The Ontario government has introduced legislation that will make its school boards run more like businesses. The recently announced Putting Student Achievement First Act reduces the power of elected trustees and creates a powerful new chief executive officer (CEO) position to head school boards.
Unlike previous directors of education who were required to have education backgrounds and shared power with elected boards, CEOs will be required to have business qualifications and will have ultimate authority over decision-making.
CEOs will lead the preparation of school board budgets with elected trustees relegated to an advisory role. Instead of elected trustees representing the public at the bargaining table, CEOs will negotiate and ratify collective agreements at both the local and provincial level.
The goal of all of these reforms is to bring a more business-like focus to schools. The CEO is expected to focus on "effective resource allocation" and "corporate services oversight."
Over the past five years, we have been studying the challenges to implementing equity reforms in Ontario school districts.
