Tucked into the Ontario Ministry of Education’s newly introduced Putting Student Achievement First Act is a mandate requiring teachers to use ministry-approved learning resources in classrooms.

Providing learning resources sounds neutral and even helpful. But it raises deeper questions about teacher professional autonomy, and where the Ontario government is directing education dollars.

The most important resource in any classroom is the educator, supported by conditions needed to do the work they were professionally prepared to do.

When problems become products

In a digitized education market, learning resources increasingly arrive as “bundled systems:” assessments, textbooks, subscriptions, scripted lessons, professional development and data-tracking tools.

Researchers have long warned that “edu-business” expands when public systems are described as being in crisis, creating demand for market-based solutions.

Read more: Tax ‘pandemic profiteering’ by tech companies to help fund public education

30 years of literacy reform

Ontario schools have not lacked literacy initiatives. Over three decades, Ontario educators have worked through waves of reform: Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) accountability, early reading expert panels, guides to effective instruction, the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, as well as reforms targeting putting research into practice, multimedia literacy and serving students with special needs.

In my 44 years in education, I have seen Ontario schools cycle through one purchased literacy program after another, such as Jolly Phonics, Four Blocks and Fountas & Pinnell’s Leveled Literacy Intervention.

Ontario’s Right to Read Inquiry called for evidence-based approaches,........

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