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OK, but what about all the devastation at the Toronto District School Board, Ontario’s largest? Trustees there have approved cuts that amount to $67.8 million over two years and have placed the blame squarely on the provincial government. One trustee said the cuts would “decimate” the public education system and another said the government was “swinging a wrecking ball.”

Photo by Rob Gowan/Postmedia Network

That all sounds pretty dire, until one considers that the TDSB has a $3.4 billion annual operating budget. The cuts trustees are making amount to one per cent a year and one-third of the reductions are to correct chronic overspending. Trustees did a skilful job of finding cuts that will have little or no effect on the day-to-day functioning of schools. The biggest saving, about $17 million, came from eliminating seven superintendent positions, 13 centrally assigned principals, 15 guidance jobs and eight early reading coaches. In all, the two-year plan is considerably less than a wrecking ball.

The overwrought response to long overdue and relatively minor education spending restraint illustrates how difficult it is to convince those in the education sector that eliminating the province’s deficit has to include them. The problem, Hammond says, is not high spending, but corporate taxes that are too low.

It’s true that Ontario does have low per capita spending on many services, but education isn’t one of them. A report this week for the Alberta government compares education budgets in the four largest provinces. Ontario spends $17,077 per student, almost $5,000 more than its nearest comparator in Quebec and nearly double what B.C. spends. Ontario also has the highest administrative spending of the four provinces, at just over 27 per cent of the education budget.

There is ample opportunity to slow the rate of education spending growth, and to do it without hurting kids. Teachers could help. Instead, Ontario’s largest teachers’ union is stirring up fear based on exceptionally weak arguments. That’s a disservice to the children the union says it wants to protect.

Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and former Ontario PC candidate. Learn about his new book Spiked at randalldenley.com. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com