Ontario Government Should Increase School Choice for Families

Commentary

According to a new proposal from Ontario’s Ford government, attendance will soon count for 15 percent of students’ final marks in grades 9 and 10, and 10 percent in grades 11 and 12.

It should be obvious that showing up for school matters. Yet only 4 in 10 high school students and 5.5 in 10 elementary school students met the Ontario’s attendance standards in 2024/25. In other words, a significant number of students didn’t regularly attend school last year.

Some things are just common sense. During the pandemic, Ontario schools were closed for 27 weeks and the learning loss caused by government school closures was profound. Yet long before that, research established a connection between missed school days and declining student test scores. There are exceptions to any policy, particularly for kids facing challenging circumstances, but the goal should always be to get students back in class because that’s what’s best for them.

The Ford government will also soon mandate exam days for grades 9–12. If exams are a course requirement, it is (again) common sense that students should have to write them. Exams hold students, teachers, and schools accountable. In fact, while the government mandates exam days, it should also make them a graduation requirement in Grade 12 to ensure that students absorb the material before they finish high school. In Alberta, students in Grade 12 write diploma exams connected to the provincial curriculum, which are worth 30 percent of their final course grade.

While students must be accountable to their teachers, school boards must also be accountable to parents. Fiscal mismanagement, persistent issues with anti-Semitism, and boards taking political stances on a range of issues, show they’ve drifted from their core purpose—student achievement and well-being. The government is creating two new bureaucratic arms—a Chief Education Officer and Student/Family Support Offices—for families when they feel their schools and school boards aren’t listening. But if the problem is a lack of accountability within one level of bureaucracy (school boards), the answer is not adding another layer of bureaucracy to oversee it. The only thing more bureaucracy will guarantee is a greater burden for taxpayers.

It’s worth asking whether these problematic school boards are needed at all. Local parent advisory councils might better accomplish school governance on a volunteer basis, saving money that could be better used in classrooms or to reduce provincial government debt.

And the government should allow parents to “vote with their feet” and choose schools that work for their kids and leave the ones that don’t. Right now, Ontario students are bound by catchment areas, meaning they attend government school (public, Catholic, or French) in their area. Some other provinces have open enrolment, allowing families to enrol in the government school of their choice. In the early 2000s, British Columbia eliminated catchment areas. Research showed that this meaningfully increased choice for families and in many cases improved academic outcomes.

Every other province (outside of Atlantic Canada) also funds approved independent/private schools on a per-student basis, and Alberta offers public charter schools (tuition-free, independently run public schools not operated by school boards, each with a unique focus). This allows a portion of parents’ tax dollars to follow their children to schools of their choice, including non-government schools. Introducing these policies in Ontario would give families more choice outside of government-run public, Catholic, and French schools.

The introduction of mandatory exam days and increased focus on attendance will help hold students accountable and better prepare them for success. But schools and school boards must be held accountable, too. The best way to do that is through school choice, not more bureaucracy.

Paige MacPherson is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.