I think the implication of Bill 115 is pretty huge.
What is says is "go ahead make a promise to provide a salary and benefits, then don't bother budgeting to pay for it because later on you can just legislate that it never happened."
It's not like the salaries, pensions, gratuity, sick days etc were a secret. When I hire people to work for me I make sure I set aside enough money to pay them.
Don't get me wrong teachers have a good gig.... good pay, good benefits, good lifestyle. But then again so do firefighters, cops and doctors. To me they all have value.
Now sure there are those that say "we need to cut back to save money due to the deficit."
Here's what I suggest.....
1) have an audit of each school board and sell off real estate that is not being used or other assets.... I think the TDSB has an art collection.
2) have an audit of how school budgets are spent..... why are geography classes still buying atlases?!!!??? Isn't there a thing called a computer?
3) work out a deal with a tablet manufacturer to put one in each student's hands, give parents a tax break on it. then buy licences for e-textbooks. probably much cheaper than buying $100+ dollar math and science textbooks that need replacement due to wear and tear or changes in curriculum (which seems to happen every so many years)
4) speaking of curriculum changes..... people get paid to do that shit. Do we really need to revamp math every so many years?!??? Sure something like computers which changes math is pretty constant.
5) speaking of people paid to do not a whole lot.... how many superintendents, directors of education and trustees do we need? Look on the sunshine list they do better than principals who make 100 to 120 K
6) freeze salaries
7) make it longer for teachers to max out their salary
8) sell advertising space inside of schools
9) sell uniforms...... at a reasonable price with tax break for parents but still make a small profit from them
10) give teachers more flexiblity to take unpaid days if they want time off
11) increase class sizes.... therefore needing less teachers
12) offer early retirement packages (ONLY if it works out to be cheaper than keeping the older teacher)
13) decrease what is offered...... maybe we don't need art, dance, music others might argue history, geography, math..... point is schools offer quite a bit in terms of electives
14) require less electives for students to graduate.... therefore high school is shorter for the student
15) drop the drop out age from 18 back down to 16...... why spend money on kids who don't want to be there..... they can come back if they change their mind
16) have you noticed how many catholic schools recently built nice rubber tracks? Those are probably 1 million a piece
17) get rid of the catholic system..... everyone else has to pay for religious education.... not to mention the duplication..... TDSB will have supers, trusteees etc and then the catholic board will have their counterparts
Oh and not a cost saving measure but make it easier to FIRE DEADWOOD
18) make kids pay if they have graduated but wnat to come back for more courses.