REALITY CHECK: K-12 education

By Mike Wise, CBC News 

Sep 6, 2011 8:15 PM ET

The Progressive Conservatives may be trying to alleviate fears that Leader Tim Hudak will not be friendly toward education.

Despite accusations from the Liberals that the PC's will cut school funding when in office, Hudak is committed to boosting funding to the education sector by $2 billion over his four-year term.

Reality Check

In a regular segment we will feature throughout the Ontario election campaign, CBC's Mike Wise will put the platforms and promises of each party under the microscope.

Ontario's latest budget set aside $23.2 billion for elementary and secondary schools, an increase of $1 billion from last year. Details are posted here.
Part of that increase is the $300 million required to help expand all-day kindergarten.
The Liberal platform promises to expand all-day kindergarten so that 250,000 students have access to it by 2014, which is in keeping with the original rollout of the plan.
The education component of the PC platform pledges to meet that 2014 target, while promising some administrative improvements, but ultimately admitting that "it would be a mistake to disrupt its implementation."
The Liberal platform also promises to expand the program, once it is fully implemented, by adding after-school care for students from six to 12 years old.
The Liberal platform also promises:

• Summer learning camps in each board, aimed at providing extra help to struggling students.
• A new science curriculum strategy.
• Doubling teachers college to two years, in part to provide extra in-class teaching experience, but also to better align the number of teachers graduating with the number of jobs available for them.

The PC platform talks about giving teachers more authority in the classroom, such as setting rules around the use of cellphones in class. Many boards, like the Toronto District School Board, already have policies that give teachers the final say on cellphone usage.
Other PC platform ideas include:

• Allowing teachers to use phonics to teach students to read.
• Reinstating the fall report card that was cut by the Liberals.
• Changing the funding formula to help smaller communities that may only have one school in town.

The NDP has not released the portion of its platform dealing with education.