By Ryan Cormier and Gavin Taylor
Nearly six months ago teacher testing became law. And no one seems to know yet how much it will cost.
At this point, it looks like teachers themselves will pay for their mandatory recertification courses.
Here’s how it will work. The Ontario College of Teachers, an “independent” body regulating Ontario’s teachers, will administer the professional learning program for the government.
This August, the college submitted a business plan to the Ministry of Education, estimating that the professional learning courses will cost about $10 million to set up and $8 million each year to administer.
This month, the Ministry committed $8 million over two years. The college will receive $6 million in the first year and $2 million in the second towards start-up costs.
Do the math. There’s a $10 million shortfall.
A significant cost will be approving school boards and faculties of education throughout Ontario as course providers. The college will also review the course outlines providers must submit before they can offer a course, and later audit the courses to make sure they’re relevant and helpful.
The Ontario College of Teachers, set up in 1996, is entirely funded by teachers. An annual $90 membership fee is mandatory for anyone teaching in a public school in Ontario.
Teachers also pay to use the college’s services.
In June, the College’s council approved a fee increase for members to offset a $1.8 million deficit. In January, fees will rise to $104 per year, an increase designed to balance the budget until 2004.
But that financial decision was made before the Ministry gave the college responsibility for the new professional learning program.
However the college divides up these new costs, teachers will be paying them.
The teacher-testing legislation also specifies that course providers can charge teachers for their courses.
The province will not pay providers for the courses they offer, but they can offset costs or make a profit by charging participants.
These fees should be nothing to worry about, according to two local course providers. Both the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board plan to charge no fee or a nominal fee only.
At the Catholic board, voluntary courses for teacher development already exist. Six employees in the staff development department, plus many others in continuing education, work full-time setting them up. Many teachers already take these workshops or courses, and usually there’s no fee.
“We’re still offering all these programs, because we’d be offering them anyway,” says Phil Rocco, the board’s director. To meet the professional-learning program criteria, the board will be “continuing what we’re doing and enhancing it.”
In other words, the same courses teachers now take voluntarily will be repackaged as the new mandatory courses required by the province.
The staff development department at the Catholic board has a budget of about $400,000 this year.
Rocco says the teacher-testing program “is going to cost a lot of money” for instructors, materials and staff time. “But it’s worth it,” he says, if it helps teachers.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board also plans to turn its existing professional development courses into college-approved courses.
The only difference between the old voluntary and the new mandatory courses is that now courses must include some kind of evaluation.“We’re doing professional development all the time,” says Judi Marshall, a human resources officer. Most of these courses are run by board staff, and teachers only pay when their course incurs an additional cost.
Still, the new initiative is “a huge program that has a major impact on staff,” Marshall says. And as of this month, the board has not designated any new funds to deal with it.
The Ministry of Education has committed $2.6 million over the next two years for a qualifying test for all graduates of bachelor of education programs in Ontario.
An American testing company, Educational Testing Services, will develop this test with advice from Ontario’s school principals. The test is the teaching equivalent to a bar exam. Students must pass it to start teaching.
The $2.6 million investment should leave the Ministry with a “well-validated test” for new teachers by 2003, says Paul Anthony, director of policy and standards for the teacher-testing project.
The Ministry has not decided who will pay to administer the test after 2003. Anthony suggests that students may end up paying to write it. “That’s what’s most common” with those types of tests.
The Ministry of Education will also pay the one-time cost of co-ordinating classroom-evaluation policies for teachers across the province.
Thirty full-time staff are working on teacher testing at the Ministry. Some, including Anthony, were hired specifically for this work.
The Ontario government has also spent about $6 million so far on print and television advertising for the teacher testing project.