In August, we learned that Staples had been selected as the vendor for the Ford government’s new Classroom Supplies Fund, through which elementary homeroom teachers will receive $750 to purchase classroom supplies.
Teachers need classroom resources. There is no question about that.
For years, educators have spent hundreds — sometimes thousands — of dollars of their own money buying books, pencils, art materials, learning resources and other supplies their students’ need.
But Ontario needs to ask a much bigger question: Why are teachers expected to personally shop for the basic supplies needed to operate a publicly funded classroom? And why is the government’s answer to direct millions of public dollars into a multi-billion dollar private corporation?
The Conservative playbook: underfund the system, privatize the solution
For decades, school boards relied on their own ways of purchasing, distributing and providing classroom materials because they knew their needs best. Schools know their students. Principals know their buildings. Educators know what their classrooms’ need.
Starting on Sept. 1, tens of thousands of school teachers now have to use an online portal facilitated by the province and connected to business supplies giant Staples Canada to hunt for covered school supplies and purchase them using the $750 credit.
Instead of properly funding our public system to provide the necessary materials, the Ford government is creating a new centrally controlled purchasing program with a private U.S. corporation hoping to cash in on public dollars from Ontario’s classrooms.
Staples is not a small Canadian educational supplier. Staples Canada is part of Staples, which was acquired by New York-based private-equity firm Sycamore Partners in a transaction valued at approximately $6.9 billion (USD). Sycamore continues to list Staples Canada among its investments.
Ontario taxpayers should be asking: Why should money intended for public classrooms be funneled through a U.S.-based, private-equity-owned corporation, rather than strengthening the public education system itself?
This is particularly troubling because we have seen this government turn to Staples before. The Ford government previously moved ServiceOntario locations into Staples stores. Now Staples has been selected to deliver the purchasing system for the Classroom Supplies Fund.
This is why educators are right to see today’s announcement as part of a much larger question about the direction of public services in Ontario.
$750 to classrooms doesn’t erase eight years of underfunding
The government will undoubtedly point to the $750 and say it is supporting teachers. But nearly half of it, $300,is not new money; it has been clawed away from already-existing school budgets.
And this doesn’t account for the larger problem that has been growing for years. Research by Ricardo Tranjan at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows that Ontario schools have accumulated an approximately $6.5-billion funding shortfall since 2018-19, after accounting for inflation and enrolment.
This year, per-student funding increased only 1.1 per cent while inflation was forecast at 2.1 per cent — yet another reduction in real purchasing power.
Another CCPA analysis found that inflation-adjusted Core Education Funding has fallen by approximately $1,500 per student since 2018-19, based on the allocations available when the analysis was conducted.
Those numbers have consequences. They mean larger classes, more special-education students waiting for supports, and fewer adults available when children need help. They mean programs disappearing, and essential school building repairs being postponed.
And yes, they mean teachers reaching into their own pockets to buy materials for their students. The Ford government didn’t discover the problem of teachers buying their own classroom supplies. Its chronic underfunding helped create the conditions that made it necessary.
Ontario’s teachers are heading toward another round of collective bargaining
For eight years, teachers, principals, educational assistants and education workers have been telling this government what is happening inside our schools. We have told them about class sizes, violence, burnout, deteriorating buildings and problems with special-education supports.
The answer cannot be a $750 purchasing account. And it cannot be another mechanism for moving public education dollars into private hands.
Ontario’s public education system was built on a simple principle: Every child deserves a properly funded public school with the people, programs and resources necessary to thrive.
That is what we will be fighting for in this round of bargaining.
