Education, Skills and Labour Market - Op Eds

Does school fundraising worsen inequality in Toronto elementary schools in terms of academic outcomes? Many parents fear as much. Despite those fears, my research shows, there is no strong link between academic results in Toronto elementary schools and their private fundraising prowess.

Schools report the amount of external funds raised to the Toronto District School Board, and in some cases it is a large amount of money. In a recent study for the C.D. Howe Institute, Huijie Guo and I investigated the link between school academic results and the amount of funds raised.

The bottom line is that external funds raised by schools do not translate into…

The government of Ontario is currently looking at ways to address precarious work through a sweeping review of labour legislation and enforcement in the province – other provinces are planning to follow suit. Employment risks are also featured in federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s statements about “job churn” and the persistence of short-term employment. But how bad is the problem and what should be done about it?

In a recent C.D. Howe Institute publication, we looked at the common meanings of precarious work and assess the policy levers available to address it. We consider three types of precarious employment that we refer to as “non-standard” jobs – part-time, temporary and unincorporated self-employment.

We…

Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office’s (EQAO) 2015/2016 results from mathematics assessments should give parents in the province reason to worry. There was some positive news in that reading and writing scores increased over five years, but mathematics scores plummeted. The percentage of Grade 3 students who met the provincial math standard fell to 63 per cent from 68 per cent over five years. The results were worse for Grade 6 students. Only 50 per cent met the provincial math standard, down from 58 per cent five years ago.

Early achievement in math has been shown to predict later academic achievement, financial success and future career options. The recent EQAO results should further increase government efforts…

Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals has announced a $60-million plan to improve math training in elementary schools.

The move comes in response to declining scores in standardized math tests, which showed that the portion of Grade 6 students meeting provincial standards fell to 54 per cent from 61 per cent over a five-year period. In that same period, scores in reading and writing increased, suggesting that policies specific to math education caused the decline.

The Ontario government is to be commended for addressing the problem, but it is important to consider carefully what might be contributing to the decline and how it is best corrected. For example, what resources were used over the period of decline?…

A decade of failure has propelled the Edmonton Oilers to win four of the last six NHL draft lotteries. The most recent lottery win landed Edmonton the hockey phenom, Connor McDavid, giving down-trodden Oilers fans a glimmer of hope.

However, when it comes to EI, Edmontonians are not so lucky. According to the 2016 federal budget, only Albertans outside Edmonton will see increases to EI benefit duration between five and 20 weeks.

These changes, which are well timed for the majority of Albertans caught in an avalanche of energy-related layoffs, also expose the major flaws in Canada’s regionally-based EI system.

In the words of professor Keith Banting and Vuk Radmilovic, EI is a postal code lottery. A laid-…