The Decibel - Big changes in Ontario’s education system

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Last week, Ontario introduced new legislation proposing sweeping changes to education in the province – from how school boards are managed, to having attendance make up part of final grades for high school students. This is the latest in a string of changes that serve to centralize oversight over Canada’s largest education system. The Globe’s education reporter, Dave McGinn, joins the show to talk about why Ontario says it’s introducing these changes, and what parents and teachers want to see going forward. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Last week, Ontario introduced new legislation proposing sweeping changes to education in the province. From how school boards are managed to making attendance a mandatory part of final grades for high school students. This is just the latest in a string of big changes that looks to centralize oversight of the education system. It's being led by Ontario's Minister of Education, Paul Calandra. In the last school year, there were 2 million students in Ontario's public school system. That's more than a third of the total public student population across Canada. So today, the Globe's education reporter Dave McGinn is here. He'll explain why the province said it's introducing these changes

and what parents and teachers want to see. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi Dave, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. So first off, Dave, can you give us a kind of high-level sense of the big things that have changed in Ontario over the past year? Big, big changes in Ontario over the past year. It started last April when the province put one school board under supervision. Then in June, it put another four under supervision, including the TDSB, which is the biggest school board in the country.

last fall, the province passed legislation that makes it easier for the minister to put boards under supervision. Since then, three other boards have been placed under supervision, bringing the total to eight. And then just last week, the province introduced legislation that represents a huge change to the way school boards in this province are structured. Okay, we'll get into the new legislation and the proposals there. But before we do, because Ontario has taken over, eight school boards already. What does it actually look like for the province to take over a school board?

So, yeah, so to date, the province currently has eight boards under supervision. That includes the two biggest boards in the province being the Toronto District School Board and the Peel District School Board. I think it represents something like a third of students.

I know. TDSB, for example, has like 250,000 students. So huge numbers here. Huge number of students under supervision. And that means that the trustees representing those communities have all been sidelined. And decisions for those boards are all being made by a single supervisor who is in charge of them. Okay. You talked about trustees a couple of times here.

And there are changes to trustees in this legislation. Tell me exactly what a trustee is and what they were able to do before. Trustees are democratically elected positions that represent their communities. within a board, their responsibilities previously range from shaping the budget, creating the budget, hiring the director of education, and among several other things, also sort of, you know, being the voice for their communities in schools. So if parents or families were having an issue with their schools, they could go to their trustee and have their trustee advocate for their concerns on their behalf.

Okay, so all school boards have trustees. And is this something that's common across school boards, not just in Ontario, but in other provinces as well? It is very common across Canada. Okay. And so what can a trustee in Ontario do now? Well, it's very interesting because this new legislation answered the question, will Minister Calandra eliminate the role of trustees altogether? There was a lot of concern about that coming into this legislation. The legislation keeps trustees.

It limits the number of trustees to 12 per board, which it only really affects the TDSB. Every other board has no more than 12 at the moment. But what it means is that trustees have a very limited role now. They can advise on the budget. They can make suggestions on the budget. And they can still be that voice for their communities, but their power has been greatly curtailed. Okay. So this is under the new legislatures.

that we learned about from last week. Yes. Okay. So the province did end up taking over eight school boards. Ontario has 72 in total. Why has the Ontario government said they needed to do that? They've pointed to a couple of reasons. The biggest being, one, financial mismanagement, and two, what the province say is poor governance decisions.

Over the past couple of years, there have been some stories about boards not making the greatest decisions that I think a lot of people would point to to say, this is evidence why the whole system needs revising or rethinking. So in 2024, some members of the Brandt-Haldeman, Norfolk Catholic District School Board took a trip to Italy to buy statues. And I think they spent about $140,000 on this trip. And, you know, the minister said that is not good governance. That's not good decision making.

There's also, you know, a group from the Tames Valley District School Board took a retreat in Toronto where they stayed at the hotel at the Roger Center where the Blue Jays play and spent a huge amount of money on that trip. And again, Mr. Clander has pointed to this as an example of boards not only making poor decisions. but spending public money in a way that is to him, and I'm sure to many people in this province, simply unacceptable. What's interesting here is that the Brandt-Haldeman Norfolk Catholic District School Board, which is the one that they took a trip to Italy, spent $140,000. This is not one of the boards that the Ontario government took over. No, they were not put under supervision. I think they were given a pretty strong warning that this sort of behavior would not be tolerated in the future. But surprisingly, no, it was not put under supervision.

Do we know how the government decides which school boards to take over? Like, why the eight that they chose? In the past, to put a board under supervision, it would require a finding of financial mismanagement. According to legislation that was passed last fall, the minister is free to take over any board he wants when it is deemed to be in the public interest. Okay. Just last week, new legislation was introduced that would first. further change how school boards are run. So these changes haven't passed yet.

But can you tell me what the province is proposing? The province is proposing some very, very big changes to the way education is structured in Ontario. So they are proposing replacing a director of education with two roles. One would be a CEO who runs the business operations of a board and must have some some business qualifications in their background. And there will also be a chief education officer who will oversee the pedagogical aspects of the board. And then trustees who are around to advise on the budget and help parents' concerns any way they can. Okay.

So two CEO roles here, a CEO and a chief education officer, right? Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see how. it works. I don't know of any other province in the country that has this CEO role. I think it makes sense from the province's perspective to have someone in charge who has a business background and is making decisions from a business perspective when it comes to the finances of the board. What will be interesting to see is how do they run education as a business? Is it using the money they have available for their goals and are their goals just the basics of reading, writing,

and math, or do they see a greater need for the sort of supports that a lot of other people have been calling for? Again, we're going to see how these CEOs pursue their jobs and see their jobs. Yeah, because when I hear the word CEO, I think about business, right? And education isn't the same as a business. So it will be very interesting to see how a CEO acts in a role like this. Yeah, very much so because what are their objectives? You would think, you know, when I think of a business, I think of trying to maximize profit.

But that doesn't really apply to education. I think probably the most likely scenario is someone who is making sound decisions with the budget that they have. But again, who gets to decide what those sound decisions are? Right? Like is it the provinces stressed that they want to go back to basics and and teaching kids, you know, reading, writing and math. And certainly there's nothing wrong with that. But there are many groups who say that school budgets have been cut so much lately that there's a dire need for supports like school counselors and other supports like that. And will CEOs see a case for that or will CEOs see those sorts of things as as unnecessary or superfluous? We still have yet to say. What have parents said about the changes and the proposed changes? Parents have been very worried about the elimination of trustees. Parents have said that without trustees, you will not have community voice influencing schools. So I do think many parents were happy to see the trustee role continue in this new legislation.

but we have yet to see how that role will actually play out with its more limited powers. We'll be right back. So Dave, part of this new legislation is proposing a change to how attendance factors into a high school student's final grade. And this is getting a lot of attention. Can you tell me what exactly is being proposed? It's getting a lot of attention. What is being proposed is that for grade, it will only apply to high school students. For students in grade 9 and 10, participation and attendance will count for 15% of their final grades.

And for students in grades 11 and 12, attendance will count for 10% of their final grade. What's behind these changes? There has been a pretty stark drop in attendance rates since the pandemic. New data from the province has shown that only about 40% of high school. students in Ontario met the standard for attendance in the past school year. The standard is attending 90% of school days in any given year. And when you look at the numbers of kids meeting that standard now, it's pretty sobering. And it explains why the province has made this an issue.

So before the pandemic, about 50% of grade 12 students met the standard. Most recently, only 30% of kids in grade 12 meet the standard. For kids in grade 9, almost 70% of them met the standard before the pandemic, whereas now only about 45% of them met the standard. So there has been this huge drop in attendance since the pandemic. The question is, why is that? Most people acknowledge that there has been this sort of cultural change since the pandemic. the pandemic where school is seen as optional in a way that it simply wasn't before. But people will also tell you that since the pandemic, youth mental health issues are also at

crisis levels. So, you know, what percentage of kids are not attending school simply because they think it's optional? And what percent of kids are missing school because they have such a hard time? actually getting to school because of their anxiety or because they have to work because they come from newcomer families and have, you know, structural reasons why attending school is so difficult for them. That's another question, right? And to be fair, the minister has said that there will be considerations for things like illnesses or extenuating factors. how that actually plays out in the classroom is, again, like, yet to be seen because how do teachers determine who's dealing with what, what students want to disclose what they're dealing with?

You know, it gets a little more complicated. But overall, I think the minister has seen that there's obviously this huge problem in attendance and the province needs to do something about it. And that's why they've introduced this change. It sounds like the government is using kind of a stick approach, right, to try to get students to, to come to class by introducing kind of a punishment almost. What kind of impact could that 10 or 15% have on a student who might be struggling? It's a big portion of their grade, right? And I do think the government is right to say we need to do something about attendance,

because when we look at these numbers, it's obviously a huge concern. But again, at the same time, you know, there are groups who will say that education has been underfunded. to the tune of $6 billion since Ford took office. And if we really want to address attendance issues, then we have to look at the factors behind it and make investments in school counselors and school psychologists and school food programs and all the other supports that might explain why attendance has fallen off such a cliff lately. And that's a more complicated route than having a stick. The government is also proposing a change to how teachers are trained. Tell me about that. Yeah, there is a huge, huge teacher shortage in Ontario and across the country.

And so what the government has proposed is cutting teacher education programs down from two years to one. They want to get more teachers into the system. a lot faster. I think they need to get teachers into the system a lot faster. It will save students a lot of money. And so the province very much wants to speed up the pipeline

of getting teachers into classrooms. And then will that take effect? That is set to take effect in May of 2027. So another thing that happened recently in Ontario, last month, Paul Calandra sent a memo to school boards directing them to keep politics out of school graduations.

Can you tell me about what that was about? Yes, graduation season is upon us. And the education minister said to school boards that he does not want grad ceremonies containing, quote, political views or, quote, divisive or contentious issues. I think when you look across the country, particularly at Alberta, I think a lot of governments have seized on the idea that school has become too political, and they really want to course correct on that. When you look at Alberta and the legislation it recently introduced to remove politics and

quote ideology from the classroom, you can see how this is part of a wider trend and a wider concern amongst governments to rein in what they see as the overly political nature of schools. So when we take all of these changes together that are happening in Ontario, the ones that have been enacted and the ones that have been proposed, it makes Ontario's education system look very different from a year ago. But how does Ontario's system compare to other provinces, broadly speaking? Broadly speaking, when you look at the changes that have been introduced, in Ontario over the last year. It is a concentration of power that is, if not unique, certainly it is a greater concentration of power in the minister's office than most other provinces

across the country. At the end of the day, Dave, when we talk about who this is supposed to be serving, it's the students, right? I know it's early days, but how will these changes impact their quality of education? I think it's going to be interesting. to see how the supervisors who are still in place at the boards that are under supervision make their decisions regarding what we might call, you know, special groups in school. So students with special needs, right? How are they being served? Students who struggle with mental health issues.

How are they being served? I think there are a lot of challenges in education, especially in Ontario. but certainly across the country. And it's going to be interesting to see how this more sort of, you know, business-minded model of education and a greater concentration of power in the minister's office results in serving student needs. And I think the government is very much focused, again, on reading, writing, and math. And so we'll be able to see how those scores improve in the coming years. but what will mean for students who struggle compared to the average student,

you know, that very much remains an open question. Dave, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. That was Dave McGinn, the Globe's Education Reporter. And special message for our listeners in Toronto, drop by the Globe of Mail's pop-up today. We're at Union Station giving away free, that's right, free limited edition Globe hats, tote bags, and today's paper.

along with a special globe subscription just for commuters. You can find the globes pop up at the sampling kiosk in the Bay Concourse of Union Station. It starts at 7 a.m. and runs all day. It's our way of saying thanks and showing how the globe can be part of your everyday world. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our associate producer and intern is Emily Conahan. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mahal Stein. Our editor is David Crosby.

Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.