In Ontario, in education, it pays to be Catholic II (full day kindergarten)

blah blah blah. Is this still an issue? look either way you slice it, the kids gotta be housed in a school. That costs money no matter what.  It matters not whether its acatholic one or a public one. Incidently, catholic schools have higher test scores on average so maybe we should go to one school system; a catholic one.  If you really want to save money look at programming cuts to student success initatives and the cash cow of standardized testing. millions would be saved.

This will continue to be an issue as long as Ontario continues to favour one faith over all others and wastes untold millions so that our privileged faith can continue to segregate their children from those not like them. 

This issue will not go away until publicly funded Catholic schools do.  Favouritism of a single group of people based on the "colour" of their faith will raise opposition in any society that professes to abhor religious discrimination, as we do in our Charter of Rights and provincial human rights codes.  We don't walk our lofty talk and a lot of Ontarians (and other Canadians) would like us to.

Yes, schooling kids costs money, but it costs a lot less to send kids to the nearest school instead of bussing them well past that school to attend another school.  It cost less to run a full school than two half empty ones.  It costs less to run full classrooms.  It is easier on teachers and preferred by parents to have fewer split grade classes.  It cost less to have one administration in a geographic area than two administrations in the same area.  One school system is a lot greener than two, reducing the stain on our environment.

I hope Ontarians think of Catholic schools often as they read the litany of services McGuinty is likely to be slashing in the upcoming budget.  I think they will value almost any one of them more than Catholic school funding.  Public funding for Catholic schools is a real non-essential.

Look for Catholic school vested interests to lie low and hope that no one notices they still suck at the public teat while truly essential services are torched.  Look for them to fiddle quietly while the rest of Ontario burns.  Hopefully other Ontarians will do something about the fire rather than warm their hands on the suffering backs of others.

Catholic schools provide an essential skill not learned in the public system. This is the skill of how to save your soul from eternal damnation in the lake of fire. Surely that is a skill worth learning and one that the public would be happy to finanace the via taxation allocation. Go Pope Go!!! 

Education Funding Task Force

At the ONDP convention in March 2009, a resolution was passed that mandated the party to establish a Task Force on Education Funding in Ontario (see below for resolution) that would consult with party members on this critical issue.

The Task Force was established, and its membership approved, at the November 2009 Provincial Council meeting.   The membership is as follows:

Vicky Smallman (co-chair), Bud Wildman (co-chair), Cameron Holmstrom, Pat Chastang, Malcolm Buchanan, Ed Chudak, Effie Vlachoyannacos, Brian MacDonald (staff), Sandra Clifford (ex-officio)

Mandate of Task Force:

• The mandate as set out in the convention resolution is to deal with education funding in the broad sense.

·        Submissions may deal with legal, constitutional, political, fiscal, equity, taxation,

and governance issues.

Framework and Time-lines:

·        This is a task force of the party and will seek submissions from party members, on the assumption that outside interested groups will be represented through the party membership.

·        Submissions will be accepted by mail, e-mail, and video, and there will be one in-person session Sunday February 28 between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm at the venue of the Provincial Council meeting.  Time-slots for in-person submissions must be booked in advance, and the in-person presentations must be accompanied by a written submission. All submissions must include name, address, phone and e-mail information.  Submissions will be accepted until March 19, 2010.

All submissions and requests for time at the in-person session are to be sent to:

Valorie Block

Executive Assistant to the Provincial Secretary, Ontario NDP 

101 Richmond Street East

Toronto, ON M5C 1N9

p: 416.591.8637 ext. 244

f:  416.599.4820

vblock@on.ndp.ca

Whereas Ontario currently has four publicly-funded school board systems, a French Catholic, a French Public, an English Catholic and an English Public; and

Whereas schools in all board systems currently lack adequate funding due to a flawed provincial funding formula that the McGuinty government has refused to fix despite promising to do so; and

Whereas all proponents of public education should be unified in the fight for excellent schools that have the funding they need; and

Whereas the forced merger at this time of some or all of these school board systems will only serve to divert attention away from the real problems facing public education in Ontario;

Therefore be it resolved that New Democrats oppose the McGuinty government's continued and chronic under-funding of schools in Ontario's four publicly-funded school board systems; and

Be it further resolved that New Democrats continue to support Ontario 's four publicly-funded board systems at this time and oppose any efforts to forcibly amalgamate them.

Be it further resolved that Provincial Council establish a Party task force to examine all public education funding options in Ontario and that that task force report back to Provincial Council within a year of this convention.

And this makes the most sense of all:

"Whereas the forced merger at this time of some or all of these school board systems will only serve to divert attention away from the real problems facing public education in Ontario;"

Social democrat?  Anyone who believes that Ontario Catholics should retain greater rights and choices in education and related employment opportunities is no social democrat.

You might want to familiarize yourself with what it means to be a social democrat.  You seem to have no idea.  In that, you are in bad company with the authors of that ridiculous resolution posted by Peter above, which proposes the examination of "all" public education funding options while simultaneously dismissing the most obvious remedy to many of the system's financial woes (the forced merger of Ontario's public and Catholic school boards).

And if you were a follower of Jesus, you might give a darn about that Great Commandment cited above ("Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself").  People who think that Catholics should keep greater rights than others before and under the law do not.

I'm just having fun with you all! This issue is so played out that the only logical response to the debate is sheer mockery employed via mockery of the blog. Good luck with your fight. Watch out for that third rail of politics. It burns....Just ask John Tory.

In all seriousness, though, ndpman, some of us don't think the torching of more important social programs so we can keep Catholic school funding alive is all that funny.  We don't find the discrimination against non-Catholic Ontarians funny either.  Both fly in the face of social democratic principles like equality and compassion for the suffering.

John Tory got burned because his "solution" to the religious school discrimination problem was a) not fiscally conservative, but additionally wasteful, and b) not in tune with what the Ontario public wants, which is the elimination of public funding for all religious schools -- including the Catholic ones.

This issue is far from played out.  As Ontario's budget situation worsens and the discrimination issue still awaits a solution, the position of Catholic schools at the trough of public funding will become less and less secure.

First they laid off ten thousand nurses and defunded the building of new hospitals in Ontario, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't sick or a health care worker.

Then they came for the Catholic school boards. And I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a trustee or even with children attending separate schools.

Then they came for _______ (fill in the blank), and I didn't speak out against the top-down neoliberal agenda, because ideologues hadn't targeted my area of public services for downsizing.

And what non-essential service is bleeding away money that government could use to preserve and maintain our public spaces and social infrastructure?  Catholic school funding.

Declining enrollment is going to close schools.  Lots of them.  There is no doubt about it.  And it should.  Ontario has hundreds of thousands fewer students than it used to.  If we keep hundreds more schools open then we need, we will undermine our ability to properly fund hospitals, roads, school maintenance, and other programs.

Have too many crumbling schools or have a more appropriate number that are well maintained -- take your pick.  Have too many crumbling schools or have people get joint and cancer surgery in a reasonable time -- take your pick.  Ontario's budget crisis will mean a lot of either-or choices ahead.  Take your pick -- but be aware that if you "pick" Catholic school funding, you'll be plunging the knife into something else that is probably a lot more important in the scheme of things.  You'll be plunging the knife into something that people can't do themselves, unlike Catholic religious education which Catholic parents can do for free (if they can't afford to donate) at their local Catholic Church.

The enrollment decline is most accute in rural and northern communities and in inner city neighbourhoods.  Many of these communities already have one school and will be left with none after their threatened school closes.  Declining enrollment need not rip the heart out of these Ontario communities.

In communities at risk of losing their only school, be it public or Cathoic, by definition half of the kids in those communities are already being bussed well past their nearest publicly funded school to attend another publicly funded school.  If we stop sorting Ontario children into Catholic and non-Catholic bins, that will stop.  Kids will attend their neighbourhood school regardless of faith.  Kids that are bussed long distances now will suddenly have shorter commutes or be able to walk to school.  Schools will become real community schools that draw all members of the community together.  One school communities at risk of losing their only school are in that predicament precisely because Ontario still segregates children by faith.  I have no sympathy for parents in this situation who favour the continuation of Ontario's Catholic school system.  They are responsible for this problem.  I have great sympathy for parents in this situation who favour one school system.  They are being screwed against their wishes and without their consent.

I am glad you are in favour of one school system Lard, but if you care about the loss of schools in Ontario communities, help us now.  Help us ensure that communities with one school bring students of the "other" faith (be it Catholic or non-Catholic) back home again, turning half-empty schools back into full schools and giving them a new lease on life.  Help us ensure that communities with a half-empty public school and a half-empty Catholic school consolidate those schools into the best of the two buildings, resulting in a full and viable school again.  Help us protect the far more important social programs that are put at risk by continued Catholic school funding.

This is the right time for one school system.  Not tomorrow.  Not while there are "more pressing issues".  The funding to deal with more pressing issues is wasted by continued Catholic school funding.  It is time to set priorities.

OL12 - I think you missed my point. 

That point was that the schools of our communities, both Catholic and public, are under attack by the neo-con hordes pushing the privatization of our public commons.

If you want me to support you, you must prove to me that you reject their agenda outright; otherwise you are very likely to function as their trojan horse.

Hear, hear.

LTJ:  You may not recall, but in the last election, polls showed most Ontarians support one school system -- not extended religious school funding and not the status quo.  The idea has support across the political spectrum spanning NDPers to Liberals to Tories.  You'd be very mistaken to think that NDPers have a monopoly on the desire to preserve and strengthen our public schools.  In fact, their current support for our wasteful and discriminatory dual school systems might suggest otherwise (it even suggests they are not social democrats, who would never countenance such inequality and discrimination).  Apart from the Greens, there is no champion for strong, truly public schools in Ontario today.

Tories abandoned their party in droves in 2007 because of the party's proposal to extend, rather than eliminate, religious school funding.  They might differ from you on other policies, but a lot of them (and a lot of Liberals and Greens) would have common cause with you in desiring one school system.

Any party principled enough to take the popular stand on that issue (one school system) will be rewarded.  The NDP, as last place party (of the big three), stands to gain the most by giving voice to a majority sentiment the other parties will not yet represent (I say "yet" because I think budget considerations will force all parties to embrace the one school system idea sooner rather than later).

Parties that champion the one school system idea will draw support from parties that do not.  I am proof of that.  I want a strong, fully and truly public school system.  I voted Green in the last election because they were the only champion for that idea.  They increased their popular vote by 200% in one election largely on the drawing power of that one policy.  That policy is not a trojan horse, but a pot of gold.  Its strategic importance to the NDP lies only in the party being the first of the big three parties to embrace it.  If they are beaten to it, they will be an irrelevant sideshow as they were in 2007, desperately seeking attention but having nothing unique or compelling to offer.

Do you care about public schools?  Do you care about the far more important services that will see their funding reduced so that we can preserve Catholic school funding?  Then do something.  Push for a NDP one school system policy now.

Peter Cassidy kindly posted the contact information for the Education Funding Task Force at Ontario NDP Education Task Force starts.

Why on earth would your support of a good idea like one school system depend on what anyone else thinks?  Are you not your own person?

I do not want to see further privatization of the school system.  I believe in common schools that are as representive of the diversity of their communities as possible.  That desire is incompatible with private and religious schools.

Private schools introduce at least some degree of socio-economic segregation.  Religious schools obviously introduce religious segregation, but also invariably introduce some degree of racial and ethnic segregation (as different races and ethnic groups adhere to different religions at different rates).  I am opposed to the segregation of children along those lines either intentionally or as a result of other policies (like Catholic school funding).

I think schools are going to continue to close, however, whether we like it or not.  We have hundreds of thousands of surplus spaces provincewide and we don't have the money to continue carrying them without hemmoraging funds that could be put to better use in the classroom, in hospitals, or any other higher priority area of public concern.  I don't have any preference for what the government might do with those surplus properties.  It could turn them into community centres or sell them for money to protect and enhance other social programs -- whatever works in a given situation.  Schools don't fetch much at a sale, however, as their design tends to be hard to adapt to other purposes.  Plus Ontario's inventory of schools is in such wretched shape from deferred and foregone maintenance (too much money has been bled away for duplication for too long!) that many are worthless and will likely meet with the wrecking ball.  In Ottawa, where I live, the maintenance backlog in the public board alone totals over $300 million.

Moving to one school system will make more money available for important social programs such as schools and hospitals and it can save the only remaining school in many one-school communities across Ontario.  Read my post above again.  I talked about that in some detail.  If schools are going to close, lets make sure it doesn't leave any Ontario communities without at least one school that welcomes all children without religious discrimination or indoctrination.  Let's make sure no Ontario child has to leave their community to attend a public school, as too many must do today.

Thanks for the clarification. As you should have gathered by now, I have a very strong preference as to what must happen with these 'surplus' (your word, which btw is very revealing) public properties.

I prefer the status quo to your benign 'disinterest'.