Make the case for continued support of the separate school system 2

Jan do you believe that it's true that the catholicism is woven throughout the curriculum or do you think they're kidding themselves?  Or would they be saying that to make consolidation seem more difficult?

janfromthebruce wrote:

Now tell me, in math how is the instruction different in say grade 5.

Well, for one thing, the Catholic kids don't have to learn proofs for Euclidean propositions. They're just true [url=http://tinyurl.com/34qdfz][color=mediumblue][u]because that's how God made the universe.[/u][/color][/url]

Unionist wrote:

Ok, saga, here's a link to the [url=http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90e02_e... Act[/i][/color][/url].

The word "indoctrination" never appears in it.

The concept that some functions of a separate school are publicly funded, while others are not - well, you'll have to point me to it, because I couldn't find it.

On the contrary, I did find the following:

Quote:

52.  A Roman Catholic board may establish and maintain programs and courses of study in [b]religious education[/b] for pupils in all schools under its jurisdiction. 1997, c. 31, s. 28.

Saga, that says "religious education". It does [b][i]NOT[/i][/b] say, "education about religions."

And the following:

Quote:

230.19  (1)  Nothing in this Part authorizes the Minister to interfere with or control,

(a) the denominational aspects of a Roman Catholic board;

Clear?

Oh, by the way, there's an "opting out" provision for individual students whose parents don't want them reading a particular book or participating in a particular religious exercise:

Quote:

(2)  No pupil [b]in a public school[/b] shall be required to read or study in or from a religious book, or to join in an exercise of devotion or religion, objected to by the pupil’s parent or guardian, or by the pupil, where the pupil is an adult. R.S.O. 1990, c. E.2, s. 51 (2).

Guess what else? [b][i]There is no such provision for separate schools.[/i][/b]

Thanks for pointing me to the law, saga. It's a whole lot worse than I thought.

 

You're welcome. You'd better check the curriculum too, or regulations, policy ... not sure where it is but there are guidelines for teachers in public schools. Obviously those policies don't affect Catholic schools, and I am as disgusted as you are if their religious materials are publicly funded.

As for being committed to Catholic education ... I just proposed a rational way to end it that might actually work.

An imposed 'edict' won't work.

That's my opinion, and that's my point.

Andrea Horwath:

Quote:

On Michael Prue's suggestion of re-examining Separate School funding

"I co-chaired that [last] campaign and I watched that train wreck up close and personal and I don't believe we need to spend our time shooting guns at each other on the convention floor. I'm sure there will be some kind of resolution we'll debate but I believe that we need to look at education from the perspective of where are the common pieces and a common piece is the fact that we're still operating under the Harris funding formula; a common piece is that we know that there isn't enough ESL being provided in our schools, there's not enough special ed teachers for kids with special needs, our schools are physically crumbling as we speak, the closure of community schools instead of reopening them to the community so they can become hubs of recreation, of public health and all kinds of other services; the closing of rural schools, pulling out the last bastion of any kind of community activity from these rural communities. Those are the kinds of things that we have common ground on; those are the kind of things that we can build from on common purpose as opposed to the politics of division which I'm so sick and tired of. After Harris and now even McGuinty he's following in the same footsteps in terms of the politics of division that Harris had except maybe a little bit more subtly. I've gotta tell you I don't have time for the politics of division; I have time for the politics of building."

Yeah, we don't want to divide people...let's continue supporting discrimination in public education.  

Jan, maybe I misunderstood your reply to LP, but I'm quite certain he was [b]not[/b] supporting Horwath's comments!

Saga, I'm not going to research "curriculum" or other "regulations" for you, unless you can give me a hint as to where to look. The bottom line is this: Separate Catholic schools, contrary to your earlier comments, are fully funded by the public in exactly the same way as the public boards. Ontarians' taxes pay for Catholic education. Now, if you want to defend the perpetuation of that reality, go ahead, but please don't sugar-coat it.

Unionist wrote:

Jan, maybe I misunderstood your reply to LP, but I'm quite certain he was [b]not[/b] supporting Horwath's comments!

Saga, I'm not going to research "curriculum" or other "regulations" for you, unless you can give me a hint as to where to look. The bottom line is this: Separate Catholic schools, contrary to your earlier comments, are fully funded by the public in exactly the same way as the public boards. Ontarians' taxes pay for Catholic education. Now, if you want to defend the perpetuation of that reality, go ahead, but please don't sugar-coat it.

Unionist, I challenge you to find any quote from me in this thread or the previous one that indicates that I support the perpetuation of publicly funded Catholic schools.

Perhaps your personal attackn on me is because you are offended that I said your 'edict' approach won't fly?

Tough cookies. It's the truth.  It's bad policy because it can't be implemented that way.

Any policy that is offensive to 1/3 to 1/2 of the population is unlikely to win anybody any popularity contests, and since politics is essentially a popularity contest ... well, it's obvious that any party that tries this top-down, imposed, undemocratic stunt will get demolished at the polls.

My point about curriculum/regulations/policy is simply this: 

We can offer, and accommodate privately funded religious instruction/observance in public schools without fear of 'infiltration' into curriculum, because:

- There is already policy in place that distinguishes indoctrination in a religion from education about religions. If you go to the Ministry of Education website, Curriculum, and search for 'religion', you will find it, and it refers to (amended 1994) Reg. 262 of the Education Act.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/curricul/religion/religioe.html#PartA

The policy does not permit boards of education to provide indoctrinational religious education. Boards may provide programs in education about religion during the regular school day as follows:

- there is already accommodation of religious observance in schools (Muslim students)

Thus, imo, Catholic students can be adequately accommodated in any public school any time, and attracting these students could eventually integrate the two systems without trying to implement a top-down policy. The latter, imo, will be rejected and will create further hard feelings and divisions, destroying any chance of success of any other 'gentler' approach to such integration and possibly hardening positions and thus perpetuating the Catholic system.

 In other words, it is, imo, a top-down imposed 'edict' approach like you suggest (and others, and apparently Michael Prue), that is more likely to perpetuate the Catholic system, by hardening the divisions, than a more gradual approach based on choice.

In my opinion, of course.

Disagree with my opinion, if you choose unionist. But please stop the personal attacks and jumping to false superficial ideologically-based conclusions.

Perhaps I don't fit into easy political pigeon-holes, but life is complex, people even more so, and trying to sort and label people in simplistic ideological categories is a losing game. And so, in my opinion, is trying to impose secular education on people.

I agree with Andrea that there are more important policies/issues to address than this divisive no-win debate.

M. Spector wrote:

We've already dealt with this argument [i]ad nauseam[/i]. Opinion polls show big support among Catholics for a single secular public education system. And the Green Party increased its popular vote dramatically in the last provincial election, as the only party to oppose funding for Catholic schools.

 I haven't seen those polls.  When I googled for such polls, I did find one where Ontario was 47:45 for eliminating funding to Catholic schools, compared to 48:44 in favour of extending funding to all religious schools (http://www.thestar.com/OntarioElection/article/256568) (see also http://erg.environics.net/media_room/default.asp?aID=643). 

 Edited to add - the link M.Spector added doesn't link to a poll, but to a report about a report about a poll that doesn't actually ask about whether the respondents support eliminating the Catholic system.

 Further, if Catholics support eliminating Separate boards, then the place to take the argument is the ballot box in Separate School Board elections -- when Separate School Board trustees start arguing for a single secular system that would be a strong indication of support for this kind of change.

saga wrote:

Unionist, I challenge you to find any quote from me in this thread or the previous one that indicates that I support the perpetuation of publicly funded Catholic schools.

Sorry, saga, the babble moderators will surely be upset if I copy and paste every single word you have posted on this subject. I reject your challenge. Everyone else here can read plain English. You are completely opposed to de-funding of Catholic schools, and you have said so ad nauseam - to the point of (falsely) claiming that Catholic "indoctrination" is not publicly funded right now. Why would you be ashamed of your stand?

M. Spector wrote:

saga wrote:

Unionist, I challenge you to find any quote from me in this thread or the previous one that indicates that I support the perpetuation of publicly funded Catholic schools.

What part of "yanking funding from Catholic schools is not doable" means that you don't support the perpetuation of publicly funded Catholic schools??

The "yanking" part - ie, We disagree only on what is the method of accomplishing it that is most likely to be successful. In my opinion, abruptly attempting to impose it on people as 'policy' is more likely to harden positions and lead to difficulty making the transition.

Quote:

Any policy that is offensive to 1/3 to 1/2 of the population is unlikely to win anybody any popularity contests, and since politics is essentially a popularity contest ... well, it's obvious that any party that tries this top-down, imposed, undemocratic stunt will get demolished at the polls.

Quote:

We've already dealt with this argument [i]ad nauseam[/i]. [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/central-canada/make-case-continued-support-separ... polls[/u][/url] show big support among Catholics for a single secular public education system. And the Green Party increased its popular vote dramatically in the last provincial election, as the only party to oppose funding for Catholic schools.

I would suggest working with the 50% of Catholic parents who support a unified system, to see how the (now) secular system can meet their needs. Given their apparent support (in the poll you cite) for a unified system, I think it would be important to find out: Why are their kids are still in Catholic schools then? What is needed for them to move into one system?

I simply disagree with

- a top-down, unilateral policy/platform/legislation method of imposing this change on the Catholic system, without consultation with those affected, and 

- trying to impose secular education on people. I believe we'll have to make allowance for private after-school religious education in public schools, to attract students from both Catholic and private religious schools.

It may be that sufficient support for abruptly removing funding from Catholic schools can be drawn from non-Catholics to satisfy the NDP's purposes. However, I don't agree with political policies that would divide people along religious lines, and of course, I'm not focusing on what's good for the NDP, but what's good for kids and communities.

 I think the 'debate' should revolve around how public schools can accommodate the needs of all children, including those whose parents identify religious instruction as a need. That will increase the chances of actually designing appropriate and palatable policy to bring about one inclusive school system.

I think it is counter-productive to make derogatory comments about Catholicism, or to pass judgment on the choices currently made by Catholic parents, and especially to brand them as hypocrites because they aren't (in someone's opinion) 'religious enough' to need religious education in schools. I see these as arguments that will undermine efforts to bring about one inclusive school system, because they are arguments that are divisive and offensive to some, based as they are in judgments about a religion itself.

Does that clarify?

saga wrote:

- trying to impose secular education on people. I believe we'll have to make allowance for private after-school religious education in public schools, to attract students from both Catholic and private religious schools.

I don't know why you keep talking about "attracting" Catholics to the public secular education system, as if it's some kind of marketing challenge.

Frankly, I don't care whether Catholics choose to send their kids to public secular schools or to private religious schools. [b]All I care about is that public dollars should not go to religious schools.[/b]

Once the public funding is "yanked" from the Catholic schools, I have no doubt that many Catholics will be attracted to the public secular school system because it's free. And if they want to hire people to teach them Catholicism outside of school hours, I'm sure the public school system will be willing to continue its current policy of making the schools available after hours to any community groups that want to rent space.

But I pause to note that not many Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Pastafarian, or other communities that currently send their children to public secular schools seem to feel the need to have this kind of after-hours indoctrination [b]on the school premises.[/b] They tend to do that sort of thing in non-school premises. Why would Catholics be any different?

Quote:

However, I don't agree with political policies that would divide people along religious lines...

Neither do I, but that's exactly what the political policy of funding the Catholic schools does.

We've got to help the two old line parties gut public services so as to make it easier to privatize down the road. Then we can complain about private enterprise jackals cutting corners to save a buck. And then we can wring our hands as to why poor inner city schools are falling apart in grand USA style. And we'll whine to no end when Suzie cant read because her classmates didnt sell enough chocolate covered peanuts manufactured and packaged in the USSA. That putrid odour of want and ignorance is wafting north over the border even stronger now. 2010 is when we officially cease being a country anymore.

It's a legacy issue. Let the two old line legacy parties deal with it. Catholics cant be any more than about 1.2 million voters in Ontario anyway. And I think they tend to vote Liberal and Tory.

Bubbles wrote:

 

Fine to have separation of state and religion, but would a separation between state and education not be equaly important. A state supported public school system gives the state enormous powers to manipulate the democratic process.

 

In my opinion parents should set early education goals and slowly release that power as their children mature and can take responsibillity for their own destiny.

 

Currently it seems to me that the state is very much controled by corporate interests. And as a result current education reflects that corporate bias. Education now seems to be more about job training then about life itself. 

 

So people unable to pay for private education would not be able to send their kids to school? Is that what you are suggesting?

saga wrote:

I don't believe you will be able to pull the funding with a unilateral, authoritarian approach. It simply won't fly.

Pulling government funding from things is not rocket surgery. It's something that happens all the time. And the government hardly ever politely asks the de-fundees in advance if it's okay with them. You may call that "authoritarian" but it's the way governments work. What the state giveth it can take away.

Do you suppose that before cutting funding for Status of Women Canada the Harper Tories agonized over whether it would "fly"?

In 1984 (appropriately) the Ontario Conservative government extended public funding to Catholic high schools beyond Grade 10, with the stroke of a pen. Do you imagine there were not a whole lot of noses out of joint as a result of that? It was the beginning of the move towards chronic underfunding of the public school system.

I'm out of this thread now. All you are doing is rehashing discussions we've already had in a whole series of recent threads on this topic. I don't feel like reinventing the wheel.

Wilf, you apparently have trouble seeing the difference between public funding of French-language education and public funding of Catholic education. I am convinced that nothing I could possibly say will help you see that difference, if it doesn't come to you spontaneously.

Wilf Day wrote:

We've had public Catholic education since around 1855 or so. We've had public francophone education, for a much smaller minority, for a much shorter time. Should they feel safe?

No. Ontario francophones should feel that their language and culture are only safe if the Church maintains its power over education.

Likewise, Québec anglophones are living in fear that they will lose their language of choice since 1998, when public Protestant schools were abolished.

When I see an intelligent and dedicated politically active person descend to emotional (to be polite) "arguments" like these, it tells me something about the effect that religion can have when permitted into the public sphere.

Get it out of your public schools, the sooner the better. Like yesterday's hangover, everyone will feel a whole lot better. Especially the Catholic kids.

How is it that you speak for the Catholic kids unionist? Just wondering ...

I think wilf's right, and it isn't about emotions, it's about constitutional rights.

I'll bet that discussion's already been had. Thanks for the info, wilf. Not takin a position. ;)

As you know, unionist, I think there are ways that might work, and ways that won't. Telling Catholics, kids or otherwise, what you think they think or what they should think or should do, just isn't a way to achieve what you want to achieve, imo. 

Unionist wrote:

 This is a modern society,

Ha! Good one. If we're a modern society, then what are we still doing with an obsolete electoral system?

And the red chamber has no place in a modern democracy.

saga wrote:

Bubbles wrote:

 

Fine to have separation of state and religion, but would a separation between state and education not be equaly important. A state supported public school system gives the state enormous powers to manipulate the democratic process.

 

In my opinion parents should set early education goals and slowly release that power as their children mature and can take responsibillity for their own destiny.

 

Currently it seems to me that the state is very much controled by corporate interests. And as a result current education reflects that corporate bias. Education now seems to be more about job training then about life itself. 

 

So people unable to pay for private education would not be able to send their kids to school? Is that what you are suggesting?

 

 Not realy.  We are a real sorry lot if, in order for us to be able to live and play together, we all need identical/similar education. We are confronted with serious environmental limitations due to an unsustainable life style.

Now look at our biospere. It turns out that the oldest and most stable environment turns out to also the most diverse, the tropical jungle. Maybe we should learn a lesson from that and promote a great diversity of life styles in order to be able to make the best use of available resources and energy. Are we going to likely get there if we send our kids to a standardized school? Are our kids as a consequence not more likely going to want all similar things?

Personally I like to see far more educational choises, not just one standard public school format.

Our current educational system is not free, as some suggested, we all contribute. There is no reason why our contributions have to all go in one standard public school system. Why should a kid that attends a church service first thing in the morning in school, to experience the power of tradition and story telling, not get along with a kid that goes in a school garden to experience the power of the sun? 

The use of Catholics as a minority here is disingenuous unless you voted for John Tory last election.

Wilf Day wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Get it out of your public schools, the sooner the better. Like yesterday's hangover, everyone will feel a whole lot better. Especially the Catholic kids.

See, that's your problem. You want to tell Catholics what's best for their kids.

Actually, I was just expressing an opinion. Am I allowed?

Like, some parents in the U.S. might like to send their kids to all-white schools. I might say: "Integrate all the schools, and everyone will feel a whole lot better - especially the white kids."

So, am I telling those white parents "what's best for their kids"?

Or, parents who like to send their sick children to be "healed" by some evangelist rather than to our public health care system. When the police come to pick them up for child abuse, are we telling those "parents" what is best for their kids?

Or, when we decline to full publicly fund Muslim and Zoroastrian high-school education - is this some message to Muslim and Zoroastrian parents?

No, I'm actually not talking to any of those parents at all. I'm giving a view on how society should be organized, and a view that people will all be better off for it.

You're playing some odd cards here though, Wilf, like "don't tell parents what's best for their kids". You think society's policy regarding children should be set, or vetoed, by their parents? Not in my society, thank you very much.