Labour
Council calls for “Rebuilding of Public Education”
By John Cartwright
The
180,000 member strong Toronto & York Region Labour Council is calling
on the provincial government to fix the crisis in public education. Citing the underfunding of both the primary and
post-secondary levels of education, the Labour Council is demanding that
Premier Eves commit to replace millions of dollars that was diverted from
our schools in the last eight years.
“We
know that a vibrant public education system is the foundation for greater
opportunity, equality and democratic rights for all people in our
society” said John Cartwright, Labour Council President. “It is for
these reasons that previous generations of working people fought to
establish an open and well-funded public education system that provided to
students of all backgrounds what they needed to succeed.”
According
to the government’s own Rozanski Task Force, over $2 billion dollars has
been stripped from education and a rigid funding formula imposed on all
Boards across Ontario. Trustees, parents, teachers and other education
workers have all told the government that the funding for public education
is inadequate. However, in Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton, the elected
school boards were taken over last fall by Queen’s Park when they
refused to pass budgets that would cut vital programs.
Boards
have been unable to provide adequate textbooks or special education
programs. In Toronto education assistants and attendance counselors for
at-risk students are being eliminated.
Parents in many communities have organized to protect international
language, English as Second Language (ESL), and Black Heritage programs.
They have been joined by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
Local 4400, the union that represents the school-community advisors and
outdoor education staff who have been cut. Terry Preston of Local 4400
shakes her head as she watches a system with award-winning programs under
attack.
Students
from immigrant and minority families are experiencing real problems as a
result, notes Said Duale, Labour Council delegate. He recently joined the
School Board’s Equity and Access Committee. He and other parents in
Rexdale have been involved in setting up after school tutoring for Somali
children to make sure they have the tools to succeed in class.
His
concerns are shared by teacher Jeff Ram Brijvasi. Co-chair of the Labour
Council’s Equity Committee, he has seen the decline in teacher morale as
budget cuts combine with massive changes to curriculum.
“We must invest in good education in this city. How else will
young people be prepared to enter the workforce and learn to respect the
ideas of others from different background”, he questions.
Pura
Velasco, healthcare worker at Woodgreen Community Centre in east Toronto,
is passionate about the issue. “Education is the real equalizer in this
society. It is what gives
immigrants and their children the way to get ahead in their jobs, and
their lives” she said. “I came to Canada first as a domestic, and now
my three children are in university.”
But
changes to post-secondary education are making that option harder.
Spiraling tuition fees for students means many can no longer afford to
continue their education. Ontario
has fallen to the lowest per capita spending on post-secondary education
of any province in Canada, according to the Ontario Council of Faculty
Associations. Many parents
are worried if their children will even get accepted into a college or
university in this year of the “double cohort”, when both Grade 12 and
13 graduates are competing for spaces.
The
Labour Council is working with parents, teachers, students, and community
groups to impress on politicians the vital need to invest in education.
They will be taking their campaign out to the public in coming weeks.
John
Cartwright is the President of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council.
The Council is the central labour body that represents hundreds of local
unions representing 180,000 working men, women and their families in the
Toronto and York Region.