3.3 metres of textual records

119 photographs : 49 black and white negatives, 14 black and white prints, 36 colour negatives, 20 colour prints

7 videocassettes : VHS (14.5 hours)

5 maps

1 artifact : lawn sign

1 artifact : button

200 KB of textual records

2 5.25 floppy disks

Fonds documents the activities of a province-wide lobbying movement and its impact on the education system in Ontario. The fonds provides information on the leading role Paul W. Bennett played in the creation and activities of the Ontario School Board Reform Network and the Coalition for Education Reform. Both of these organizations had a membership drawn from across Ontario and the fonds primarily documents the development and activities of these organizations.

The records provide information regarding the growth and membership of the Ontario School Board Reform Network and the Coalition for Education Reform, and the maturation of their specific goals, including fewer and more accountable school boards, a revised curriculum with core subjects and clearly defined content and skills, higher and measurable academic standards, and charter schools. The papers also document these organizations' lobbying of the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training to implement the changes in the school system desired by them. As well, they include records from meetings with successive Ministers of Education and Training.

Many of the objectives of Paul Bennett and the organizations he helped form and lead were achieved in the changes in the education system and curriculum that occurred during the NDP and Progressive Conservative governments of the 1990s. The changes to the education system announced in June 1997, by Minister of Education and Training John Snobelen embody many of the demands documented in these records.

The fonds also includes related documentation on Paul Bennett's campaigns to be elected as a School Trustee for the York Region Board of Education, and his subsequent activities as a Trustee especially his efforts to create alternative schools in the York Region Board of Education.

The fonds includes subject files, correspondence, meeting agendas, minutes of meetings, briefs, publications, newspaper clippings, and other documentation. They were Paul Bennett's files rather than the files of the organizations themselves. The Coalition for Education Reform and the Ontario School Board Reform Network were populist organizations without formal administrative structures, and thus did not retain central files.

Paul W. Bennett (1949- ) is a teacher and founding member of both the Ontario School Board Reform Network and the Coalition for Education Reform.

Click on the link(s) below for more information.

Bennett, Paul W., 1949-

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Copyright for the materials created by Paul Bennett has been transferred to the Archives of Ontario by the donor. For other materials, the copyright is held by the creator. Permission of the Archives of Ontario is required for publication; submit a Request for Permission to Publish, Broadcast or Exhibit Form.

Accession number: 34657.

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