HUNTSVILLE - Parry Sound-Muskoka Green party candidate Matt Richter debated the politics of education on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin on Monday night.
Richter squared off against Leona Dombrowsky, minister of education; Conservative Elizabeth Witmer, Rosario Marchese of the NDP and Kate Hammer, education reporter with The Globe and Mail in a discussion about the Ontario Liberal record on education.
The theme of the discussion was whether Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, after eight years in office, has the credibility to be called the “education premier.”
While Dombrowsky pulled out the small but steady increase in Education Quality and Accountability Office standardized test scores and the fact that there hasn’t been a day lost to labour disputes in elementary and secondary schools during the Liberal’s time in power as proof that the party’s education policies are working, the other candidates disagreed.
Richter, a teacher at Muskoka Falls Public School made several points, but the centre point of his argument seemed to be abolishing the standardized testing.
He said the program costs $35 million and the money would be far more effective if put toward special education.
“Teachers are saying we used to teach to the kids, now we teach to the test,” he said.
Richter said that the test scores are largely meaningless and that an emphasis on report cards as the marker of students’ achievement is more effective.
“The stress students and teachers are put under is simply not appropriate,” he said of the tests, which are given to students in Grades 3, 6 and 9.
Special education was a topic of debate, with Marchese returning to it repeatedly, saying that support for students with learning disabilities and other challenges is far less than adequate under the current education model.
Richter said that by eliminating the current standardized testing the province could afford to hire 1,000 education assistants to better meet special education needs.
He said students with special needs receive support until Grades 3 or 4, “Then it’s all of a sudden cut back.”
Schools as community hubs were also a subject of debate. Richter conceded that the Liberal government has a good record in terms of labour relations but said that the concern in rural communities is the ruling party’s backwards approach when dealing with rural schools.
He used Magnetawan Central School as an example of a small school that is being reviewed under the accommodation review committee. The committee gives school boards a say in whether schools are closed.
Dombrowsky argued that the Liberal party has built 400 new schools, while the previous Conservative government had closed many small schools across the province.
Provincial tuition fees for post-secondary education, the highest in the country, were a hot button issue. Paikin posed the question, “Is post-secondary education beyond the means of average people?”
All the party platforms call for a tuition freeze or rebate, something Richter called “empty promises.” The rebate is being pledged by the Liberal party while Richter’s Green party says a freeze is more economically feasible.
“It’s politically sexy to be providing freezes at this time,” said Paikin.
Hammer said that tuition relief promises haven’t been backed up financially in any party’s platform.
Other points of discussion included whether the province is educating people for the jobs of the future, which party has the best plan for education and the future of private fundraising for public schools.