According to data available from the ministry of education and statistics Canada from 2000 to 2017, Ontario's English and Catholic public schools at the elementary and secondary levels have seen a 6 per cent decline in student enrollment, while education staff members (teachers, administrators, and early childhood educators) have increased by 8 per cent, and spending has increased by 40 per cent (adjusted for inflation). In other words, Ontario taxpayers paid for an increase of nearly 10,000 more education staff for nearly 137,000 fewer students.
The recently
released Financial Accountability Office (FAO) expenditure estimates for the ministry of education show that $21 billion, or 78 per cent of all school board spending went toward employee compensation from 2018-2019. A Fraser Institute
report also found that 91 per cent of the increase in education spending from 2006 to 2015 went toward compensation.
Earlier this year, the Ontario government provided $1.6 billion to a Teacher Job Protection Fund that would ensure no teacher would lose his or her job due to the changes in class sizes. The 10,000 teaching jobs referred to in the FAO estimates therefore are teachers who will retire or otherwise voluntarily leave their jobs, and will not be replaced.
"While some groups chose to fearmonger and suggest that 10,000 teachers would be fired, that simply isn't what's happening" said Pickel. "Student enrollment has decreased, yet education funding has skyrocketed. We don't need 10,000 more educators when student enrollment has decreased by more than 100,000 since the year 2000."
The Financial Accountability Office estimates state that education spending has increased on average 3.3 per cent per year for the last five years, and will continue to go up by one per cent each year for the next five years.
