Ontario plans to roll out curriculum changes focusing on literacy and math skills during the upcoming school year, including a screening test for children in the early years of education.
Speaking at a Toronto Public Library branch on Sunday, Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce unveiled the changes.
Lecce said the new math plan was worth $71 million for the 2023-24 academic year, with $109 million set aside to boost literacy rates in the province. The changes include funds for a number of new staff, new lessons and additional tests.
“We take this seriously,” Lecce said, unveiling the plan. “If we don’t intervene at the front end, and course correct these challenges for these young kids, it can lead to long-term impacts.”
A total of 1,000 new educators will be hired through the program, with 300 focusing on math and 700 on literacy. With around 4,800 schools across the province, the boost will not come close to impacting every classroom in Ontario with new staff.
Answering questions from reporters after the announcement, Lecce said details would be given to school boards shortly. He specified that some funds would focus on the lowest-performing 20 per cent of schools in the province.
Lecce said, however, that not all funding would be “triaged,” and money would also be handed out on an enrollment basis.
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Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, said the money was less than some previous spending announcements and did not provide enough new staff for the number of schools across Ontario.
“There is no way you can overhaul a curriculum in four months and have it ready to go for September,” she added, speaking about the plan. “It again just shows the absolute disconnect that this minister has from the work that happens within his portfolio.”
The province’s plan promises to double the number of math coaches in classrooms to offer specialized help to students, also introducing a “math lead” at every school board to lead the curriculum’s rollout and implementation.
The coaches will be put in place particularly to offer support to struggling students and schools performing below the average standard, while the math leads will be put in place across the country to ensure consistency.
“We’re frankly sending a clear signal to parents and to the education sector: we’ve got to work harder and smarter and produce better results for children,” Lecce said.
The province also said access to digital math tools at any time would be offered, along with teacher-led virtual tutoring for math. Teachers will be offered math-specific training and allowed to take math qualifications to ensure “fluency and competency” at no extra cost.
Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), told Global News the announcement “sounds like positive moves” but that Sunday was the first the union had heard about the plans.
“I heard in the answers the minister gave that they’ve been working on this for a year, and I also heard reference made to connecting with stakeholders. I think education unions would be stakeholders,” she said. “But we as OSSTF have not been consulted.”
The elementary teachers’ union confirmed it had not been consulted ahead of the move.
Ontario’s literacy and writing plan will include a new screening for young children. Students in the second year of kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2 will face a standardized screening tool to catch anyone falling behind early.
Specialist teachers for one-on-one work will also be included, along with “an overhauled language curriculum in September of 2023 with an emphasis on ensuring students at an early age can master basic literacy.”
Lecce said that the spending, valued at $180 million, was new funding not specified in the recent 2023 budget.
He said the announcement was about going “back to basics, back to learning what matters most.”
NDP education critic Chandra Pasma said the funding announced Sunday for the math and literacy programs amounts to less than 50 cents per student.
“There’s no disagreeing that Ontario’s students deserve more support to help develop their math, reading and writing skills, but today’s announcement is a day late and a dollar short,” she wrote in a statement.
— with files from The Canadian Press
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