Nov. 18, 1999

Thank you very much to you Chair and my apologies for being late today, I was participating in my daily testing program at Queen’s Park and sometimes that runs over a little late in Question Period and the Chair and I were just talking outside about being on the firing line. We have a lot in common these days on those kinds of issues but I really appreciate the invitation to be here and to join you at your Council meeting and have an opportunity to talk directly to you. And many of you I had met in the past and I am sure I’m going to have – is the Sun ready, is it working? Good, okay. We want to make sure the Fourth Estate has got every thing in order here too – and I know I’ll have many opportunities in the future to meet many more of you that I haven’t met before.

I’ve had the opportunity, first in August, to meet with your Chair, with your Vice-Chair and the other senior staff at the College as we discussed a lot of issues of very much mutual interest and it was an opportunity for me to familiarize myself with the College’s work over the past three years --of which there is an awful lot that you’ve done -- and I’ve been very impressed with the scope and the caliber of the work that you’ve been wrestling with, the work that’s been done both by staff and by Council members.

Earlier this week, I had another opportunity to meet with Donna Marie and John and once again we had what Premier Davis used to call full and frank discussions and they were very, very helpful as we move along on a lot of policy issues that are certainly of interest to you today.

As the first governing Council of the College of Teachers, you play a very crucial role in maintaining and in improving the quality of teaching and enhancing learning in our province. I know that you’ve done a lot of hard work to meet that mandate and to try and build a solid foundation as a self-funding independent professional body. And I recognize one of the things from the time I spent at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and I certainly know and appreciate the commitment and the dedication not only of the professional members, the teachers here in the room, but also the public members just as well because all of you have busy lives, you have many other things that you do and this time that you take from those very busy lives is very much appreciated and I know how much time and effort can be consumed by your role here.

Colleges have a very, very unique role and it’s a very, I think, difficult role for many people to appreciate and to fully understand – it’s also a very important role I have always believed very strongly. And because you’re not for the professional members if you will –you’re not necessarily speaking for teachers, you’re speaking on behalf of teachers in the public interest. And as public members, you’re not here to represent any particular special group or organization, you’re here to speak in the public interest. And it’s a very, very unique role and many organizations do not have the challenges that you have to walk that very, very delicate, but very, very important line, as you do the work that you do here and will continue to do in the future.

I have spent the last couple of months meeting with many of the groups and the organizations in the education sector. In a fit of new Minister optimism I said that my door was open, that I would meet with all the interested groups from the education sector – no one had told me how many there are.

So it has been time-consuming but it also has been, for me, a very useful exercise, a very useful opportunity to hear where all of the different groups are coming from, to get a clear understanding of the various issues and the points of view, but also to open up what I hope will be good communications links between the different sectors and also use that as a building block for good effective working relationships, which I think again will be very important as we move forward in the education sector.

And it’s certainly one of the reasons I am here today because the Ontario College of Teachers is a key partner in a collaborative effort to provide the best quality education system we can for our children.

I need your advice, I need your support, I need your skills, I need your expertise. If we are going to jointly equip Ontario’s youth with the learning tools and the knowledge that they’re going to need to succeed in a very very rapidly changing world.

Here’s the body regulating the teaching profession. You bring together teachers, parents and all of the other education partners with a common purpose and that is of strengthening the quality of the teaching profession, which in turn improves the quality of the classroom learning.

For example, I am aware of the work you have been doing on standards of practice and professional learning and I believe it’s very important work that’s going to contribute to quality education. I also know that our perspectives are going to differ. We are going to have different views on some issues – I can’t imagine which ones they might be but I am sure there might be some. And that’s okay because all of the different groups in education, we all wear different hats and that’s okay too.

But the choice we can make is that we can have those differences around tables such as this and work them out for the benefit of what I believe, based on the discussions I have had with everybody, the common ground we all share. We have very similar goals and that’s to give Ontario’s kids the best quality education that we can and to ensure that Ontario’s teachers are the best that they can be as well.

The future that our kids face – our children face – and I probably don’t need to tell any of you here, especially the parents in the room, but you know people call it the wired world, wired world of tomorrow, world of technology, knowledge-based skills, all of those buzz words that we’ve heard from all of those folks out there in the economy and management consultants who like to speak about these things but it’s important that we recognize that’s the world our children are going into and if the past is any guide, the structure of work, the employment patterns that our children are going to face are going to be very, very different from what we are experiencing today.

And it’s also been said too that many of the children who graduate several years from now are going to be working at jobs that you and I have never even heard of.

So the change to the education system that we have been implementing since 1995 have been initiated to meet those challenges, to respond to those challenges that children are facing. Because we want to ensure that our children have the skills and the motivation to think, to learn, to adapt, to grow and to win out there in a very, very tough global marketplace.

An education system that strives for excellence is one of the most important investments we can make – and not only strives for excellence but can produce excellence. And we all know there are many excellent things that we can point to out there that are happening today as we speak.

But we also know that we have to do an even better job if we want to meet that challenge for our children. So funding, curriculum, standards, overall performance, accountability, all of the past education approaches have cried out for fresh ideas and new directions.

It was considerable agreement that change was needed and many of you may know that back in 1994-1995, we put out several discussions papers based on the consultation that the Premier – party leader at the time-- Mike Harris had done with many, many groups across the province and there was considerable agreement around many of those changes. There was too much school board bureaucracy, property taxpayers were complaining that property taxes for education were going through the roof and teachers in the classroom were sure telling you that they didn’t see those increases in the support that they needed. It was too much spending outside the classroom, there was performance that parents and employers said that was seriously lacking.

Parents wanted more information about their children’s performance and what they were learning and how they could keep and be involved.

We didn’t invent these problems or these challenges but we did accept the responsibility for dealing with them based on what teachers, students, parents, taxpayers told us needed to be done.

And we’ve made some very clear commitments which we take very seriously – the higher standards, more challenging curriculum, more accountability, safer schools, more money in the classroom in a way that is fair and equitable.

And we take those commitments seriously and that’s what guides us, not speculative articles in papers like the Toronto Star – I don’t know if they’re here or not, but anyway. I digress a minute but one thing I would like to mention, since it has dominated a fair bit of attention, is that every year the ministries go through program review.

It’s not a secret, we announce it, we talk about it, and I want to be clear that we intend to respect our promises with respect to education funding as we laid out in the election. Our government is committed, our classroom funding will not only be protected, but enhanced, we are, and we will keep that promise.

We will also keep our promise that we continue to look at ways that we can find spending savings in bureaucracy and waste and duplication and how do we put those savings back into classroom education.

Now, I know our critics like to say that we’ve given up on public education, but that is not the case. Nothing could be further from the truth because education is the building block not only for our economic prosperity in terms of our young people to able to go out there and succeed in whatever profession or work or trade or jobs that they might choose. It’s not only economic prosperity but it’s also quality of life so that those young people can succeed not only in the workplace but also as individuals in the community.

And that is a building block of Ontario. So we take it very seriously and in reforming our education system, we have consulted widely and we have continued and I will continue to seek the advice of all of our education partners.

Now just to touch on a couple of specific issues that I know you are interested in. I am asking you to provide advice on how to implement a teacher testing program that is cost-effective and that addresses the following parameters:

• The regular assessment of the teacher’s knowledge and skills
• Written and other assessment techniques with a link to re-certification
• Remediation for those who fail assessments, and
• De-certification as a consequence of failed remediation.

I am aware that the idea of putting teachers to the test has its worries as recent headlines describe this initiative. I am aware that it may sound threatening to some teachers and I know that for some, they consider it demeaning, but it’s not.

And it’s not meant to be.

Because I know we have excellent teachers in this province. I know because I’ve had some – I’ve had many actually -- who had a real influence in my life and I made the mistake in one of my speeches of actually naming them. I didn’t realize at the time how much effort and energy the media present would put in to tracking them down and finding out who they were and asking them all what they thought of the new Education Minister an d how well she had done in school. I am pleased to report that they’ve all been very, very discreet but also they then to fall into two categories – those who are quite happy to claim responsibility for producing a Mike Harris Cabinet Minister from their classroom and those who don’t.

So it has been interesting. So you’ll forgive me if I don’t name the many teachers who I’ve had but who I remember and who have indeed had an impact on me.

So I understand how important that is for all of our children and I think any parent here and any parent that you ask can tell you how important a teacher is to that child’s education year – extremely important.

Now I also want to be clear that I recognize that many, many teachers participate in various professional learning programs and activities on an on-going basis. Staying up-to-date, though, is not a challenge that is unique to the teaching profession.

All professions, from teachers to lawyers to accountants, to child and health care workers are facing this challenge and they, too, are addressing the need for constant upgrade and while the mechanisms may vary from profession to profession or from regulatory college to regulatory college, the goal of helping the profession both individually and as a group to constantly get better and the challenges to do that are very, very similar because I also recognize that simply testing knowledge does not mean that someone can teach or someone can teach that knowledge.

So we quite recognize that if we’re going to have an effective and appropriate program, we have to make sure that knowledge, skills, abilities are all properly and appropriately assessed so we can ensure that we have the best teachers in our classroom.

The other thing I should mention about it as well is that training, on-going professional development are essential and teacher testing is meant to be a form of quality assurance if you will and a guarantee for all of our students and our parents that all of our teachers are as good as they can be. It’s meant to complement, not replace, current teacher assessments by school boards and principals.

I look forward to receiving the College’s advice by year end and I know that’s a tight deadline and I also understand that several groups, however, including faculties and teacher federations, have already started some very important work on teacher testing and as you formulate your advice to me I encourage you to consult these organizations and other education partners.

In moving forward with this program, we are also seeking the advice of parents, principals, board officials and other education partners. And in addition, ministry staff are continuing their research and work to identify best practices in other professions, other jurisdictions, as part of our on-going policy development in this very important area for a made-in-Ontario solution. And I know that by working together, we are going to ensure that we have a good program that meets the goals that we have set.

I’d like to just touch on a couple of other matters because I want to thank the members, staff of the College, the members of the Council for some very remarkable accomplishments over the past two years because I have been pleased to see you moving forward as a regulatory body with the development of the Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession – I haven’t had an opportunity yet to review this document but I certainly expect and hope I am able to do so soon – and it is my hope that it will prove to be timely and we may wish to consider how we apply these standards to all teachers.

Your members have also responded well to the College’s first accreditation reviews of teacher training programs offered by education faculties in Ontario universities. This is the final year for the pilot phase of the accreditation program and I look forward to receiving an update and further information from the College about a proposed accreditation regulation.

I also look forward to receiving a draft of the ethical standards for teachers, which I understand, is currently being developed by the College. A quality education, as I mentioned, depends very much on quality teaching and I think that this framework is another step to help ensure that.

With the anticipated high rate of retirement by Ontario teachers in the next few years, there is going to be a massive wave of new hires over the next decade and the College’s registry, along with the data from the data from the Ontario Teacher Pension Board and the ministry will be very valuable in predicting and helping us meet shortages of qualified teachers that may occur.

Your study on teacher supply and demand drew public attention to the teacher shortage and I am pleased with the increased number of applicants to faculties of education as more teachers retire, but also as more and more young people understand and recognize the importance, the enjoyment that might come as they stand in front of a classroom and help young people to learn.

Finally, I applaud the College’s new criminal record screening policy, which came into effect last January, because I think that making a criminal reference check a condition of certification for new teachers will ensure that they are worthy of the trust placed into them by their students, their parents and their professional colleagues. And our government supports the notion of requiring all staff that come into contact with children in schools to be screened and we will certainly be keeping you informed of our progress on this initiative.

Before I close, I want to take a few minutes to address some other current issues of concern to you and I know that one of the outstanding items is the College’s six-month extension of the term of the current governing Council to October 31 of next year. I am very pleased to tell you today that the government has approved the College’s request for this extension and I appreciate your patience.

Another is the status of the College’s proposed election regulation, which seeks a number of changes to your first election regulation and this is currently under review by the ministry staff and I hope to give you more information on this matter very shortly.

I know that one of the things that Donna Marie raised with me – we had an opportunity for a telephone call recently and she asked me what I could do about the 18 issues that you had referred to the ministry which had not yet been dealt with.

When I asked staff to answer this question for me, I was answered that we had 21 issues that had not yet been dealt with so I have asked for them to develop a work plan that will enable us to bring closure on other outstanding requests from your organization as soon as possible and again I appreciate your patience for this. I understand one of the reasons for this is when the College was set up, you promptly stole the best and the brightest of staff from the ministry so I used that as my excuse but it is now worn out and we need to move forward with these issues so you can move forward with your job.

In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to working very closely with the College on these and other very important matters that focus on excellence in teaching and in learning because protecting and enhancing resources committed to classroom education is one of the cornerstones of provincial responsibility and we do indeed take that seriously.

And just again because that’s an issue that’s been talked about publicly in the last couple of days, school boards are projected to receive a total of 13.25 billion dollars in funding for 1999-2000 and funding for classroom education will increase to match rising enrolment. The level of classroom funding in the coming year will be 575 million dollars higher than in 1997 and we will continue to keep up the pressure in eliminating waste and duplication in areas outside the classroom such as admin. cost or any other unnecessary bureaucracy.

We will launch initiatives that will ensure safe and productive school environments – you may have heard us talk about some of those under our code of conduct – we also want to continue to support school councils and direct parental involvement in the school system.

The government has a new mandate and a very, very ambitious agenda and I tried to be very clear about the directions of that agenda and what we want to achieve in this particular mandate and I’ve also been very clear about the need for your advice, your assistance, as well as that of the other education partners if we are to meet the challenges that lay ahead for all of us.

The education sector is made up with many different groups, teachers, students, parents, school boards, faculties, educators, trustees, taxpayers and the education system belongs to none of us. It belongs to the children who are going to get their future through it and it belongs to the communities who support our schools.

Your members here, all of you who have dedicated your careers, in some cases, indeed a great part of your lives to education and there is perhaps no greater reward than seeing a student flourish in a positive learning environment that we’ve worked hard to shape and develop. And there’s perhaps no greater privilege than helping our young people with the knowledge and the skills that they need to succeed in their individual lives.

So I look forward very much to our continued working relationship – or I guess the beginning – of hopefully a good relationship and I wish you all the best in your future deliberations. I know if you’re anything like our caucus and our Cabinet, you have people around this table who get along all the time and there is great consensus on all of the issues and I wish you the best in your deliberations.

Thank you very much.

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