The evolution of professionalism - Centre for Policy Studies in ...

Policy Trends 1960-1990
During a 30-year Conservative regime spanning the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s,
changes in Ontario education refl ected many North American education trends. In
the 1960s, the government legislated a consolidation of school boards, reducing them
from over 3,000 in number to about 170 and leading to the establishment of large
school boards and district offi ce bureaucracies serving many schools. Changes in
federal immigration policies in the 1960s led to an increase in linguistic, racial, and
cultural diversity in schools. The Toronto and York Boards of Education adopted
the fi rst multicultural policies in education in the 1970s, laying a foundation for
further policy responses to this demographic change. Other education policy trends
leading up to the 1990s were more specifi c to the Ontario context.
In 1969, the federal government introduced the Offi cial Languages Act and
related supports to promote offi cial bilingualism (English and French) across
Canada. The province responded, making Core French an obligatory curriculum
component for Grades 4-10, and establishing French immersion programs in
response to local parental demand. The Ontario Education Act required French
language sections and three francophone trustees on all school boards. In 1991,
the Liberals created the Direction des politiques et programmes d’éducation en
langue française at the Ontario Ministry of Education to manage French language
minority education.
Up to 1986, public funding for Catholic schools extended only to Grade 10. In
one of its last acts, the Davis Conservative government mandated full funding for
the Catholic system through secondary school. The decision was supported by the
other political parties, although private schools operated by other faiths challenged
the policy on the grounds of religious discrimination; the policy was ultimately
upheld in the courts.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the Liberal government commissioned a report
on education, focusing in particular on the problem of secondary school dropouts
(Radwanski, 1988). The most controversial proposals centered on recommendations
to de-stream the secondary school curriculum, to reduce the secondary program
to four years with a core curriculum for all, and to implement fully funded early
childhood education. These ideas were not enacted into policy by the Liberals, but
they anticipated future policy initiatives.
Major Policies and Policy Initiatives under the NDP Government
Under Bob Rae’s NDP government, the Ministry of Education introduced the
Common Curriculum in 1995, accompanied by Provincial Standards Language,
Grades 1-9, Provincial Standards Mathematics, Grades 1-9, and subject area
curriculum guides. The Common Curriculum brought the concepts of core
curriculum, outcomes-based learning, and curriculum integration into Ontario
policy. The Curriculum integrated traditional subject matter into four broad areas
— language arts, mathematics and science, arts, and self and society. All students
were expected to attain common learning outcomes by Grades 3 and 6.
Transition Years (Grades 7, 8, and 9) (1992), and Program Policy for
Elementary and Secondary Education (Policy/Program Memorandum No. 115,
80 Section 3: Central Canada