Monday, April 22, 2013

Chapter 4: Categorizing the Data -- Post-war documents -- Review of some of the 1960s group -- 1950 Ontario's Hope Commission

4.2d

Categorizing the Data -- Post-war documents -- Review of some of the 1960s group -- 1950 Ontario's Hope Commission


   Ontario’s Hope Commission is considered an outlier to the 1957-1961 grouping in this analysis, however, it makes a contribution to the post-war set reviewed here, because it operates as a post-war synthesis for what has happened in the Canadian systems. It also includes a Minority Report which establishes the Roman Catholic position. The Minority Report in Alberta’s 1959 Cameron Report appears to be significantly influenced by this model.
   The Hope Commission is perhaps the most important education policy produced in the 20th century. It is challenged only by the Parent Report in terms of this importance. The Hope Commission is significant in terms of its historical placement smack dab in the middle of the 20th century. The commission was begun in 1945 and took five years to complete. It cites the limitations imposed on education policy due to the Great Depression and the Second World War. There was a decline in building, and educational restructuring did not occur during these years. The commission also confirms that the post-war years have promoted education reviews in Canadian provinces and American states and in Europe. Wars create education policy reviews as soon as they are over.
   The significance of the Hope Commission in terms of the overview is what it provides in terms of historical information about education policy in Canada, covered in chapter seven of the report. The development of education policy in Upper Canada is written in the earlier chapters of the report and it is very thorough. This history covers the work of Egerton Ryerson and his success in centralizing the Ontario system in legislation by 1871. The impact that Ryerson had on public education policy in English speaking Canada had national consequences through the Committee of Public Instruction. Ryerson is actually a national education figure for English Canada. Perhaps more should be available to education policy students on Ryerson and his national contribution to education and this should be available in policy courses, but the problem of national policy perspectives is the Canadian challenge.
   The 1950 Hope Commission draws up all the past public educational conditions, documents them and summarizes the state of affairs in education policy for the 20th century following the First and Second World Wars. No graduate student of public education policy, no matter in what province, should be without the knowledge of the existence of the Hope Commission and some basic understanding of its content. The matter of analysis of the content of this report and its historical comparative significance to other Canadian jurisdictions, what it tells us about Canadian policy, is of seminal importance at this time in history. We’re past the 50 year mark in assessing this document. At this time 2010, the document is 60 years old and hasn’t really been assessed in any great depth relative to Canadian public education policy. It has experienced treatments by Ronald Manzer and Bob Gidney, but it hasn’t been integrated into any 20th century Canadian public education policy document conceptualization. Hope Commission should also be considered in comparative relation to Ontario’s 1994 policy “For the Love of Learning,” completed fifty years after the Hope Commission, almost 50 years to the year that it was started. Fifty years is the significant unit of time in educational policy reform. This research considers this type of time frame of essence. The big picture looks at comparatives from such a framing. Hall-Dennis (Ontario 1968) was a departmental document, but it had huge impact and has informally been identified not just provincially but nationally as a highly significant document. The Hall-Dennis Report (Ontario 1968) is an ideological product that would not have been possible without the Hope Commission as a foundation. Hall-Dennis was a departmental document, but Hope Commission puts key ideological foundations into place.
   I interpret the main administrative feature of the Hope Commission to be an endorsement of larger units of administration as a means for distributing public education equitably and with most efficiency in terms of delivery and financing. The trend across Canada to larger units of administration is confirmed in this Hope Commission Report as a reform objective in 1945. Each document covering this reform (see also Manitoba and British Columbia 1945) enters into a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of centralization, what the limits are, what checks and balances should be in place to protect the democratic value in decentralization, that of local control. This matter of democracy is discussed in great detail from 1945 and in all public education policy areas advancing to larger units of administration.
   No other discussion is as seminal as this one in the chain of reports of this historical time-frame. Fifty or more years later, the cold war is over and distance from the Second World War is completed, causing reduced concern in the matter of centralization and totalitarianism as necessary bed partners. The Hope Commission says:
   In any country the system of educational administration is usually similar to the general system of government.[fn] Indeed, different systems of government seem to require different systems of educational administration. A completed centralized educational administration is necessary to achieve totalitarian aims and ideals, whereas the preservation of democratic principles requires a decentralized system.
  Germany and Russia, which traditionally had decentralized systems of government, found it necessary under totalitarian regimes to centralize all types of administration under the control of the central authority. In Nazi Germany all educational officials formed a pyramid, with the Minister of Education as the apex. No person or agency outside this hierarchical pyramid was permitted to influence the theory or practice of education. Local education authorities were replaced by local education committees, but these were merely consultative bodies completely subservient to the government (Party) representative at every level. In the Soviet Union, while in theory the educational system continues to be decentralized, recently there has been evidence of increasing centralized control, in this case through the Party rather than through civil administrative organizations. This same centralizing tendency is appearing in Eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, which have come under totalitarian control.
   British Columbia’s and Manitoba’s 1945 public education policy documents review fifty years of policy development. British Columbia’s 1945 public education policy document cites public education policy as developing like Topsy and need review and overhaul. Ontario’s 1950 report recapitulates one hundred years of English language public education history and this is why it is so important. It reviews Quebec’s history but the more accurate public education policy review of history of French Canada is found in Quebec’s 1966 Parent Report. The development over one hundred years is relative to public education understood as a responsibility of the state, outlined in Ontario’s Hope report and described relative to the failure of an Ontario 1841 Act where, “It provided for the appointment of a Superintendent of Education for the United Province of Canada, and assigned duties to him which had the effect of strengthening the control of the central authority.” Following this,
…The School Act of 1843[fn] transferred to the Provincial Secretary the duties formerly assigned to the Superintendent. An assistant superintendent was appointed for each of the two sections of the province. This was the first time in the history of the province that a Minister of the Crown was charged with the direction of educational affairs. It showed that the concept of education as a responsibility of the state was beginning to be accepted. This was a step on the path toward centralization.
In respect of the overview and further proof of the significance of the Hope Commission to centralization and decentralization as political themes in Canadian conceptualization, any review of trends within the Canadian federal system as experienced in post-war Canada and reviewed in hindsight relative to the 21st century perhaps begin with the Hope Commission. The report says:
   The real beginning of our relatively highly centralized system of today dates from the Act of 1846. [fn] The Act gave extensive powers to a General Board of Education and a new Superintendent of Schools, which were in marked contrast with those formerly possessed by the central authority. This was in accordance with the views of Egerton Ryerson, who was the chief architect of the Act. His chief argument for the change from decentralization to centralization was that it was necessary if the principles of responsible government were to be applied to the administration of education.
Ryerson’s legacy is reviewed and his impact through legislation on the administration of Ontario is essentially a consequence of his influence from 1843. The development from the date 1871 (aligning with the Manitoba and BC education policy production time-line and their entry into confederation), highlights the difference in policy development as a consequence of history. As follows:
The next step in the centralization of the system came with the Act of 1871[fn] which, among other things, provided for the appointment of county ‘inspectors’ instead of superintendents. These offers were still appointed by the county councils, but, since they now had to meet qualifications specified by the central authority, they were brought under closer central control.
The full move to provincial centralization is cited by the commission with the following adjustments resulting in financial responsibility for school funding increased to 50 per cent for the central authority.
   The last step in the development of centralization was taken in 1930 with the removal from county councils of the right to appoint elementary school inspectors and the vesting of this power in the Department of Education. Since that time there have been but two changes affecting centralization, one indicating a decrease and the other an increase in central control. The former was the withdrawal of the central authority from the examination field, except at the senior matriculation level. The latter was the assumption by the central authority of approximately 50 per cent of the gross approved cost of education.
This influence (Ryerson influenced the development of policy in English Canada), is reviewed and assessed relative to the needs of administration post-war. In addition to this recapitulation of the formation of public education, its development and the current political situation is considered relative to the Minority Report, set as an appendix to the Hope Commission Report of 1950. This review by the Minority Commissioners also situates the matter of separate education relative to 20th century demands and conditions following the First World War.
   Ontario describes its administration of public education as Cameron describes it in the 1945 British Columbia report. Cameron wrote: “The Province’s school system is usually known as decentralized, although this description is not very accurate, and the term is used only for want of a better. The system is partly decentralized, partly centralized.” Ontario 1950 defines its administration and the dilemma as follows, and this is summarized across a section of paragraphs from Chapter 7:
National systems of education may be classified as centralized or decentralized. There are, however, two quite distinct concepts regarding centralization and decentralization. One takes into account only whether responsibility for education rests with the people of the nation as a whole or with the people of the states, provinces, or other subdivisions of the nation… The other concept takes into account only the method by which education is administered; it is not concerned with which government has responsibility for education but with whether, and how, the government which does have the responsibility delegates its administrative powers to subordinate authorities. According to the first classification, Canada has a decentralized educational system; responsibility for education was assigned to the provinces by the British North America Act….Ontario does not have a decentralized educational administration in the same sense as have England and most of the states of the United States. On the other hand, it does not have complete centralization of administration such as is found in Australia. In our province certain aspects of educational administration are completely centralized and others highly centralized.
  The comparative noted at the time is important. The commission report reviews “decentralization and centralization under other jurisdictions.” This supports also the high national policy importance of this particular document and the primary position it takes in an overview of the development of education policy in Canada. The document places administrative trends not only relative to Canadian provinces, but relative to the United States and Europe. (This particular type of investigation seems to have declined post-1980s inside R1 commissions, and is in need of review and discussion concerning the reasons for such decline). The matter of public education provision is a democratic one and the matter of its administration is fundamental to democracy. Is the matter of democracy still represented ideologically through education administration and if it is what does it mean about education policy in the 21st century?
   The matter of national decentralization as yet a centralizing fundamental principle requiring greater investigation and analysis at this time in Canadian history, is only available through an investigation of Canadian education policy, and as such this would mean an investigation of decentralization of education control in Canada. The mid-century fundamentals of this decentralization and a discussion of it are set out in the Hope Commission report. The report is the most important commission report produced in Canada in the 20th century and is only trumped in the significance to a policy overview to Quebec’s 1961-66 Parent Report.

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