This week will be a mess for hundreds of thousands of students and their parents across Ontario as elementary teachers escalate their job action and high school teachers return to a series of rotating one-day strikes.

This comes after weeks of work-to-rule, rotating strikes, missed tests and the reduction in extracurricular activities that students cherish.

The Ford government is in the midst of a battle with all of Ontario’s public teachers — English teachers, French teachers, Catholic teachers at both the elementary and the high school level. And, judging by the escalating job action, it’s making little headway.

It’s time to end this.

Negotiations over compensation — the teachers want an inflationary increase of 2 per cent and the government says they can have only 1 per cent – rightly belong at the bargaining table. And, as with any labour negotiation, there’s always the possibility of some give and take to arrive at a deal.

But on the other two big issues at the table with high school teachers — larger class sizes and mandatory online courses — the Ford government is plainly barking up the wrong tree.

It should find a way to climb down.

Students have already experienced the result of the government’s increase in class size, from an average of 22 students to 22.5, and it wasn’t good.

This past September, school boards scrambled just to maintain the basic courses students need to graduate.

Award-winning music programs were cut. The physics and calculus classes required for university were not available in some schools. And two of the province’s largest school boards have had to reduce classes in science, technology, engineering and math — the very STEM subjects required for the “jobs of the future” the government likes to claim it is busy preparing students for.

That was a small increase and while the government is providing extra funding to prevent mass teacher layoffs and system chaos. There’s no reason to find out how bad things will get under the government’s misguided plan to further increase high school classes to an average of 25 students.

Its plan to force high school students to take two online courses is also misguided.

Across North America only a handful of U.S. jurisdictions require even a single online course, so it makes no sense to jump in and double that. Especially given the substantial concerns around the quality of online courses and whether they are a good fit for many students.

Down the line there may be a case for increasing e-learning options in Ontario schools, but that should be properly studied and tested with all educational stakeholders working together to ensure it advances education. None of that can possibly happen during contentious contract negotiations.

We know the government has already backed off its original plan to increase high school classes to an average of 28 and require students to complete four online courses to graduate.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce claims that makes it the teachers’ turn to reduce their objections to these changes. It’s not.

Proposing a truly terrible plan and then backing off to something a little less terrible doesn’t make it a good plan for Ontario’s education system. And in the world of labour negotiations, not to mention the court of public opinion, it’s a bush-league tactic.

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The teachers’ unions have played their hand far more wisely than the government. There’s no sign of the teachers backing down and, so far, parents are siding with teachers over the government.

The government can stand its ground and drag this out for weeks to come. Or it can recognize that it has staked out bad ground.

It’s time for the government to cut its losses, back off its misguided changes to education, and settle with teachers.