage will be much worse,” Coteau wrote. “This is not what parents want. This is not what students want. This is an irresponsible decision by a government that has shown time and time again that it puts ideology above evidence.”

Another Liberal leadership hopeful, education critic Mitzie Hunter, later called the cuts “short-sighted” and “callous,” citing an Ontario Student Trustees Association report that showed 95 per cent of student respondents disapproving of the new e-learning requirements. “Other reports have indicated that students are struggling to get into classes they need to graduate or for post-secondary programs because they’re full,” Hunter said.

And Mr. Ford wonders why he is booed at public events. The reason is simple: He's Ignorance Incarnate.

Image: twitter