Governance recommendations

Douglas Cardinal recalls Mrs. Salter

Jeffrey Schust awarded in Atlanta

College Council is advising that the Minister of Education increase the size of Council and the number of member-elected positions.

College Council, in its report - Governance: Advice to the Minister of Education - also recommends an increase in the number of French-speaking representatives. Changes to the composition of Council would require changes to the Ontario College of Teachers Act and its regulations.

The advice addresses seven issues raised in the Minister's white paper, Revitalizing the Ontario College of Teachers, which was released in March. These include input into the number and type of elected and appointed members to Council, the role of candidate slates in the electoral process and ideas to ensure the independence and depoliticization of the College. Council struck an ad hoc committee to prepare an official response to the Minister.

The final report recommends

• increasing the number of Council seats to 33 - 23 elected and 10 government appointees (there are currently 31 members on Council - 17 elected and 14 appointed)
  
• increasing the minimum number of French-speaking Council members to four elected and two appointed
  
• that the provincially elected leader and those employed by provincial stakeholder organizations be ineligible to seek election or accept a public appointment to the College Council.

The committee heard from College members as well as stakeholder, regulatory and community groups during stops in Windsor, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.

The ad hoc committee accepted written submissions from those unable to make presentations, considered the opinions of 1,000 College members who were surveyed by telephone in July by the public-opinion research firm COMPAS Inc. and appreciated the input provided by attendees at a series of nine focus groups that COMPAS conducted in three Ontario cities.

Council Vice-chair Nancy Hutcheson, who chaired the ad hoc committee, said the committee's recommendations to Council considered all stakeholders' proposals and were not unduly influenced by the requests of any one.

"You have in front of you the long labour of the committee you created in response to the Minister's paper, Revitalizing the Ontario College of Teachers, and that you charged with consulting with College members, education partners and the public, researching the governance issue and preparing a response. Not an easy task," Hutcheson told Council.

Hutcheson said committee members approached the assignment with "open minds and open ears." The committee, she said, considered the Royal Commission on Learning report, which recommended the formation of the College, and heard opinions from Council members and education stakeholders across Ontario in surveys, focus groups and face-to-face consultations.

Committee members had to sift through "diverse and passionately held" opinions in order to arrive at recommendations to improve self-regulation in the teaching profession, Hutcheson said.

In its final report, Council recommended an expanded council "to ensure a majority of professional educators."

Council suggested increasing regional positions to 10 (from six) and providing three positions for principal/vice-principal representatives - one each from the English public system, the English Catholic system and the French public/Catholic systems. Council also proposed a reduction in the number of government-appointed members by four to offset the increase in elected members, keep the size of Council manageable and ensure an equitable workload among Council members.

"The committee based these recommendations and its report on the knowledge and experience gained over the course of our consultations," Hutcheson said. "Committee members understood this report to be an opportunity to provide our best advice to the Minister and to demonstrate the potential strength of a self-regulatory body in which all councillors work together for the betterment of the profession."

Several Council members argued that the proposed increase in principal positions was disproportionate to the number of Ontario's principals and vice-principals. Hutcheson said the recommended model was never intended to meet representation-by-population requests. For example, faculty of education members number fewer than 200, she said, yet including that voice is important to Council.

The final report to the Minister acknowledges perceptions that the College is not an independent, self-regulating body and notes that the election of members makes it a politicized institution. Council referred concerns about elections and increasing voter turnout to the Council Election Committee.

State of the Teaching Profession Survey results

Methodology: The College commissioned COMPAS Inc. - a public-opinion and customer-research firm - to conduct a representative sample survey via telephone of more than 1,000 teachers during July 2004. The results are deemed accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Rounding: Due to rounding rules concerning survey results, percentages for some questions may not add up to 100 per cent.

Questions: Wording presented below has been modified for brevity. For complete questions and results, please visit www.compas.ca.

Nature of representation

To what extent should each of the following be represented on the College Council?

		a lot more representation		a lot less representation
	MEAN	5	4	3	2	1	DNK
Classroom teachers*	4.4	56	29	8	--	2	5
Principals / vice-principals	3.5	18	30	30	9	7	6
Faculty members	3.5	20	26	32	9	6	7
Supervisory officers	2.8	8	15	35	20	13	9
Independent schools	2.7	10	13	32	18	20	8

*Note: This response option was introduced part way through interviews - to 781 of the 1,000 teachers surveyed.

Means of representation

Principals/vice-principals, supervisory officers, private schools and faculties of education each have their respective representation on the College Council.

Should these groups be.

Candidate eligibility

Some say that every College member should be allowed to hold an elected position in the College on principle. Others say that allowing people to hold double positions can, in some cases, produce conflict of interest and excessive politics.

How much do you favour or oppose allowing the following people to run for elected positions in the College?

		strongly favour		strongly oppose
	MEAN	5	4	3	2	1	DNK
elected officials of a local federation or association	3.3	16	23	33	7	10	11
employees of local federation or association	3.2	15	19	34	10	11	11
elected officials of a provincial federation or association	3.1	13	16	35	13	12	11
employees of a provincial federation or association	3.0	12	16	35	14	13	11
College employees (currently ineligible)	2.5	7	9	30	16	26	12