While We Were Sleeping: The Death of Public Education in Canada
After a brief fling with reforming public education in the first decade of this century, Canada, like many countries, went into a coma, starting somewhere around 2008. We have slept through this past decade and a half only to be awakened by the realization that the education system’s capacity to adapt and remain relevant has ground to a halt. At the same time, a super powerful unknown entity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), has seemingly come out of nowhere to blanket the playing field. The key question is: will AI diminish humanity, or will it be the wakeup call that takes us into a new universe of wellbeing and deep learning? At this point policy makers at both the Provincial and Federal Levels have shown little interest in investing in the JK to grade 12 education system. This is a fatal mistake. A renewed education system is vital to our future including partnering with youth and teachers as changemakers.
We started this century with what turned out to be a false positive. For example, in Ontario major gains were made in literacy, numeracy and high school graduation from 2003 to 2011 (International Deck, Ontario Ministry of Education). High school graduation, for example, increased from 72% to 85% in its 1000 secondary schools. We soon learned that test scores were not the route to the future. But since 2008 we have done almost nothing to improve learning on scale.
The economic recession of 2008 masked three deadly mutually reinforcing negative trends, which only became public knowledge when Covid (2020) exposed what was happening. I have called this state of prolonged unconsciousness about the nature of our society, “while we were sleeping”. Three hidden (and interactive) societal forces were at work. The first of these is extreme financial inequality (Oxfam reports that the wealth of the richest 1% in the world is equal to the other 99%; billionaire wealth surged by $2.8 trillion in 2024). Since 2008 more and more wealth went to the very rich while the middle and lower class (including education investment) plummeted (see Mazzucato, 2018).
Second, elementary and secondary education has become increasingly irrelevant, boring, or worse, for at least 80% of students. The late Harvard Professor, Richard Elmore, who spent his professional lifetime supporting teachers and students in their learning, finally gave up in 2021 when he declared that “we have created institutions that are obsolete”, concluding that “people are not going to stand for it; they are just going to walk away”. Increasing numbers have done just that.
Third, the exponentially growing presence of AI: Large Language Models (LLM), Generative AI, et al, were developing apace from 2012 to 2022 with hardly any of us realizing what was happening until Open AI suddenly released ChatGPT on Nov 30, 2022. In the past three years, AI and its ‘generative’ derivatives have grown in leaps and bounds, but it has not been positioned to help transform schooling.
In the absence of a focus on transforming school systems, these three interacting forces: galloping inequality, boring schooling, and AI, will constitute the ‘death of public schooling’. It is only a matter of time.
Our team (Michael Fullan Enterprises) has found that many people, regardless of age, are increasingly dissatisfied with the existing education system and are willing to work on alternatives. Strong motivating forces include an intense dislike of current experiences, a willingness to appreciate other ways of learning, an interest in finding value with AI, and an overall desire to become engaged in something worthwhile and to contribute to society. By building concrete examples of what new learning looks like in practice, and by recruiting students and educators to engage in what is manifestly ‘transforming the status quo’, we see a great deal of light at the end of the tunnel.
The irony is that we know how to enhance the learning and lives of children aged 2 to 18, and their teachers by investing and partnering with them (see Fullan, in press, and Fine, Rincon-Gallardo, Fullan in press), After decades of fruitless attempts we have also discovered what not to do (Fullan, 2025).
Macro vs Micro Strategies: The difference isn’t always clear.
Macro is usually thought of as the big picture, and micro as the small. In our change work we make a different and crucial distinction, namely between general and specific. General statements can lack specificity and therefore be poorly understood. Specificity is not necessarily small scale. It can be used to describe and implement a bigger change. Our breakthrough is to increase people’s ‘specific knowledge and skills’ to engage in improving the very system in which they work. We call this people’s ‘proximity to practice’, while engaged in changing the system.
AI is a phenomenally powerful force that could go either way. Take, for example, Big Tech’s promises that they are creating AI for the ‘good of humanity’. In our change work we have one simple rule of dealing with such marketing. It doesn’t matter what people say, ‘in general’; it is what they do ‘in specific’. To that end macro promises are dangerous because they rarely translate into effective action on the ground. They remain general because that is what is most profitable. They waste peoples’ time because without co-development implementers can never figure out what the ‘general’ statements actually mean on a day -to-day basis. In effect, poor strategies exploit people because they get little out of participating. Meanwhile the rich get richer.
We have evidence that micro action, when leveraged, can be positioned to change larger systems. It is specificity that counts. Specificity can be accomplished at scale with the right framework and strategies. We have, for example, changed the odds with systems by turning the system on its head. Instead of thinking of the top (policy makers), the middle (school districts), and the bottom (workers/students), we turn the tables. We set out to build the bottom, strengthen the middle, and intrigue the top.
I have some examples of this framework in action in the soon to be published Six secrets of change 2.0 (in press). Let’s take two current cases of ‘big change’: one that has the characteristics of effective ‘grounded’ big change, and one that does not. One is the recent election that resulted in Zhoran Mamdani becoming major elect of New York City effective January 2026. The other example is about the new Canadian Federal Budget that is currently being proposed by the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party in Canada.
New York City (NYC)
New York City is a cauldron of complexity and divisiveness of the rich and the poor, diverse ethnic groups, and little reticence about speaking up. Zhoran Mamdani is a ‘Democratic Socialist’, age 34, Muslim, and born in Uganda. His family moved to the US and settled in New York City when he was 7. He describes his upbringing as “privileged’, saying “I never had to want for something, and yet I knew that was not the reality for most New Yorkers” (Wikipedia). He came from nowhere to win the November 2 mayoral election by a large margin. I am going to say that he is an expert in ‘incremental specificity’.
Robert Reich was the Federal Minister of Labour in the Obama administration. He is now a public figure with his own daily ‘substack’ commentary. Reich interviewed Mamdani and others and concluded that there were five reasons for Mamdani’s meteoric rise to popularity. Here are the five in brief:
- Authenticity. Mamdani is the real thing. He’s not trying to be someone other than who he is, and the person he is comes through clear as a bell.
- Concern for average people. Mamdani isn’t a policy wonk who spouts 10-point plans that cause people’s eyes to glaze over. Nor is he indifferent to policy. Listen to his answers to my questions and you’ll hear a lot about the needs of average working people. That’s his entire focus.
- Willingness to take on the powerful and the wealthy. He doesn’t hesitate to say that he’ll raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for what average working people need. Mamdani had $13 million of government funds to run a campaign against tens of millions that corporate opponents had to boost Democratic former governor Andrew Cuomo.
- Inspiration. Many people are inspired by Mamdani. His authenticity, energy, good-heartedness and optimism inspired over 90,000 New Yorkers who went going door-to-door canvassing for him.
- Cheerfulness. Which brings me to the fifth quality that has made this improbable candidate into a front-runner: his remarkable cheerfulness. Watch his face during the interview. This wasn’t empty-headed euphoria. It is directly connected to a thoughtfulness that’s rare in a politician, especially one nearing the end of his campaign (Reich, Interview, Oct 25).
The change advantage for people like Mamdani is that because he operates ‘proximate to practice’ he is always building relationships, learning nuances, and getting specific insights that people working from a distance could never access. This is the essence of leading system change effectively.
Federal Budget, Canada, November 4, 2025
From New York to Canada is a big jump but consider how the newly introduced federal budget is coming across to the public. It is the first budget since April 2022, introduced from the Mark Carney government—released November 4, 2025. Canada has a population of slightly over 41 million. It is well known that Carney is setting out to make Canada more independent of Donald Trump’s US. Trump is forcing hardship on the economy through tariffs and other actions that convey that he doesn’t care at all about Canada. The new budget, promoted as a ‘generational growth’ plan, features a $78.3 billion deficit—up from the prior $42.2 billion shortfall. Large scale change such as this is more likely to succeed when leaders reach people at a personal level where they believe that leaders value them, and act accordingly.
Clearly the issues are much more complex than could be addressed in this short article. People are concerned about affordability (their own and the governments), and the length of time it will take for progress to be made. They need a modicum of understanding that this great “generational” budget is on the right path. I summarise the most recent poll from Abacus that was conducted shortly after the budget was released under the headline ‘Budget: more questions than answers’ (Delacourt, 2025). The key findings:
“a muddled first impression”
“52% said it was a step in the right direction; 48% said it set Canada in the wrong direction”
Abacus President, David Coletto calls the most important finding: “only 16% said the budget had made them feel more confident, while more than double that number, 39% said it has made them feel less confident.”
The Abacus survey summary concluded: “The government has its work cut out. The raw material for a compelling story may be there, but that story has not yet been heard.”
In short, this great “generational” budget lacked the specifics necessary to reassure people that Canada is on the right path.
In the actual case on November 17, 2025, parliament voted 170-168 to pass the budget when 3 members of the opposition parties abstained thereby avoiding defeat of the government (Federal Budgets in Canada are seen as Votes of confidence); demonstrating my point that vague, complex, general arguments from central leaders fail to connect with everyday people.
Back to Public Education
The subtitle of this article is ‘the death of education’. With a couple of exceptions, there are no examples in Canada of age 2-18 education systems working together on the issues that I have raised in the article (Talk about proximity to practice!). There are virtually no examples promising new investments in developing public education ‘as a system’. There are ad hoc investments in skills development, but little that gives us confidence that a new system is being developed. More directly there would need to be focused developments in relation to all three of the factors that direct our attention away from the core business of learning: gross inequality of income; perceived lack of purpose and meaning in current educational goals; and questions around integration of AI with learning in ways that enable time for teachers and students to pursue deep learning, including links to careers and workforce destinations.
In the next period we have two choices: let the current trends play themselves out which will likely result in ubiquitous superficial machine learning, the disappearance of the public school system, along with the dehumanization of life. Or invest in public education as a system, transforming learning from pre-K to postsecondary. Leave the old factory model of education behind, while mobilizing teachers and students to co-develop a new learning model. Forget about the old-fashioned barrier that K-12 is a Provincial/Territory responsibility, with Federal government marginalized. Learn to co-operate among ourselves so that we can build a brighter future.
AI and new learning could turn the tables in relatively short order, just a few years, but only if we ‘wake up’ and make deep learning a societal priority. If we are going to achieve Canada’s potential and strengthen our sovereignty, it will require new ‘spirit work’ that brings the best out of humans and machines in tandem. Reinforce new approaches to learning with structural changes to our school system. Recognize students and teachers as agents of learning and societal development. Invite them to the table, thereby opening and deepening a pathway to societal prosperity and wellbeing.
Are we really willing to be truly generational? The educational system we need will be radically different than the factory model we have inherited from the industrial revolution. Growing interest in new models of education suggests that many young people of all ages, ethnicities, and social classes; scores of teachers, and other educators and health professionals; community and business leaders in a variety of sectors would be excited to sign on to a new movement. Enabling them to be co-drivers of a new approach to learning supports different and better future for Canada. The shame is that we haven’t even tried. Start with a few significant forays along these lines and watch them explode with energy and expansion. Imagine: it is our opportunity to define a new Canada in a short period of time. We are talking of nothing less than a new vibrant Canada—as distinctive as it is great.
References
Delacourt, S. (2025, November 8) ‘Budget: more questions than answers’. Toronto Star, p. A10.
Fine, S, Rincon-Gallardo, S., & Fullan, M. (in press). Whole learners, Whole systems. Corwin Press.
Fullan, M. (2025). The new meaning of educational change.6th Edition. New York: Teachers College Press.
Fullan, M. (in press). The six secrets of change 2.0. Jossey-Bass.
Mazzucato, M. (2018). The value of everything: Making and taking in the global economy. New York: Hatchette Book Group.
Oxfam Canada (Jan 2024). The wealth of the rich.
Reich, R. (2025, October). Five qualities of success: Interview with Zhoran Mamdani. Substack Robert Reich.
Meet the Expert(s)
Michael Fullan
Professor Emeritus OISE/UT, University of Toronto
Michael Fullan, Order of Canada, is Professor Emeritus at OISE/University of Toronto and has served as special adviser to two Premiers and Ministers of Education in Ontario since 2003. He advises governments around the world on whole system change (for his latest books see www.michaelfullan.ca).
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