TORONTO — Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, issued the following statement:
“Today, our government implemented the first set of regulations following the passage of The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. These new measures will focus on getting back to the basics of education: strengthening reading, writing and math, and other STEM disciplines. We are following through on our commitment to parents through new measures that will better refocus school boards on academic achievement and the development of life and job skills. These reforms include the new authority for our government to set binding priorities on school boards that focus on boosting student achievement focused on reading, writing and math. This sends a clear signal to Ontario’s school boards we’ve listened to the priorities of parents putting common sense at the centre of our education system. To improve school board transparency, school board plans will be benchmarked against system-wide performance indicators. I am confident that this first set of measures will better focus Ontario schools on student achievement, offer greater accountability and transparency to families, improve safety and create more opportunities to hire highly qualified teacher candidates to support student success.”