The crisp autumn air at Queen’s Park carries more than seasonal change this year. As students settle into another school year, Ontario’s education landscape faces its most significant restructuring in decades.
I spent last week in the crowded hallways of Riverdale High School in Toronto’s east end, where Principal Marianne Chen showed me classrooms that will soon operate under dramatically different rules.
“We’ve been through reforms before,” Chen told me, gesturing toward a math classroom where students worked in small groups. “But this feels different—more fundamental. Teachers are concerned about implementation timelines.“
The Ford government’s sweeping education package, formally unveiled last month, represents what Education Minister Stephen Lecce calls a “return to educational fundamentals” while critics warn of ideologically-driven changes that lack pedagogical evidence.
The reform package includes four major components: a back-to-basics curriculum overhaul, expanded standardized testing, mandatory financial literacy courses, and a controversial cellphone ban in classrooms—all to be implemented by September 2024.
During question period Tuesday, Premier Ford defended the changes: “Parents want schools focused on skills that lead to jobs and success. That’s exactly what we’re delivering.“
But opposition education critic Marit Stiles fired back, calling the reforms “a solution in search of a problem” and questioning why the government hadn’t consulted more broadly with educators before announcing such sweeping changes.
The reforms arrive against a complicated backdrop. Ontario’s PISA scores (Programme for International Student Assessment) have shown concerning trends, with mathematics performance slipping three points below the OECD average in 2022. Science and reading scores, while still above international averages, have plateaued since 2018.
However, graduation rates reached a historic high of 84.2% last year, according to Ministry of Education data—creating a puzzling contradiction that has both sides cherry-picking statistics.
At Timothy’s Coffee in Sudbury last weekend, I met with Danielle Lachance, a grade eight teacher with 16 years of classroom experience. Over steaming cups and the background chatter of Saturday morning customers, she expressed mixed feelings.
“The cellphone policy makes sense—these devices are genuinely disruptive,” she admitted. “But curriculum changes need proper implementation time and teacher training. We’re being asked to overhaul everything overnight.“
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has expressed particular concern about the expanded standardized testing regime, which will now assess students annually in grades 3 through 10.
“Testing takes time away from authentic learning,” explained OSSTF President Karen Littlewood at a press conference Wednesday. “Adding more tests without addressing resource gaps is putting measurement before actual improvement.“
Financial sector leaders, meanwhile, have praised the mandatory financial literacy component. TD Bank education initiative director James Wallace called it “a critical skill set that’s been missing from curriculum for too long.”
The most heated debates center on the curriculum revisions, which emphasize traditional approaches to mathematics and reading over discovery-based methods that gained popularity in the 2010s.
Dr. Abigail Morton, education researcher at University of Toronto, sees both opportunity and concern in the changes.
“There’s solid research supporting phonics-based reading instruction and direct instruction in math fundamentals,” she explained during our phone interview. “But effective education systems blend approaches based on student needs. A one-size-fits-all mandate is problematic.“
Parents appear divided along both political and geographic lines. A recent Angus Reid poll showed 62% support for the reforms in suburban and rural areas, while only 41% of urban parents approved of the changes.
In Brampton, parent council president Rajan Singh told me his community generally welcomes the focus on core skills. “Many immigrant families want traditional education approaches. But we’re concerned about reduced arts funding and larger class sizes that seem to be coming with these changes.”
The reforms arrive with a $45 million implementation budget—a figure education advocates call woefully inadequate for system-wide change.
“That’s about $22 per student,” noted Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education. “Real reform requires teacher training, resources, and smaller class sizes—none of which appear prioritized here.“
The provincial government maintains the changes respond to parent feedback and employer concerns about graduates’ readiness for the workforce.
In the legislative cafeteria yesterday, a senior ministry official speaking on background suggested the reforms would eventually include performance-based funding models for schools—a detail not yet publicly announced.
As the debate continues, students themselves have mixed reactions. Grade 11 student Jayden Williams at Central Technical School in Toronto started an online petition against the cellphone ban that has gathered 26,000 signatures.
“They’re treating technology like the enemy instead of teaching us how to use it properly,” Williams said. “In the real world, we’ll need digital skills.“
Meanwhile, the clock ticks toward September 2024, when 2 million Ontario students will enter classrooms shaped by these new policies.
Whether these reforms truly address Ontario’s educational challenges or simply rearrange furniture in the schoolhouse remains to be seen. But one thing is certain—the classroom experience for a generation of students is about to change dramatically.
And that may be the most important story in Ontario politics this year, regardless of where you stand on educational philosophy.
