For the Love of LearningPreamble
December 1994
Dear Mr. Minister: It is with a sense of great hope for the future of the young people of Ontario that we respectfully submit to you the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Learning. Very sincerely yours,
Order in Council
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| On the reccomendation of the undersigned, the Lieutenant Governor, by and with the advice and concurrance of the Executive Council, orders that: | Sur la recommandation du soussigné, le lieutenant-gouverneur, sur l'avis et avec le consentement du Conseil des ministres, décrète ce qui suit: |
WHEREAS the Government of Ontario, in support of its commitment to economic renewal and social justice, has identified the need to set new directions in education to ensure that Ontario youth are well-prepared for the challenges of the 21st century, and
WHEREAS Ontario's public and separate school systems are under continuing pressure to respond to the impact of new technologies and a changing social and economic milieu, and
WHEREAS Ontario residents expect high standards in elementary and secondary education and deserve appropriate measures of accountability, relevant curriculum content to meet the needs of students and society, improved retention rates, effective links to work and higher education, an effective and efficient system of education and increased levels of public involvement in education, and
WHEREAS the Government of Ontario believes that it is in the public interest that ample opportunity be provided for full public participation in the consideration of matters related to the delivery of elementary and secondary education in Ontario, and
WHEREAS pursuant to section 2 of the Public Inquiries Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chapter P.41, whenever the Lieutenant Governor in Council considers it expedient to cause inquiry to be made concerning any matter that he declares to be a matter of public concern, and the inquiry is not regulated by any special law, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by commission, appoint one or more persons to conduct the inquiry, and
WHEREAS the Lieutenant Governor in Council deems it expedient to cause inquiry to be made into education concerns and has concluded that this can best be achieved by means of a public inquiry instituted pursuant to the provisions of the Public Inquiries Act;
NOW THEREFORE, pursuant to the provisions of the Public Inquiries Act, R.S.O. 1990, Chapter P.41, a commission be issued appointing Gerald Caplan, Monique Bégin, Msgr. Dennis Murphy, Avis Glaze and Manisha Bharti commissioners under the designation the Royal Commission on Learning ("Commission"), and appointing Gerald Caplan and Monique Bégin Co-chairs of the Commission, such Commission to present a vision and action plan to guide Ontario's reform of elementary and secondary education and for such purpose to study and report upon the matters set out as follows:
Shared Vision
- What are the values and principles that should guide the education of Ontario's elementary and secondary school students?
- What are the key goals of Ontario's elementary and secondary school system and who are its clients?
- How are strong partnerships in education ensured?
Program
- What knowledge, skills and values do elementary and secondary students need to prepare them for the future?
- How, and by whom, should this body of skills, knowledge and values be developed to fulfill the specific mandate of all publicly funded school systems?
- How should the curriculum in elementary and secondary schools be organized and delivered?
- What is the best way to ensure that more students graduate from secondary school?
- What is the best way to help students make effective transitions into school and from school to work/community life, further education or training?
- How should teachers be prepared for and supported in their new roles and responsibilities to meet the needs of all students? Who should be responsible for teacher education, both before and throughout a teacher's career?
- What is the best way to ensure continuous quality improvement?
Accountability
- What standards should be set for all elementary and secondary students and how and by whom should they be set?
- How should students be evaluated?
- How should student progress be reported?
- How should schools and programs be evaluated?
- To whom should progress be reported and for what purpose?
- Who should be accountable for results achieved in education?
Education Governance (within the constitutional and Charter rights in education)
- What should be the respective roles and responsibilities of the partners in education, e.g., students, parents, teachers, school boards, the community, and the Ministry of Education and Training?
- What accountability mechanisms should exist to ensure that roles are respected and responsibilities met?
- What is the most effective, efficient organizational structure for elementary and secondary education in Ontario?
- What models exist for French language governance within such a structure?
AND FURTHER that the Commission is empowered to request oral submissions and written briefs from any person or organization in the conduct of its enquiries and to engage persons with special knowledge in the matters heretofore mentioned to cause research papers to be prepared in areas of research considered essential to the Commission to formulate its recommendations;
AND FURTHER that the Commission hold public hearings in locations to be determined by the Commission for the purpose of receiving public input into the matters under consideration;
AND FURTHER that all Government Ministries, Boards, Agencies and Commissions assist the Commission to the fullest extent in order that the Commission may carry out its duties and functions, and that the Commission shall have authority to engage such counsel, expert technical advisors, investigators and other staff as the Commission deems proper, at rates of remuneration to be approved by Management Board of Cabinet, in order that a complete and comprehensive report may be prepared and submitted to the Minister of Education and Training;
AND FURTHER that the Commission make interim reports to the Minister of Education and Training at times agreed to by the Commission and the Minister;
AND FURTHER that the Commission make its final report to the Minister of Education and Training; as soon as practicable but not later than the 31st day of December 1994 recommending such changes in the laws, policies, and procedures as in the opinion of the Commission are necessary and desirable to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, relevance and accountability of education in Ontario.
Staff List
| Executive Director*
Raffaella (Raf) Di Cecco Research
Administration
* Jill Hutcheon was Executive Director |
Other Services
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Their way into the future
Our schools will never be perfect. Yet our striving as Ontarians requires that they be better than they have been. Like no other social institution, our schools hold the promise of a way into the future for us all.
It is still dark most mornings at 7:15 as Nelson climbs aboard the big yellow bus. His destination is a Grade 7 classroom at King George school in Northwestern Ontario.
His parents have already left for work, his father to the papermill, his mother to her job as a teller in a local bank. Nelson's breakfast has been prepared by his widowed grandmother, who lives across
the street. This morning, as is often the case, he has been deeply impressed by the wisdom of this serene, and to him, wonderful woman. She has such an easy certainty about life. But as Nelson and his friends travel along a northern road made bumpy with frost boils, their chatter betrays little of this same confidence and certainty.
Nelson has heard his parents discuss the possible closing of the mill and what this will do to their financial future. Today he and a few of his native classmates will be presenting a project on their culture, religion, and the history of Native peoples before the arrival of the Europeans. The reception they can expect from the rest of the class remains a question.
Already some of Nelson's classmates are skipping a lot of school. And, although he is a good student, he is beginning to wonder what the future holds for him. Like many Grade 7 students he finds the curriculum to be somewhat repetitious and of little relevance to the rest of his life. Nelson has obvious athletic talents and is the star of his hockey team. Sports and fitness magazines are his favourite reading. Recently this has led him to become interested in all of the forces and mechanics involved in body movements - what the scientists call kinesiology.
At school, however, he receives scant encouragement for these interests and little in the line of reward for the effort he puts forth. He is increasingly bored by it all. As far as he can see, high school doesn't hold out much hope for anything better, although there is a hockey team there that he would like to play for.
As Nelson begins his daily journey to school, Sally kisses her mother good-bye in Toronto, where it is 8:15. She will catch the bus and subway to the spanking new Arts Academy that she has chosen. There she specializes in drama. One of the things Sally notices is that her teachers, who have also chosen this high school, are as excited as she is about their school and their forthcoming production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
As Sally heads out the door, her mother is less excited. She and her husband miss the support of the community that was so much part of their life in Saskatchewan. Their high-rise seems to breed anonymity, and even the people in their local church seem cold and distant. Despite two incomes - her secretarial wages and her husband's salary with a security firm - she wonders whether they can meet even the minimal needs of Sally and her two younger brothers. She worries about Sally's casual attitude towards sex, the number of her daughter's friends who have become pregnant, the ever-present threat of AIDS, and the constant news reports about the level of drug use and violence in the teenage world.
But as Sally climbs onto the bus that will take her on the first stage of her daily trip to school, she feels that she is already launched upon a career in the world of entertainment. Not only the English and drama courses, but even the courses she takes in history and social science seem related to her ambitions.
Annette has but a 15-minute walk each morning to École Notre-Dame, an elementary school in Eastern Ontario. Her backpack carries both her school books and her lunch - no-one will be home until after 5:30 in the afternoon. She meets Chantal, an immigrant from Senegal, and Jean-Paul on her way, and despite the admonitions of her parents and teachers, they discuss in English the previous night's episode of Star Trek.
Annette's parents have moved to this part of the province so that she can be immersed in a culture, language, and a religious faith on which they place great value. In the evening, however, they feel too tired after work to follow Annette's school career with her. From Annette's report card, they suspect that their daughter isn't reading as well as her Grade 4 classmates. The teacher seems reassuring, but recent newspaper articles have spoken of how reading deficits often go unremedied in the schools. Perhaps they will have to see the teacher, maybe next week ... They wonder sometimes if the financial and material good of the family has come to overshadow all their other family values. As Annette continues on to school, she has little sense that the shape of her future has been touched already by some ambiguity.
For the last two months Patrick has been proudly heading out to school in Windsor at the wheel of his recently purchased '69 Mustang. Twenty hours of work a week at a local fast-food outlet provided the down payment and continues to assure enough money for insurance, gas, and repairs. Most of the repairs he has managed himself. His friends recognize that he is a whiz at anything mechanical. Although an "A" student in his earlier years at school, Patrick doesn't do well at school now. He is often too tired to concentrate after a night's work.
He is fascinated by the technology that is used to diagnose motors and other car components, and he spends hours at auto shows. The school guidance counsellor doesn't seem much interested in Patrick's enthusiasms, nor is she able to find a workplace spot where he could follow up his interests more closely. Most of her interest seems to be in those students who are planning to go to university - and, at least at first blush, Patrick doesn't seem to fit that mold. He has been in high school for three and a half years, and he remains uncertain about his future plans.
There is little uncertainty in Maggie's mind as she heads out to cross the city to the alternative school where she began four months ago. At 27, she finds herself excited for the first time about going to school. As a single parent with a three-year-old daughter, she was devastated when she lost her factory job a year ago. Now, as an adult student, she is taking upgrading courses that are preparing her for the field of medical technology, which has always been her dream.
A program tailored to her specific family and academic needs has been worked out. The school provides on-site daycare for her daughter, and she has surprised herself and her teachers by quickly finishing the first requisite math and chemistry courses in her program.
As we turn the corner to the twenty-first century, Nelson, Sally, Annette, Patrick, and Maggie set out each morning for school in the space age, and in an age of increasingly fragile families. They go into a world of high tech and desperate economic times, as members of a generation that witnesses medical miracles and the ravages of AIDS. Essential to their way into the future is the way in which they will be educated in Ontario's schools. Their journey is the journey of us all - of all citizens of Ontario. Their future is our future, and it depends in no small part on how we educate them.
Preface
Talk about your lifelong learning. For two people whose obsessions, over lo these many decades, have included a mastery of new areas of public policy, the past 20 months have been the equivalent of winning a lottery. We have had the privilege of being able to immerse ourselves in an issue in which neither of us pretended any great recent expertise, about which party politics did not impose particular ideological constraints, and around which there swirls great public controversy. What a treat! We are grateful to whoever decided to choose us for this singular opportunity.
In an eventful year and two-thirds, two aspects of our experiences are perhaps most notable. First is the unexpected lack of consensus that we found to exist in Ontario on just about every aspect of the education system. As we moved around Ontario, we discovered passion, concern, knowledge, myths, commitment, grandstanding - indeed, just about everything but agreement. Ontarians disagreed about what the major problems were and they disagreed about what the solutions were.
Which brings us to our second main observation. To be perfectly honest, when we finished our public hearings we could not conceive how we could find common ground. There was no reason to believe that the five members of the Commission, who were virtual strangers to each other the day we first came together, would not reflect the lack of consensus that existed in the public at large. Yet we ended with a unanimous report. If the argument of our study - that we have the capacity to forge an excellent education system provides grounds for optimism, as we believe it does, then the fact of our unanimity should offer hope that Ontarians might, just might, be able to reach agreement on what its education system should be as we leap across the threshold towards the mystique of the 21st century.
But it was not easy for us and it will not be easy for Ontarians. We were five tough-minded individuals, each with certain concerns that mattered to her or him far more than to the others. Sometimes we persuaded our colleagues of the indispensability of the word or phrase or recommendation we could simply not live without; at other times, each of us somehow learned to live without. Each of us gave up something, a price we consciously chose to pay to achieve the greater goal of a report that was realistic, balanced, and eminently implementable.
If we can do it, why can't Ontario? In the end, we believe our real achievement was being able to tap into the common hopes and desires that ran deep beneath the surface of so many apparently conflicting positions. Obviously we could not adopt every suggestion of every submission. No-one can. It cannot be done. But as two long-time political veterans who have no illusions about how the game is played, we think we honoured - and were able to reconcile - the best ideas of just about every player in the system without ignoring the interests of any of them. If each is prepared to see it this way, to see their glass as half-full rather than half-empty, to show the same flexibility as the Commission itself, we'll be well on the road to building our better education system.
As people with some familiarity with such matters, it seems to us that we were also notable in the history of commissions in Canada and the provinces for another reason: with a relatively modest research staff and secretariat, we were truly creatures of our time in learning how to work smarter with small resources. And we are on time!
Our fellow Commissioners threw themselves into their work with gusto and dedication, and to say we five functioned as complete equals through every long, arduous step of the way would not exaggerate the process one whit.
As for our staff, their commitment and devotion could hardly have been greater. They worked impossible hours, were prodigiously productive and superhumanly efficient, and it is literally unimaginable what would have happened to us without them. They own this report as much as the five whose names appear as commissioners, and our gratitude to them is boundless.
It is normally invidious to single out individuals for special mention in these prefaces. But the two of us have broken customs before, and this is surely an appropriate place to do so again. We're certain neither Dennis Murphy nor Avis Glaze - to whom we owe a huge debt of thanks for their significant contribution - will feel neglected if we make special mention here of our colleague, Manisha Bharti. During the course of our work, friends invariably asked whether Manisha was as good as her reputation suggested. Our answer, invariably, was "Better". We witnessed her steady growth from 17 to 19. We would like to think she learned something from us; certainly we learned enormously from her. It should be sufficient to say that, on top of her other contributions, the title of this report is due entirely to her.
Finally, not to record here our specific debt to Raffaella Di Cecco, our executive director, would simply be a rank injustice. It is entirely possible that this report could have been concluded without either of us; it could not have been done without Raf, whose talents, sensibilities and insights seemed unlimited. Thank you, Raf; when Manisha becomes Prime Minister, one of us will recommend you as Chief of Staff (if only we knew the party affiliation of either of you), or Clerk of the Privy Council (depending on which of us, if either, have the remotest influence at that time).
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Monique Bégin |
Gerald Caplan |
Acknowledgments
Members and staff of the Royal Commission on Learning gratefully acknowledge the help of the thousands of people parents, students, educators, representatives of groups across Ontario - who shared their views, who offered advice, and whose experiences helped clarify the issues before us. By participating in the crucial debate on education, they contributed to the life of the province, now and in the future.
We extend personal thanks to the schools: the principals, teachers, support staff and the many students who assisted us during the hearings. Their hospitality and enthusiasm made our job easier and more pleasurable.
We wish to extend our special thanks to the wonderful youth volunteers who enabled us to hear from and spend time with many students and young people who normally are never seen by those studying education.
We are indebted to Dr. Roberta Bondar for her assistance as the Commission's special advisor in science.
ISBN 0-7778-3577-0
© Copyright
1994, Queen's Printer for Ontario