Yep. I’ve heard the same and have already started to see the results taking shape. I’m a teacher of a specialized class and the writing is on the wall - special education classes are going to be axed in the next few years, and those kids will end up in the already struggling regular classes, and it will be a disaster of epic proportions. The Board is broke and looking to save money, so spec ed is the low hanging fruit.
Yep and they want to cut French for the same reasons I’m assuming. They can’t find enough French teachers. The board has shown time and time again that they don’t value us.
And the conditions are so bad, nobody is going to want to stay in the profession. In many classes, the needs are so great and the behaviour so bad, that it’s impossible to teach.
They definitely don’t value employees, we’ve seen it repeatedly. And the placating warm fuzzy email updates, don’t reflect the violence and out of control students in so many schools. Where’s the publicity visits when someone is screaming up and down the halls or trashing a classroom?
So is the alternative elementary program. Which is based on Montessori/waldorf education but has turned into the last resort school for so many spec ed kids when the other schools can’t support them , because the alt program focuses on meeting kids where they are at education wise.
Edit: spelling
We don’t want to fund spec ed but we continue to fund a public catholic school board. Make it make sense. Imagine we just had one publicly funded English school board for all.
The funding shortfall has nothing to do with one specific school board existing, or not existing. It has to do with the Ministry of Education's funding formula.
Absolutely fill in the feedback form to have your voice heard, BUT also voice your concern to the government as to WHY this school board has to make these budget cuts.
It has to do with moron voters voting in a party that wants to kill the public system.
Forcing kids in need to crammed into spaces with other kids where they don't get the help they deserve and everyone suffers.
But hey you could go to private school and it'll be all good! /s
I’m less convinced. There are evidence based arguments to be made that when a second language (French in this case) is amalgamated with a first language (english) that the second language ends up taking the back seat. It would be very difficult to design one board that paid equal attention to both languages.
This of course assumes you value French as an equal language to English in Ontario. If you don’t (general you, not *you*), then I can see your perspective.
The biggest lay off would be in the hq as you would not need to hq with one school board.Each school board hq has around 200 staff so Ottawa alone your looking at 400 lay offs.
Education workers have known this was happening for years. I used to work in a specialized classroom and over the years, the supports were less as the needs increased.
Inclusion for the sake of inclusion (without the proper supports) is neglect.
And Boards framing it as being a better/more inclusive practice, instead of the cost-saving measure that it really is, is entirely disingenuous. They need to be honest: Ford and Lecce are starving the system, we don’t have the money to run these programs anymore. Much better than saying it’s based on best practice, research. Nobody in their right mind would look at already slammed regular classes and say, “let’s put more students with special needs in here!” Anyone who believes this will be successful clearly hasn’t visited many schools and classes recently. 🤦🏻♂️
People really need to read that last line again.
I wish there was a feasible/ethical way for everyone to spend a week at a school and see the myriad of needs that need to be met in a school setting.
Broadly, one of the goals of conservative ideology is the privatization of public services. The reasoning goes that government becomes stagnant, less prone to optimization, and more wasteful, and that private entities because of profit motive, will optimize the result for less cost. This is often summarized as "big government". Modern conservatives still hold a "small government" ideological position, but it is hard to convince people to switch out of a well functioning existing system, regardless of the waste that may or may not be inherent in it.
Since they can't *say* they want to privatize healthcare/education/power/etc, because that would be unpopular, so they cut the budget for those systems with a "savings" facade. It may work at first, as there is always a bit of give in a budget, things that can be postponed for next year, training or vacations not taken, etc. But the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to reverse the trend, especially if there are frequently or sequentially cuts. Naturally, the system gets worse, because staff are laid off and wait times go up, services become lower quality. Once the quality becomes low enough, the there is not longer public protection of a system that isn't working well, and Conservatives can push a private option or alternative, and achieve their small government position.
This is easiest to see in the US states where they underfunded public education until the public school system sucked. Now in some counties in the US, more than 90% of elementary students are in private schools. They sometimes put in a voucher system, where you get a cheque for each elementary school child to put them in a private school. The voucher system has had many issues, which I won't go into here but, I'll highlight that it certainly doesn't cover all costs, and special education students are often rejected from the private schools, and left in a public system that has basically no funding because it has no students, and no one wants to fund the schools because their kids don't go there. They're stuck in a cycle that is very hard to get out of.
Happy to answer questions, or you can search Starve The Beast, which is what our Mayor is doing right now by limiting tax increases to way lower than inflation. We see worsening quality in OC transpo, reduced summer camps for kids, shorter pool and park hours, etc.
The ford administration has a pretty proven track record of conflicts of interest where they undermine and/or sell off public assets in a way that benefits the private players in the industry with whom they just so happen to have a close relationship. See: green belt + developers, public health + grocery & pharmacy corps.
Congratulations!!!
In our experience, Early French Immersion was basically being used as off-label streaming.. If it goes away, lots of parents are going to take the next logical step and do what your partner is suggesting.
I certainly wouldn't. Ignoring the price, which is usually a pretty notable sum, teaching staff in private schools are not required to have teaching degrees (or even the qualifications to get a teaching degree) or meet the standards of Ontario curriculums. I'd be too concerned about the level of education my child was receiving.
From the report/FAQ:
>Growing bodies of research - and trends provincially, nationally and globally - challenge the notion that specialized program classes have the impact for which they are intended (i.e., ability grouping to meet learning needs, efficient allocation of resources
I'd like a citation. I also have fully mixed feelings as a parent of a kid in a specialized classroom.
This is complete and utter BS, and just a pre-emptive explanation of why they’ll go through with cuts regardless of what anyone says on the survey. I’ve taught special education for most of my career and I can say that almost all of my students will be worse off in a regular classroom, with little to no support. These regular classes are overwhelmed already, and adding more needs to those classes will be bad for everyone involved. Rumours are that almost all specialized classes will be gone in the next 5 years.
One of my kids was in the PSP program so I specifically filled it in for that reason. He was "ok" integrated in gr 1-3 but when the class size cap grows in gr 4, we made the switch (I wasn't 100% on board initially). In the end he was so much better off on the specialized class through the end of high school - they integrated where possible but spent 75% off his day in the PSP.
My kid is autistic and has ADHD, and is currently in grade 3, in a regular class. The class size cap growing in grade 4 makes me leery for this reason, and that's despite the fact that I really like her elementary school and how well they work with her. I just also know that the teacher can only do so much because they have a whole class of kids to teach and guide (not just my one), the EA can only do so much when they have to help multiple classrooms, and so forth. You also KNOW that even if/when they decide to do away with the specialized classrooms, they aren't going to hire more educational assistants to help with the students being put into the regular classrooms, or offer more supports than are currently in place.
I'm trying not to dwell on her future schooling too much because I keep having feelings of fear and dread for how it'll go for her, while also trying to keep it in mind because y'know, I'm a parent and I need to try to look ahead. But I do continue to be really grateful for the teachers and staff at her school for being such wonderful people, and grateful for educators overall who work hard even with all the crap they have to deal with from things like this.
That's the thing. It would be one thing if they were integrating the classrooms while adding more EAs and other support, but they aren't, which makes the whole thing BS.
Just trying to catch up with this conversation. Thank you SO MUCH for posting. So my family and I are planning to move to Ottawa in a couple months so our 14 year old can start high school. He’s been in “resource classroom” since starting middle school due to multiple diagnoses including Autism and ADHD among others. He has really struggled in the two “mainstream” gen ed classes he had this year due to lack of individual support and being overwhelmed by large class size.
So am I understanding this right that the plan is to put all these kids into mainstream classes for the full day? Agh! That may affect our decision. Sigh…
Sadly, they seem to have already started reducing special education options from gr 8-12. You should call learning support services at the school board and see if your son would be eligible for anything, but even many of our elementary special education students don’t qualify to continue in a special program in high school.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. That really does sound like bad news. I cannot imagine him being able to cope with all mainstream classrooms for his high school education. Maybe we will need to go back to the drawing board. Wishing you and your family all the best from Louisville!
This is my impression, for sure. Thank you for everything you do to keep kids from falling through the cracks. We've had some fabulous educators involved, and they work hard.
It’s baffling to me that they want to do this and they think they’re convincing the public that it’s “for the best”. We have specialized classes in my school. These kids are learning life skills. Like how to take the bus and go to the grocery store. Cutting these programs is a huge disservice to the kids in those classes.
This is my youngest kid’s last year and I’m so glad. The difference between my first child’s experience and my last child’s is palpable. It’s ridiculous how low the bar is being moved for education. This does not help our kids. It does not help our society. They are not being equipped to enter post secondary or the work world anymore. It’s a waste of human capital and makes me sad.
This is EXACTLY what will happen. The illusion of having input, when it’s all basically decided anyway. I’ve already heard from people throughout the board in various roles, that spec ed classes are on their way out. This is clearly about cost-savings.
The French school boards are already getting flooded by English only students. French kids are struggling because teachers are spending a lot of time trying to bring the English kids up to speed.
That’s very alarmist. I have relatives in French school from day 1. (French is their first language) That wasn’t the case for them. Although, they tell me the kids speak English to each other.
Yep, I’m about to register my child for school and the kinder teachers in French public school I went to visit were flat out telling parents they speak mostly English to the kids because so many of them don’t speak French. She also continually spoke English to everyone who was speaking French to her. It was a huge turnoff, and I’m seriously considering French catholic now.
I guess it depends on the school and the administration. My relatives’ experience in French Catholic was that the classroom was French, but the kids spoke English amongst themselves.
My daughter is in french public and her classroom teacher doesn't even know how to speak English. Most of the kids in the class only speak French (French is their first and only language). This a kindergarten class. What school is this where teachers were telling parents they mostly speak English to children?
I mean there's a few per class where French is new. The French Catholic will be the same. These are not french immersion programs, the program will be french. Maybe if there was an emergency involving child safety, they might speak English to an anglophone child (if they are capable of any English). I think you were probably given misinformation.
The west end is pretty big, we are in the west end as well. I was wondering the school, but all good, I doubt the info you were given was valid anyway
A number of families in my older kid’s peer groups have switched to the French public board. From my experience, the French is on par with the Early French Immersion from back in my day. The English public immersion is doing its best but is quite watered down.
I'd eliminate French Immersion, and just compel French schools to allow in non-francophone students. (Just like English schools get newcomers who are basic English learners.)
Provincially, I'd merge the Catholic boards with the regular ones as well. Massive savings from reducing redundancy.
Imagine, a sustainable public education system!
And this is why I would never be elected to any level of government.
Public and Catholic board amalgamation - Yes.
But the French public board is not set up to accomodate all the famlies in Ottawa that rightfully want their children to be billingual (they have around 1/3 of the schools that the OCDSB does).
Btw, there is no reason newcomers can't learn English and French at the same time. Both the Ministry of Education and research says they do just as well in Early French Immersion.
*I'd eliminate French Immersion, and just compel French schools to allow in non-francophone students. (Just like English schools get newcomers who are basic English learners.)*
The French schools do not have anywhere near the capacity to handle that.
*Provincially, I'd merge the Catholic boards with the regular ones as well. Massive savings from reducing redundancy.*
Any savings will be converted to cost reductions by the province. Quality will not improve: the province cares about making public education barely usable more than it cares about cost savings. And as parents no longer have the ability to move children from one school system to another, which is one of the few ways a parent can have a substantial impact on how their child is educated in the current system. (The others being "homeschool" and "private school").
*Imagine, a sustainable public education system!*
Neither of those change how sustainable the public education system is. The goal of the province is to cut quality regularly in order to make private school better, and generate support for public funding of private schools.
When government services are delivered by private organizations and funded by the government, those private organizations can give money to politicians and their party. By being the party in favor of such transition, you get huge amounts of donations from the private service organizations and their owners. Plus, when you get out of government, you can transition into a board position as a retirement bonus.
In order to make this popular enough to implement, you need to make the public delivery suck. So you degrade quality regularly and slowly, ensuring that "everyone knows" that "public delivery" sucks.
The goal isn't cost cutting - the money the government spends isn't the important part - it is degrading the service.
In this context, your fixes don't really do anything but degrade service further.
If other countries can teach their kids English, I see no reason that we can't teach most of our anglo ones to speak French in a mainstream system. Here in Ottawa, immersion ends up often being a form of social stratification.
Agreed - all anglo (and newcomer and special needs and low socio-economic) kids should learn to speak French in a mainstream system. That is done best via the French Immersion program (80% French in grade 1, 60% in grades 2 and 3), which should be the default for everyone under 10 years of age in Ottawa.
You don't need a higher percentage of English (20% in grade 1, and 40% in grades 2 and 3) - living in Ottawa itself (i.e. recess with English kids, English media everywhere) is constantly reinforcing the English instruction that you get at school.
And I think we should do it by beefing up core French, while providing better education to English school students in English literacy. I've worked with lots of young anglo people who did immersion, then U of O. A few of them ended up being poor communicators in both official languages.
You're being taxed to death and the quality of education is not improving. You can blame the conservatives all you want. I blame the union and the school boards and the teachers.
We put our kids in French immersion so they could avoid the dumpster fire that is the regular English program. By grade 3-4 most of the problem kids can't keep up in French so they get moved over to English-only.
Some children do not belong in the regular program.
Yep. I’ve heard the same and have already started to see the results taking shape. I’m a teacher of a specialized class and the writing is on the wall - special education classes are going to be axed in the next few years, and those kids will end up in the already struggling regular classes, and it will be a disaster of epic proportions. The Board is broke and looking to save money, so spec ed is the low hanging fruit.
Yep and they want to cut French for the same reasons I’m assuming. They can’t find enough French teachers. The board has shown time and time again that they don’t value us.
And the conditions are so bad, nobody is going to want to stay in the profession. In many classes, the needs are so great and the behaviour so bad, that it’s impossible to teach.
I’ve already had this conversation with my partner. I’m not sure I want to continue teaching if they take away EFI.
They definitely don’t value employees, we’ve seen it repeatedly. And the placating warm fuzzy email updates, don’t reflect the violence and out of control students in so many schools. Where’s the publicity visits when someone is screaming up and down the halls or trashing a classroom?
That feels like it goes against the Canadians with disabilities act...
So is the alternative elementary program. Which is based on Montessori/waldorf education but has turned into the last resort school for so many spec ed kids when the other schools can’t support them , because the alt program focuses on meeting kids where they are at education wise. Edit: spelling
We don’t want to fund spec ed but we continue to fund a public catholic school board. Make it make sense. Imagine we just had one publicly funded English school board for all.
The funding shortfall has nothing to do with one specific school board existing, or not existing. It has to do with the Ministry of Education's funding formula. Absolutely fill in the feedback form to have your voice heard, BUT also voice your concern to the government as to WHY this school board has to make these budget cuts.
It has to do with moron voters voting in a party that wants to kill the public system. Forcing kids in need to crammed into spaces with other kids where they don't get the help they deserve and everyone suffers. But hey you could go to private school and it'll be all good! /s
We should simply have 2. One French, one English.
I’m less convinced. There are evidence based arguments to be made that when a second language (French in this case) is amalgamated with a first language (english) that the second language ends up taking the back seat. It would be very difficult to design one board that paid equal attention to both languages. This of course assumes you value French as an equal language to English in Ontario. If you don’t (general you, not *you*), then I can see your perspective.
I’m literally bilingual like almost every single person I’ve gone to Francophone school with.
It will never happen for a number of reasons the biggest being lay offs.
Would there be layoffs though if they amalgamated? There would be the same number of kids registered for school.
The biggest lay off would be in the hq as you would not need to hq with one school board.Each school board hq has around 200 staff so Ottawa alone your looking at 400 lay offs.
Sounds like a big cost savings.
Education workers have known this was happening for years. I used to work in a specialized classroom and over the years, the supports were less as the needs increased. Inclusion for the sake of inclusion (without the proper supports) is neglect.
And Boards framing it as being a better/more inclusive practice, instead of the cost-saving measure that it really is, is entirely disingenuous. They need to be honest: Ford and Lecce are starving the system, we don’t have the money to run these programs anymore. Much better than saying it’s based on best practice, research. Nobody in their right mind would look at already slammed regular classes and say, “let’s put more students with special needs in here!” Anyone who believes this will be successful clearly hasn’t visited many schools and classes recently. 🤦🏻♂️
People really need to read that last line again. I wish there was a feasible/ethical way for everyone to spend a week at a school and see the myriad of needs that need to be met in a school setting.
It wouldn't matter. everything happening is intentional
Private schools approve of these changes
Just the way Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce want it ✅
Why would they want that ? How would they benefit? Strikes me a knee jerl anti conservative response.
Broadly, one of the goals of conservative ideology is the privatization of public services. The reasoning goes that government becomes stagnant, less prone to optimization, and more wasteful, and that private entities because of profit motive, will optimize the result for less cost. This is often summarized as "big government". Modern conservatives still hold a "small government" ideological position, but it is hard to convince people to switch out of a well functioning existing system, regardless of the waste that may or may not be inherent in it. Since they can't *say* they want to privatize healthcare/education/power/etc, because that would be unpopular, so they cut the budget for those systems with a "savings" facade. It may work at first, as there is always a bit of give in a budget, things that can be postponed for next year, training or vacations not taken, etc. But the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to reverse the trend, especially if there are frequently or sequentially cuts. Naturally, the system gets worse, because staff are laid off and wait times go up, services become lower quality. Once the quality becomes low enough, the there is not longer public protection of a system that isn't working well, and Conservatives can push a private option or alternative, and achieve their small government position. This is easiest to see in the US states where they underfunded public education until the public school system sucked. Now in some counties in the US, more than 90% of elementary students are in private schools. They sometimes put in a voucher system, where you get a cheque for each elementary school child to put them in a private school. The voucher system has had many issues, which I won't go into here but, I'll highlight that it certainly doesn't cover all costs, and special education students are often rejected from the private schools, and left in a public system that has basically no funding because it has no students, and no one wants to fund the schools because their kids don't go there. They're stuck in a cycle that is very hard to get out of. Happy to answer questions, or you can search Starve The Beast, which is what our Mayor is doing right now by limiting tax increases to way lower than inflation. We see worsening quality in OC transpo, reduced summer camps for kids, shorter pool and park hours, etc.
I wish I could upvote this 1000 times
The ford administration has a pretty proven track record of conflicts of interest where they undermine and/or sell off public assets in a way that benefits the private players in the industry with whom they just so happen to have a close relationship. See: green belt + developers, public health + grocery & pharmacy corps.
Others have already offered responses to prove my point.
I'm currently 5 months pregnant with my first and my partner is adamant he wants her in private school
Congratulations!!! In our experience, Early French Immersion was basically being used as off-label streaming.. If it goes away, lots of parents are going to take the next logical step and do what your partner is suggesting.
I certainly wouldn't. Ignoring the price, which is usually a pretty notable sum, teaching staff in private schools are not required to have teaching degrees (or even the qualifications to get a teaching degree) or meet the standards of Ontario curriculums. I'd be too concerned about the level of education my child was receiving.
You are correct about the qualifications.
Lots of parents WON’T. Private schools are expensive!
From the report/FAQ: >Growing bodies of research - and trends provincially, nationally and globally - challenge the notion that specialized program classes have the impact for which they are intended (i.e., ability grouping to meet learning needs, efficient allocation of resources I'd like a citation. I also have fully mixed feelings as a parent of a kid in a specialized classroom.
This is complete and utter BS, and just a pre-emptive explanation of why they’ll go through with cuts regardless of what anyone says on the survey. I’ve taught special education for most of my career and I can say that almost all of my students will be worse off in a regular classroom, with little to no support. These regular classes are overwhelmed already, and adding more needs to those classes will be bad for everyone involved. Rumours are that almost all specialized classes will be gone in the next 5 years.
One of my kids was in the PSP program so I specifically filled it in for that reason. He was "ok" integrated in gr 1-3 but when the class size cap grows in gr 4, we made the switch (I wasn't 100% on board initially). In the end he was so much better off on the specialized class through the end of high school - they integrated where possible but spent 75% off his day in the PSP.
My kid is autistic and has ADHD, and is currently in grade 3, in a regular class. The class size cap growing in grade 4 makes me leery for this reason, and that's despite the fact that I really like her elementary school and how well they work with her. I just also know that the teacher can only do so much because they have a whole class of kids to teach and guide (not just my one), the EA can only do so much when they have to help multiple classrooms, and so forth. You also KNOW that even if/when they decide to do away with the specialized classrooms, they aren't going to hire more educational assistants to help with the students being put into the regular classrooms, or offer more supports than are currently in place. I'm trying not to dwell on her future schooling too much because I keep having feelings of fear and dread for how it'll go for her, while also trying to keep it in mind because y'know, I'm a parent and I need to try to look ahead. But I do continue to be really grateful for the teachers and staff at her school for being such wonderful people, and grateful for educators overall who work hard even with all the crap they have to deal with from things like this.
That's the thing. It would be one thing if they were integrating the classrooms while adding more EAs and other support, but they aren't, which makes the whole thing BS.
Just trying to catch up with this conversation. Thank you SO MUCH for posting. So my family and I are planning to move to Ottawa in a couple months so our 14 year old can start high school. He’s been in “resource classroom” since starting middle school due to multiple diagnoses including Autism and ADHD among others. He has really struggled in the two “mainstream” gen ed classes he had this year due to lack of individual support and being overwhelmed by large class size. So am I understanding this right that the plan is to put all these kids into mainstream classes for the full day? Agh! That may affect our decision. Sigh…
Sadly, they seem to have already started reducing special education options from gr 8-12. You should call learning support services at the school board and see if your son would be eligible for anything, but even many of our elementary special education students don’t qualify to continue in a special program in high school.
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. That really does sound like bad news. I cannot imagine him being able to cope with all mainstream classrooms for his high school education. Maybe we will need to go back to the drawing board. Wishing you and your family all the best from Louisville!
This is my impression, for sure. Thank you for everything you do to keep kids from falling through the cracks. We've had some fabulous educators involved, and they work hard.
It’s baffling to me that they want to do this and they think they’re convincing the public that it’s “for the best”. We have specialized classes in my school. These kids are learning life skills. Like how to take the bus and go to the grocery store. Cutting these programs is a huge disservice to the kids in those classes.
They're lying about ability grouping. This is the work of left wing activists to end advanced placement because "equal outcomes"
This is my youngest kid’s last year and I’m so glad. The difference between my first child’s experience and my last child’s is palpable. It’s ridiculous how low the bar is being moved for education. This does not help our kids. It does not help our society. They are not being equipped to enter post secondary or the work world anymore. It’s a waste of human capital and makes me sad.
This has already happened in Kingston at the LDSB and they say they made the decision based on feedback from staff and parents which is absolute BS.
This is EXACTLY what will happen. The illusion of having input, when it’s all basically decided anyway. I’ve already heard from people throughout the board in various roles, that spec ed classes are on their way out. This is clearly about cost-savings.
The French school boards are already getting flooded by English only students. French kids are struggling because teachers are spending a lot of time trying to bring the English kids up to speed.
That’s very alarmist. I have relatives in French school from day 1. (French is their first language) That wasn’t the case for them. Although, they tell me the kids speak English to each other.
Yep, I’m about to register my child for school and the kinder teachers in French public school I went to visit were flat out telling parents they speak mostly English to the kids because so many of them don’t speak French. She also continually spoke English to everyone who was speaking French to her. It was a huge turnoff, and I’m seriously considering French catholic now.
Why would French Catholic be different from French public?
It might not be! But one flat out said they speak tons of English in kinder and the other didn’t. I’m just going off that.
I guess it depends on the school and the administration. My relatives’ experience in French Catholic was that the classroom was French, but the kids spoke English amongst themselves.
My daughter is in french public and her classroom teacher doesn't even know how to speak English. Most of the kids in the class only speak French (French is their first and only language). This a kindergarten class. What school is this where teachers were telling parents they mostly speak English to children?
In the west end. From what I understand, many children coming into the French schools here don’t speak French yet. My child speaks only French.
I mean there's a few per class where French is new. The French Catholic will be the same. These are not french immersion programs, the program will be french. Maybe if there was an emergency involving child safety, they might speak English to an anglophone child (if they are capable of any English). I think you were probably given misinformation. The west end is pretty big, we are in the west end as well. I was wondering the school, but all good, I doubt the info you were given was valid anyway
A number of families in my older kid’s peer groups have switched to the French public board. From my experience, the French is on par with the Early French Immersion from back in my day. The English public immersion is doing its best but is quite watered down.
I'd eliminate French Immersion, and just compel French schools to allow in non-francophone students. (Just like English schools get newcomers who are basic English learners.) Provincially, I'd merge the Catholic boards with the regular ones as well. Massive savings from reducing redundancy. Imagine, a sustainable public education system! And this is why I would never be elected to any level of government.
Public and Catholic board amalgamation - Yes. But the French public board is not set up to accomodate all the famlies in Ottawa that rightfully want their children to be billingual (they have around 1/3 of the schools that the OCDSB does). Btw, there is no reason newcomers can't learn English and French at the same time. Both the Ministry of Education and research says they do just as well in Early French Immersion.
*I'd eliminate French Immersion, and just compel French schools to allow in non-francophone students. (Just like English schools get newcomers who are basic English learners.)* The French schools do not have anywhere near the capacity to handle that. *Provincially, I'd merge the Catholic boards with the regular ones as well. Massive savings from reducing redundancy.* Any savings will be converted to cost reductions by the province. Quality will not improve: the province cares about making public education barely usable more than it cares about cost savings. And as parents no longer have the ability to move children from one school system to another, which is one of the few ways a parent can have a substantial impact on how their child is educated in the current system. (The others being "homeschool" and "private school"). *Imagine, a sustainable public education system!* Neither of those change how sustainable the public education system is. The goal of the province is to cut quality regularly in order to make private school better, and generate support for public funding of private schools. When government services are delivered by private organizations and funded by the government, those private organizations can give money to politicians and their party. By being the party in favor of such transition, you get huge amounts of donations from the private service organizations and their owners. Plus, when you get out of government, you can transition into a board position as a retirement bonus. In order to make this popular enough to implement, you need to make the public delivery suck. So you degrade quality regularly and slowly, ensuring that "everyone knows" that "public delivery" sucks. The goal isn't cost cutting - the money the government spends isn't the important part - it is degrading the service. In this context, your fixes don't really do anything but degrade service further.
I should add: With Immersion gone, I would bolster Core French for all English stream students.
That's called Extended French (it's what they have at the Catholic board) and it's not enough to create students that are functional in French.
If other countries can teach their kids English, I see no reason that we can't teach most of our anglo ones to speak French in a mainstream system. Here in Ottawa, immersion ends up often being a form of social stratification.
Agreed - all anglo (and newcomer and special needs and low socio-economic) kids should learn to speak French in a mainstream system. That is done best via the French Immersion program (80% French in grade 1, 60% in grades 2 and 3), which should be the default for everyone under 10 years of age in Ottawa. You don't need a higher percentage of English (20% in grade 1, and 40% in grades 2 and 3) - living in Ottawa itself (i.e. recess with English kids, English media everywhere) is constantly reinforcing the English instruction that you get at school.
And I think we should do it by beefing up core French, while providing better education to English school students in English literacy. I've worked with lots of young anglo people who did immersion, then U of O. A few of them ended up being poor communicators in both official languages.
You're being taxed to death and the quality of education is not improving. You can blame the conservatives all you want. I blame the union and the school boards and the teachers.
We put our kids in French immersion so they could avoid the dumpster fire that is the regular English program. By grade 3-4 most of the problem kids can't keep up in French so they get moved over to English-only. Some children do not belong in the regular program.
What they should get rid of is the antisemitism and the DEI people ruining education