August 26, 2011 When Dalton McGuinty became Premier in 2003, education in Ontario was in shambles. The Harris years unleashed havoc on schools across the province as mindless cutbacks and mindless philosophy left educators and trustees completely disheartened. Schools were shuttered and dark because the only job of education was teaching kids "from 9 to 4 and shut the door."
Teachers left in droves, retiring the minute they had reached their factor (a combination of age plus number of years in teaching). Some of the best teachers in the country and a lot of wisdom and knowledge walked out with them.
Into this desert strode McGuinty, who wanted to be known as The Education Premier. He believed the future of the province and the country would be determined by whether our citizens were well educated and could compete with the rest of the world in terms of knowledge, skills and training.
It is hard to look at what has happened in education and not tip your hat to the premier. The earnest, Dad-next-door, has been skewered by NDP and Tory critics alike but Ontarians who know what is going on in our schools know better and now, it appears, so does the whole world.
In the latest issue of The Economist, in a story entitled The Great Schools Revolution, McGuinty has won the endorsement of impressive educators around the world.
“Ontario really is impressive,” enthuses Sir Michael Barber, former head of global education practice at McKinsey (now at Pearson). The Canadian province has a high proportion of immigrants, many without English as a first language, yet it now has one of the world’s best-performing schools systems, after bringing in what one of its architects calls “reform without rancour”.
When Dalton McGuinty was elected Ontario’s premier in 2003, he embraced “whole-system reform”. Instead of directing reforms from the centre, the government encouraged schools to set their own targets and sent experienced teams to help them get there. Schools with large numbers of immigrant children could apply for special help, and could choose whether to extend the school day to do this, or work longer with the slower pupils.
The Ontario reformers made a special point of gaining full public support. Every school—even in the remotest “fly-in” places—had to be improved by the reforms, and had to show in regular inspections that it was making progress.
These efforts were not cheap—since 2004, total funding for education has gone up by 30%. And their success is debated. As Mr McGuinty faces a tight election next month, some critics claim that inner-city schools in the capital, Toronto, are “coasting”, because improvements tend to come early and the intractable problems show themselves later. But Ontario has become a byword for decentralised, popular reform."
Canada, including Ontario, is ranked 6th in the world by PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) at the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
In the political temper of our times, it is unlikely that any political party will acknowledge McGuinty's success but success it is. We will do well to remember that instead of mindless "gravy train" searches" or tax cuts that take ever more money out of programs we value, McGuinty, the man who the Torys considered "not up for the job", has done a superb job of rebuilding the education system the Torys tore down and making sure we have invested in our young people. The real supporter of Ontario families, the one who has put his money where his mouth is and has done more for Ontario families than anyone else, is Premier McGuinty.
