Furthermore, what about the layers upon layers of bureaucrats at the board office?  What do they do?  Why are there no cuts there, and why does the media always fail to mention the huge chunks of the budgets that they soak up?  All of our government-run institutions are stuffed with them, but it’s never talked about.  hmmm, maybe it’s because the government burearcrats have morphed into mandrins, but even if that were the case, why doesn’t the press grab onto this issue?

Here is one example when I was in Special Ed. in the late 1980’s, In this one Modification class, there were 11 students with ample support.  Along with myself, there was an educational assistant, a one-to-one peer/mentor person and a visiting psychometrist on a regular basis. This may been typical of the staffing during the “heady” 1980’s, but such ratios were quite vital. In the various special education streams, you do need some resourcing.  I hope that the TDSB realizes this as they lop assistant positions.
Also, with the influx of new ECE postings being created, it would seem appropriate that these new hires be mandated to obtain a degree, now that they are in the full mainstream.  This would be akin to elementary teachers in the past having to work towards their BA, many years after they entered the system with just Gr. 13 upon entering teachers’ college.

education assistants will be given a two-year window to become certified as early childhood educators. Humber will offer the necessary courses in the evenings and during school holidays, and education assistants will be allowed to work in full-day kindergarten classrooms.LOL

we need big reform for the education system , they will take our kids hostages ,put a lot of pressure on parents as usual especially on special need kids ,but this time the puplic really learned the trick ,good luck for TEDIOUS boards

To add a little more insult to injury, should the additional certification as ECE cause an EA to move up in the pay grid - they won’t receive the corresponding increase.  McGuinty’s wage freeze is a real zero - zero % increase in pay, 0% movement up the pay scale and 0% recognition of extra qualifications.  They won’t see any money until 2014, and even then, they will simply pick up where they left off - no ‘catch up’ pay.  But, hey, they’ll still have a job - how nice.

One puzzling thing for me is why somebody teaching kindergarden or grade 1, 2, 3 would need more than high school.

Yes, they need to have graduated from a solid high school program, similar to what graduating from high school meant in the ‘50 and ‘60 and to have learned the skills to work with young students.

But this can be done if there is a will with a competitive, specialized high school program with the exit exam being their certification.

In general, I think we should stop evaluating somebody’s teaching skills based on the length of time they have attended one course or another and instead start evaluating on the skills they are able to demonstrate and on the results they are getting.

It’s ridiculous. By the end of the 4th grade everybody in my 32 to 35 students large class knew how to read, write - cursive!, do additons, subtractions, multiplications and divisions up to any number of digits all while our school day was 8 to 12 or in 8 to 1 o’clock. It’s true, we were also going to school on Saturdays but still we were spending less time in school per week than the students today. My elementary teacher graduated normal school - a specialized high school to prepare kindergarden and grade 1 to 4 teachers.

While I think it is a good thing to be focusing our attention on the youngest students because these are the decisive years.
However the focus should be on having concrete results that our young students are learning.
If we have been spending and are spending all this money on lower grades and early childhood education I think there is no excuse for not having all the students learning to read by the end of grade 1 and knowing all the number facts and standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division by the end of grade 3.

Do the students who have attended the early childhood education programs know how to read better at the end of grade1?
If not or if we don’t know we’re spending money to feel good or to ensure that the school buildings are not empty but we are not spending the money to our children’s benefit.

Actually it is “nice” to be given the opporunity to retrain for a different job if one’s current job disappears.  All sorts of workers in larger society simply see their jobs disappear without any opportunity to retrain for a different job with the same employer.

The TDSB could have simply declared them surplus and sent them out the door, right?

Education Minister Laurel Broten warned elementary teachers of 10,000 layoffs unless they accept a pay freeze .”

Teacher union president Sam Hammond said the government’s “destructive” demands ask “too much of teachers and singles them out” in a bare-knuckled political play that will harm students.

this is another joke when union say that .