Education Minister Stephen Lecce must really want to be a magician- making elephants or something outlandish disappear, then reappear behind you. Maybe that explains his tactic of making cuts to education, then announcing the addition of nearly 2 000 more educators all while introducing new legislation that will further centralize education and enable his Tories to make school properties available to their developer friends.
Actually, he’s not a great magician, but Mr. Lecce certainly knows how to wrap everything up into a big ball of mess in order to distract people from seeing what’s really going on.
On Sunday, he announced his new math and literacy plan, telling reporters that the Ministry would be spending $71 million for math and another $109 million for literacy over 2023-24 to improve results for just over 2 million students in Ontario public schools who have faced 3 years of disrupted teaching over COVID. This money should provide for new lessons, new tests and 1 000 staff. But with 4 832 public schools across the province that comes to about 1 staff member for every 5 schools. NDP Education critic, Chandra Pasma called it a drop in the bucket in a time of crowded classrooms and limited supports. “It’s incredibly frustrating as a parent and an education critic.”