Teacher unions have “held the province hostage for 50 years,” says Premier Doug Ford, who also believes educators are paid fairly but aren’t delivering good enough results.

As provincial negotiators continued a second day of preliminary talks with the public high school teachers’ union, Ford spoke to reporters at an unrelated event at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where he was asked about the ongoing labour strife in education.

“We’ve put a very fair deal to the teachers’ unions and they keep mocking it,” Ford said. “But we want a deal that respects the taxpayers, that respects the teachers themselves, and the students to get them back in the classroom.”

But, he added, “we aren’t going to roll over like we’ve seen over the last 15 years of billions and billions of dollars, and extra bonuses, signing bonuses, and pizza lunches, and everything else that the previous government gave the teachers. We have to make sure that we balance our budget until we can put more money into the classroom, more money into health care, more money into infrastructure. That’s what we need to do.”

The government and the four main teacher unions are at an impasse, amid sporadic talks. All unions are involved in job action, including rotating strikes.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which was last at the negotiating table with the province Dec. 16, was asked to return to talks Sunday by a provincial mediator.

It still plans to go ahead with a one-day rotating strike this Thursday, shutting down public high schools including those in the Toronto District School Board. All Catholic and French-board schools will also be closed that day, as those teachers are also holding a one-day walkout.

The key issues for high school teachers are larger class sizes and mandatory online learning.

The government has passed legislation capping all public sector raises to one per cent a year, which the unions are challenging in court.

Meanwhile, the government continued to come under fire for spending almost $1 million on public consultations, which documents obtained by the Star showed overwhelming opposition to bigger classes and e-learning.

“For over a week, the premier has claimed that parents back his plan for classroom cuts, larger classes, mandatory online learning and conflict with teachers,” said NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles. “The premier has obviously not read the results of his own consultation.”

In the legislature, Government House Leader Paul Calandra said “we want kids to be in the classroom, and I would hope that the member opposite and the members opposite would join us in getting that result. We think we’re close. We want a negotiated settlement with our union partners in education, and I hope we can get to that over the coming days.”

But Ford told reporters the government remains “frustrated. You go to the deal, these teachers that have held this province hostage for 50 years, no matter if it’s Liberal, NDP or PC. And people have had enough. They want their kids back in the classroom. I talked to teachers on the weekend…to actual teachers on the weekend, and they said, ‘I’m done. I want to get back into the classroom.’ So there’s really, you have to differentiate between the greedy teachers union and the hardworking teachers that want to get back to the classroom, teach our kids.”

He said the government “put a very, very fair deal on the table and we appreciate the work the teachers do. And we pay them very, very fairly — on the average $94,000 a year — plus, plus, plus — plus the best benefits in the entire country, if not the world. The best pension plan, not just probably in the country, but in the world again. We are paying our teachers fairly. But guess what, the results are not coming from the students.”

He cited low math scores compared to other provinces, and said “half of our students are failing” Grade 6 math standardized tests.

Some 48 per cent of Grade 6 students fail to meet the provincial standard in the tests, which would mean they scored below a B.

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The 2018 results of international testing by PISA, which tests and compares developed nations, show that while all scores have been on the decline, Ontario remains the a top-performing province in math, and the second-highest behind Quebec.

The average Ontario elementary teacher earns about $89,000 a year, not including benefits. High school teachers earn almost $93,000 a year, not including benefits.

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