Get serious about education: properly funded classrooms, restored standards, and a postsecondary system aligned to the future economy.
Direct more education funding to classrooms and local school priorities.
Restore academic standards and classroom order.
Build world-class colleges and universities aligned to Ontario's economy.
How a province funds its schools is how it tells its children what it thinks they are worth. For years Ontario's message has been a discouraging one: per-student funding worn down, classrooms slipping into disorder, families of children with special needs left on waitlists that outlast childhood itself. Our colleges and universities, once among the best public institutions on the continent, were pushed onto a treadmill of international student tuition chasing and away from the teaching and research that made their names.
None of this comes from a shortage of talent in our kids or our teachers. It comes from a shortage of seriousness at the top.
This section gets serious. It restores classroom funding and pushes the money and the decisions down to the school level, where they belong, instead of letting them vanish into administration. It puts the basics back at the centre, the reading and math and honest standards that let a parent know how their child is really doing, and it backs teachers on the order a classroom needs to function. It also rebuilds our colleges and universities around Ontario's genuine strengths and the economy graduates are walking into.
Restore K-12 funding and put the money where it matters: in classrooms, in support staff, and in school-level discretion. Consolidate the duplicate administration that absorbs too much of the system's budget.
Reinforce the basics: phonics, math, writing, science, and civics. Back teachers on discipline, and fix the special-needs supports that have left thousands of families waiting.
End dependence on international student revenue, rebuild research strength, and unlock the IP commercialization Ontario has been leaving on the table. Build colleges and universities that better serve Ontario's economy.
| Goal | Lower | Upper |
|---|---|---|
| Total — Get Serious About Education | ($2.3B) | ($3.5B) |
| Put Money and Power Back into Schools | ($2.0B) | ($3.0B) |
| Restore Standards and Classroom Order | ($300M) | ($400M) |
| World-Class Colleges and Universities | $0 | ($100M) |
Net budgetary impact over the Ontario Budget 2026 baseline. Negative numbers represent net new provincial spending; positive numbers represent net savings or revenue.
Detail on how each cost or savings estimate was derived. All figures represent net budgetary impact over the Ontario Budget 2026 baseline.
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invest in K-12 education. | ($2.0B) | ($3.0B) | About $2-3B/yr to raise per-student funding — hiring more teachers, reducing class sizes, and funding educational supports — with new funding directed to resources in schools, not administration. Targeted reinvestment, not across-the-board spending. |
| Order an independent value-for-money audit of the education budget. | $0 | $0 | Carried out by the Financial Accountability Office and Auditor General within their existing budgets, so no additional spending. |
| Consolidate the $5-7B spent on non-classroom administration to save $0.5B to $1.5B a year. | +$500M | +$1.5B | Ontario's 72 boards run duplicated systems for software, HR, payroll, procurement, technology, and facilities. Consolidating saves 5-15% on a ~$5-7B/yr base, or $500M-$1.5B/yr, in line with other provinces and the UK academy trust model. |
| Give the savings directly to schools through larger discretionary budgets. | ($500M) | ($1.5B) | The $500M-$1.5B saved above goes straight to schools as discretionary budgets. Fully funded by that savings, so it adds nothing new overall. |
| Allow independent public schools to drive innovation and flexibility. | $0 | $0 | A legislative change funded within the existing K-12 budget. Unlike BC's 35-50% partial funding model, Ontario keeps full funding for innovation schools meeting curriculum and accountability standards, so no change to provincial spending. |
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strengthen core curriculum. | $0 | $0 | Funded within existing budgets. Ontario's 2020 math and 2022 reading reforms show such updates are handled with existing capacity. |
| Review EQAO and provincial assessment standards. | $0 | $0 | Handled within EQAO's existing ~$30M/yr operating budget. Funded within existing budgets. |
| Address grade inflation with consistent, comparable assessment. | $0 | $0 | A consistent, comparable provincial assessment can run through EQAO or a similar body within existing budgets, offset by less duplicated assessment elsewhere. No change to provincial spending. |
| Modernize Growing Success, Ontario's 2010 assessment and reporting policy. | $0 | $0 | A policy update by the Ministry of Education within its existing budget, so no additional spending. |
| Reassert teacher authority in the classroom. | $0 | $0 | A policy and regulatory change within existing Ministry and school board structures. Funded within existing budgets. |
| Reduce student accommodations, reserving them for those with exceptional needs. | $0 | $0 | A standards and policy change within existing budgets, so no additional spending. |
| Ban student phone use at schools during the school day. | $0 | $0 | Schools carry this out within existing operating budgets. Quebec did the same in 2023 at near-zero cost. |
| Address chronic absenteeism with clearer expectations and escalating consequences. | $0 | +$100M | Boards handle the administration within existing budgets. The $100M upper end assumes some revenue from escalating measures, such as fines on families who fail to ensure attendance without a valid reason. |
| Fix autism and special-needs supports in schools. | ($200M) | ($300M) | On top of the ~$3.5B/yr Ontario spends on special education, an added $200-300M clears assessment waitlists and funds support staff where gaps are most acute. The federal Canada Disability Benefit should ease family pressure over time. |
| Expand respite and crisis support for families with complex-needs children. | ($100M) | ($200M) | A $100-200M/yr expansion of respite, crisis intervention, and family support, modelled on Quebec's family support program. |
| Address boys falling behind with more active, structured learning models. | $0 | $0 | Pilot-scale experiments run within existing Ministry and school board research budgets. Scaling successful pilots would be budgeted separately. |
| Invest in Grade 11 skilled trades and apprenticeship streams. | $0 | $0 | Cross-reference: costed in the Youth section; shown as $0 here to avoid double-counting. |
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work with the federal government to direct more investment to basic research at U15 universities. | $0 | $0 | Federal-led; no provincial cost. Ontario advocates and aligns its own research investment through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Ontario Centre of Innovation, with significant payoff for research capacity, IP, and talent retention. |
| Stop publicly funded IP from getting trapped in university administration. | $0 | $0 | A regulatory change within existing university funding. Generates revenue over time as Ontario companies grow while keeping their IP and tax base in the province. |
| Expand co-op and work-integrated learning across colleges and universities. | $0 | $0 | Cross-reference: costed in the Youth section; shown as $0 here to avoid double-counting. |
| Transition colleges and universities away from dependence on international student revenue. | $0 | ($100M) | Capping international students cuts tuition revenue. Long-term enrolment likely falls to ~90,000-125,000 from a peak of ~275,000-300,000, still above pre-2010 levels of ~40,000-60,000. Public colleges and private-partner campuses feel it most; graduate research enrolment is protected. A $0-100M/yr backfill eases the transition. |
| Modernize tenure and faculty renewal policies. | $0 | $0 | A policy change within existing collective agreements and university funding. Over the long term it shifts dollars toward early-career researchers and emerging fields. |
| Rebalance university research funding toward science and engineering. | $0 | $0 | Rebalances existing provincial grants, including the Ontario Research Fund, Early Researcher Awards, and the Ontario Centre of Innovation, toward higher-productivity fields without adding new money. |
| Make OSAP loans interest-free and forgivable for graduates who stay. | $0 | $0 | Cross-reference: costed in the Youth section; shown as $0 here to avoid double-counting. |
Every dollar goes to work — with up to 75% back in tax credits.
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