The ARC That Should Have Been, part one: What is “Declining Enrolment,” Anyway?

We often hear that our population is “aging.”

Well, no one’s getting any younger (at least no one I know). But babies keep being born, and the population of Ontario continues to grow at a steady pace of just over 1% per year, and not only as a result of direct immigration.

What has actually happened over the past two generations? The processes of the human lifetime have slowed down, largely due to the effects of rapid technological and economic advance.

Once upon a time, people would enter the workforce at age seventeen. Today, by the time you finish even basic level post-secondary education, you’re probably twenty-five.

Fifty years ago, most women were mothers by the time they were twenty-five, some several times over. Today, many women don’t start thinking about motherhood until they’re thirty, and some don’t get around to it until they’re forty. Fifty years ago it was normal to see families with four or five children. Today it’s unusual to see a family with more than two.

Fifty years ago, women could expect to live into their seventies, but it wasn’t uncommon for men to die in their fifties or sixties, often from heart and lung disease. It was unusual for grandparents to to see their grandchildren grown. Today, it’s not uncommon to see septuagenarians biking or jogging in Jackson Park, and most of us can expect to live into our nineties.

The slow-down on the individual level means a corresponding slowing in the rate of population growth. But is this trend going to continue? Will our rate of population growth keep declining like this, until our population is actually shrinking?

Unlikely.

Why? On the side of “natural increase,” because of two essential factors: women have already been pushing the upper limits of the fertile time of their lives, and the average family size can’t get much smaller than it already is, unless large numbers of women simply don't have any children at all. 

Meanwhile, immigration continues apace, and the majority of people who immigrate to Ontario do so in their younger years. Once people are past middle-age, the prospect of immigration becomes much less appealing.

Nevertheless, with people living longer and having fewer kids starting later in life, it’s obvious that the proportion of children in our society isn’t going to climb anytime soon, even if it doesn’t decline any further. So what does this mean for education?

We’re often given the impression that a having a smaller proportion of children in our society is a bad thing for our schools. Fewer students means less money for our schools, according to the provincial “funding formula.” This means fewer teachers, and fewer resources. Common sense, right?

But wait – this would only be “common sense” if our schools operated like a commercial enterprise where fewer paying customers would immediately translate into less revenue to invest in the service we’re offering. If the people who run Lakefield College School, for example, found their enrolment declining, they would be asking themselves the obvious questions: are tuition rates too high? Is our educational programming not good enough? Do we need a new marketing campaign? Are we targeting the wrong people? Is our natural market shrinking of its own accord? Even at a public institution such as Trent University, which is funded half by “user fees” and private investment and half by provincial tax dollars, these same queries would arise. 

But in the case of our public school system,on the contrary, most of the funding comes from people who aren’t currently using it. Obviously, the students themselves don’t pay taxes. And their young parents, who are at the beginning of their careers and living in “starter homes,” are likely to be paying significantly less in taxes than the older generations.

Thus, when the proportion of children in our society shrinks in comparison with the proportion of adults, there are more tax dollars available to pay for education, not fewer. Just as an only-child today might be doted on by two parents and four grandparents, the amount of money available to be spent on that child at school has also increased. This is one reason why the McGuinty government was able to put a cap on class sizes at the elementary level.

A brief glance at the KPR budget summary over the past ten years, available on page 2 of the 2011-12 budget, confirms this reasoning. In 2001-02, KPR received $261 million from the province to pay for the schooling of 40,000 students, or about $6500 per student. Ten years later, in 2011-12, KPR received $356 million to school 32,000 students – more than $11,000 for each. Even when adjusted for inflation, this is a substantial increase. 

	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Grants
in millions	$261	$277	$291	$296	$305	$315	$327	$336	$340	$348	$356
Students	39980	39464	38344	37379	37254	36366	35555	34771	33727	32932	32090
$ / student	$6,528	$7,019	$7,589	$7,919	$8,187	$8,662	$9,197	$9,663	$10,081	$10,567	$11,094

The fact is that Ontario’s population is not shrinking. It’s growing at a slower, more sustainable rate than in the past because women are waiting longer to have children, and by the time they’ve had one or two, they’re done.

The news media are culpable in spreading misunderstanding in this regard. One article on the southeast Oakville elementary school mess made by the Halton School Board (discussed in a previous post) referred to hundreds of students “vanishing from the the rolls” year after year. Did students really “vanish?” Were they dropping out? Did their families leave town? No. In fact, they just graduated from grade 12, and that graduating class was simply larger in number than the class entering Junior Kindergarten at the same time.

You’d think this truly “common sense” understanding would inform the thinking of our educational officials. Instead, “declining enrolment” has become a mantra that it has become next-to-impossible to go behind.

Let’s put this in the most blunt terms possible: “declining enrolment” is what managers see when they examine the real, three-dimensional phenomenon of slow, sustainable population growth from a narrow, short-sighted perspective, mistaking the rapid, unsustainable growth experienced by Ontario in an earlier generation to be a norm from which we are now “declining.”

In the next post, we’ll look in detail at the ongoing demographic evolution of Ontario and Peterborough and the Ministry of Education’s treatment of “declining enrolment.” 

The Winter of Our Discontent

The yuletide season was framed for the PCVS community by two powerful and cathartic collective experiences: the PCVS holiday gala at winter solstice and the mid-January public meeting with facilitator Joan Green.

Though one was a joyful celebration of artistry and citizenship at PCVS and the other a marathon of criticism of the incompetence of KPR administration, the two nights had much in common.

The emotional atmosphere in the PCVS auditorium was charged to to its maximum as Master of Ceremonies Dan Fewings and Principal Denise Severin, two prominent figures in the promotion and maintenance of the unique spirit and astounding success of PCVS, took the stage to repeated bursts of deafening applause. Fewings rose to the occasion with auctioneering antics to raise funds for the less-privileged in our own community and overseas, and had the pleasure of introducing a steady procession of top-quality, creative music, dance and theatrical performances by PCVS students (and a few of their teachers), each act different from the one before. Below are a couple of photos taken by Scott Walling at the event.

The talent on display was impressive enough, but, emblematic of PCVS as a whole, the diversity was overwhelming. A large group symphonic arrangement was followed by a folk duet, followed by a black-light group dance performance, followed by a jazz quartet, followed by a dramatic monologue, followed by the djembe group, followed by a solo singer-songwriter, followed by a production number from the musical Chicago, followed by Kate and Janelle doing Neko Case, followed by a school singalong. This is to name only a fraction of the acts. And yet Severin could truthfully comment later, as the energized and rejuvenated audience made its way out the doors, that this spectacular output is everyday fare at PCVS.

You can hear Evangeline Gentle’s love song for PCVS on Youtube, and enjoy the Isaac Maynes, Quinn Henderson, Marcus Schafer and Chris Foster jazz quartet improvising on the Harry Potter theme. There’s much more video of the wonderful event up on Youtube, listed here. 

Evangeline singing "184"

Four weeks later, it was the Evinrude Centre’s turn to host a standing-room-only crowd of passionate PCVS supporters. This time the woman at center stage, Joan Green, was there not to perform but to listen to the audience members, nearly fifty of whom signed up for a turn to vent their just displeasure with school board mismanagement over the microphone to resounding applause and cheering. Rarely does a Ministry-appointed facilitator even need to call a public meeting during these kinds of administrative review processes. In booking the massive Evinrude conference room, Green and the Ministry showed that they were not oblivious to the magnitude of community resistance to KPR administrators’ power-play. The politically astute Green had wisely planned to be patient and to hear out every speaker, even though it meant a five-hour marathon. To do otherwise would have sent the wrong message.

As at the PCVS gala, the quality of the speakers at the meeting – every one of whom seemed to know more about the issue than any KPR Trustees or administrators have shown – was overshadowed only by their diversity. We heard students, parents, grandparents, graduates, former teachers, former Trustees, doctors, a municipal councillor, and a former chair of the Board of Governors at Trent University. We heard the perspectives of the First Nations living off-reserve and of recent immigrants to Canada, of student leaders and of underprivileged students, of females and males, of straight and gay, old and young, of downtown homeowners and rural residents, of business people and politicians.

Each speaker had a unique and valuable point to make on how KPR’s pathetic accommodation review process had failed them, failed their families, and failed their communities. The personal concern for community health and integrity was palpable in virtually every speech, and was often powerfully moving. In spite of the length of the meeting, few were tempted to leave early, swept up in the cumulative cathartic effect of hearing for the public record the multitude of voices of reason exposing the incompetence of school board officials. PCVS neighbourhood resident Bill Templeman hit the nail on the head late in the night when he called KPR’s accommodation review process an “inept sham.” In another situation, this comment might have seemed hyperbolic – but KPR’s mismanagement continues to defy exaggeration. You can read the Examiner report on the meeting here.

Now that we’ve reached what the Celts call Imbolc or St. Brigid’s Day (or some would say Candelmas), halfway between solstice and the vernal equinox, our natural interest in weather prognostication has been extended to the political climate. What happens next in the battle for community control over our schools? Will it come down to legal action or a tax revolt by the property-owners of Town Ward? What kind of backroom conversations are going on right now?

While KPR appears to be trying to spend money to upgrade TASSS as quickly as possible,

ensuring their commitment to the facility, a citizens’ group, the Kawartha Safe Technology Initiative has taken matters into their own hands, sending a newsletter directly to all KPR teachers, informing them of the high levels of radiation in the wireless systems recently installed in KPR schools.

Many citizens have begun connecting the dots between the various forms KPR’s mismanagement has taken, particularly the one between the massive sums of public money which has been spent on unnecessary and unwanted wireless technology and the drive to close schools, lock up classrooms, and skimp on textbooks. In spite of the fact that virtually every study shows that the number one factor in educational success is small class size and individual attention, KPR’s big thinkers have decided that buying digital technology on credit is preferable to investing in teachers and in communities.

Not satisfied with their attempt to shut down PCVS, KPR managers are planning to close more schools in the near future, thereby saving more money to pay for the massive technology debt recently incurred. According to the report made to the resource committee in May 2011 by board manager Norm Breitner, Norwood District High, South Monaghan Public, and either King George or Armour Heights will soon be under assault, to name just the Peterborough-area schools mentioned in the document. 

KPR administrators will continue to spin this drive as a sensible response to the “declining enrolment,” a term which has been heard in commentary on Ontario’s education system over the past 10 years almost as frequently as the words “fiscal responsibility” have issued from the mouths of conservative politicians – and with about the same degree of truth and transparency.

It’s time to put some fresh wiper fluid in the reservoir and have a good look at the highway for ourselves before self-interested public servants and unprepared elected officials end up driving us into the ditch.

Something from St. Brigid’s well might do the trick. St. Brigid, will you please help us now envision “The ARC that Should Have Been?” In the next post, we’ll set the stage by clearly examining the real “reality” of “declining enrolment” in Peterborough and Ontario.