Ontario is one of the world's biggest spenders on education - and the biggest in Canada. The coming cuts in education will bring Ontario more into line with other jurisdictions, many of which are getting better academic results than Ontario. However, the cuts will have to be made carefully. Simply cutting school board and Ministry budgets will have unpredictable results. The biggest spenders, Metro Toronto and the Ottawa boards, would be unaffected, since they get little or no money from the province.
Some school boards have half as much again as other boards to spend on each student.
Some school boards have been known to have strange priorities in the past. Faced with the need to balance budgets, they might raise property taxes or cut classroom funding instead of administrative fat. Before the cuts are made, Ontario should take steps to centralize and equalize the collection of taxes for schools. Once this has been done, grants to boards should be made on a per-pupil basis, varying with the program in which the students are enrolled. In the long term, grants should go directly to schools.