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

confronted the province about the impact of Bill 160. The Toronto District School
Board (TDSB) announced that it would have to close 138 schools. The province
responded with additional funds to meet the unique needs of TDSB during the
amalgamation process based on student linguistic, cultural, and economic diversity.
The impact of the new funding policies remained an ongoing focus of controversy,
eventually leading to a government commissioned review of education funding
(see Rozanski report further on).
Bill 74, the Education Accountability Act (2000), redefi ned the basis of required
secondary school teacher instructional time from the average number of minutes per
week per teacher (1,250) to the average course load per teacher during the school
year (6.67 out of 8 periods per day, up from 6). This policy was challenged by
teacher unions and by school district administrators, because the Ministry initially
did not count the time teachers spend giving remedial assistance to individual
students. Eventually, the government conceded to more fl exible interpretations
of the instructional time requirements. Bill 74 again attempted, unsuccessfully, to
make teacher participation in non-instructional activities mandatory, authorizing
principals to assign teachers co-instructional activities. Teachers widely opposed
these provisions, not only to retain control over their voluntary contributions to
student learning and school operations, but also because these are the kinds of
services that teachers have traditionally withdrawn in work-to-rule situations. In
the end, that part of the law was not proclaimed. Bill 74 also redefi ned the average
class sizes (24 pupils for primary and 21 for secondary school classes).
The Conservative government continued the secondary school reform agenda
set in motion by the NDP, including the establishment in 1997of a four-year rather
than fi ve-year program beginning with Grade 9, higher standards for graduation,
a more common core curriculum for all students, standardization of report cards,
and a literacy test requirement for high school graduation. The reform also targeted
greater opportunities for work experience, community service, and counselling for all
students through a teacher advisory system. The fi nal design for reform, announced
in January 1998, included decisions to re-stream and re-credit Grade 9 (reversing the
program model under The Common Curriculum), and to restructure the curriculum
from three streams (basic, general, advanced) to two (applied and academic). The
same curriculum content was to be taught at differing levels of diffi culty in each
stream. The reform was to be phased in, starting with Grade 9 in the fall of 1999,
and ending with a double cohort in 2003, when the fi nal class of pupils under the
fi ve-year program and the fi rst under the new system reached graduation.
In order to ensure it aligned with the new high school program, the Ministry
decided to revise the elementary school curriculum. By June 1997, new Grade
1-8 curriculum documents were released for language and mathematics, and
curriculum for other subjects soon followed. The Ontario Curriculum brought
on several key changes — the emphasis on curriculum integration disappeared,
and subject-specifi c learning outcomes and standards were defi ned at each Grade
level, not by division (i.e., at the end of Grades 3, 6, and 9) as in The Common
Curriculum. The new curriculum was accompanied by a standardized report card,
linked to the expectations for each subject and grade, and lesson planning software
to aid with curriculum implementation. Despite concerns about diffi cult content,
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