Full day learning is coming to Ontario next fall and it's going to cost a pretty penny.
But the McGuinty government continues to "plant its flag" in improving the public education system and today's annoucement, the premier feels, goes some further distance to making that happen.
McGuinty says Ontario will become the first jurisdiction in North America to offer full-day learning to four- and five-year-olds, under the guidance of elementary teachers.
The average class size will be 26 students (higher than the current average permits), with one teacher and one early childhood educator in charge.
In talking with Toronto School Board chair John Campbell after the announcement at an east end Toronto public school, the chairman acknowledged "the program could be cheaper."
The province estimates the cost at $200m in the first year, $300m the second, reaching annual costs of $1.5b once fully implemented in 2015-16.
Early childhood educators earn between $40-50,000 a year. Elementary school teachers earn an average of $80,000 a year.
Campbell says the McGuinty government clearly "wanted to avoid a fight with the teacher unions," and therefore has opted for a more expensive program.
For his part, McGuinty says "we looked at other experiences. The programming we settled on isn't the least expensive. But it's high quality. They're two kinds of educators. Let them work together.
"We're gonna get this right," the premier added. "We're not going to do it..." and then the premier paused, looking for the right word. "Not half...and I can't say the other part on TV."
The roll out for this program will, indeed, be modest. The first year, the government plans to offer the program to 35,000 students. Chairman Campbell has done the math and here's what he sees: with 72 school boards across Ontario, that's about 500 students per board. At 26 kids per class, that's 18 classrooms, hardly a huge impact. But that's year one.
We're organizing a program on this issue next Thursday, November 5th. If you've got questions or comments about this, feel free to leave them below.
Meantime, here are some pictures from this morning's announcement.
