Make the case for continued support of the separate school system

Unionist wrote:

saga wrote:

We are talking about dismissing (from babble) the views of a very substantial portion of the population, though, and I don't see how beneficial changes can be entertained without engaging them too.

Bullshit. I said if someone can't stand to read anti-Catholic funding posts or anti-Catholic Church posts, they are welcome to change the channel. I never said we should "dismiss" anyone's views here. That's your apparent aim, and you will fail.

If this said ... 

Bullshit. I said if someone can't stand to read anti-Muslim funding posts or anti-Muslim Church posts, they are welcome to change the channel. I never said we should "dismiss" anyone's views here. That's your apparent aim, and you will fail.

 ... would it be acceptable on babble?

Just asking. I don't know. I just know it makes me uncomfortable, and I am no supporter of the Catholic church!

 Now if you are all finished twisting and dismembering my posts, I think I'll cut and run to another thread of more importance! I don't really care what the NDP decides to have as its platform. I'll wait and see before I decide how to vote anyway, as usual!

From the [url=http://www.gpo.ca/node/265][color=mediumblue][u]Green Party website[/u][/color][/url], September 11, 2007:

Quote:

The majority of Ontario voters agree with the Green Party [position] of funding only one public education system. A new Ipsos-Reid poll released on September 10 confirms that 53% of Ontarians agree with our position. And a minority -- less than 25% -- support either the Liberals or Progressive Conservatives' policy on this issue.

Ontario's education system is hampered by duplication and needless complexity, and our schools are struggling to make ends meet. The Green Party advocates a single publicly funded system. By contrast 62 per cent of Ontarians oppose the idea of religious-school funding, as proposed by John Tory and the Progressive Conservatives. Tory's going to have a tough time in this election because a majority of supporters in his own party oppose this policy.

Word on the street from Green Party campaigners in rural ridings is that many Conservative supporters, volunteers are not going to help the PCs this election - in fact many are coming over the Green Party to help us - because our position is just common sense. Only 21% of voters support Tory's position. The headline of the front page Globe and Mail article today (Sept 11) screams: "Disconnect with voters could leave Tory out in the cold."...

By funding only one system the Green Party policy promised to remove duplicate administrative, facility and transportation saving hundreds of millions of dollars which can be used to improve the quality of education. The Liberal Party is arguing for the status quo of continuing to fully fund catholic schools but not those of any other religion. This policy has the support of only 23% of voters.

...and those 22-23% of voters were probably the same ones that voted Liberal.

saga wrote:

Quote:

Survey results of a Vector Poll for the Canadian Opinion Coalition, conducted in June, 2001, presented a very disturbing challenge to Catholic education from within. The results stated that 56% of Catholics who responded to the poll indicated that they believed a unified school system (Catholic and Public) would cost less to run and save money, while 52% of the Catholics polled said that a unified board would be more accountable and provide better education." - from an undated document entitled "Preserve The Legacy Of The Enduring Gift Of Catholic Education", posted on a separate school board web site.

[url=http://www.oneschoolsystem.org/fast_facts.html][color=mediumblue][u]Sour...

That's interesting data. Perhaps it could have been presented earlier as part of the rationale for this thread? It would have made for better discussion.

However, they voted on "unified" meaning with Catholic religious education in public schools, I believe, not secular schools as I understood were being proposed here.

 I support this, as I support integration of all religious schools into the public system, with provision for religious education/observance funded by the churches, not the taxpayer.[/quote]

And that is not outside the realm of "one school system." In most resolutions going to the ONDP convention, it includes a line where "religious education/instruction" may - where there is community interest be provided outside of the school instructional time. Of course, it would be paid for by the religious group and operated by them. It also means that any religous group could use school facilities in "after school hours" for that purpose. It also means that non-religious groups could too.  Schools are publically owned buildings and should be places where the community can use to provide activities/programs to others.  

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

Unionist, a reply to your #76.

"Why should kids receive the same education? For the same reason they should receive the same health care, the same access to public services, roads, transit, health care, libraries, telecommunications, internet, jobs, skills training, and so on. That doesn't rule out optional and diverse programs and courses, but it does rule out separate buildings and segregatio. " (Unionist)

But there is a difference between what should be , in your opinion, and what is.  Canada and Ontario are very large with a variety of communities and I doubt that they will ever have the same access to the public services you mention. Did you ever check out the roads, transit,.....,jobs and skill training that is available in the small rural communities, not to mention the First Nation and Inuit communities. Even the languages can vary. For some it might be usefull to know when the fish run  takes place, or when the snowgeese arive, other are more helped with how to use an elevator or subway.

Why not teach the kids, especialy in primary school, about the community they live in? Feeding them all the same generic pablum across the country seems hardly progressive to me.

"Now we come down to the problem. You apparently believe that the Roman Catholic (or Mormon or Buddhist or Muslim) faithful in a particular region (neighbourhood? city? county? province? world?) form a "community". And, you appear to say, they have a right to use education as a tool to make their children fit into that "community". That's a pretty depressing thought, too. "(Unionist)

Does not depress me at all. I rather have my kids feel at home in their community then a missfit.

"But assuming for the sake of argument that it's true, be certain that they have no entitlement to use the public's money and resources to make their helpless children "FIT" into their parents' "COMMUNITY"." (Unionist)

You are being petty with democratic principles. If the mayority decides that people can get support for sending their kids to alternative schooling so be it. Meanwhile you have little to worry about having supported my kids during their primary school years. For more then 20 kid primary school years it came our of my pocket, saving the government probably in exess of $200,000, that might very well have helped other kids in public school.

(wow, how does one unbold text?)

Is it not a bit of a slippery slope? Is religious instruction not somewhat similar to music, theater, art, sport are they not all based on a believe in non material values just like religoin. 

saga wrote:

janfromthebruce wrote:

saga wrote:

I'd suggest the palatable starting point is religion-based programs simply sharing facilities where needed, to avoid building new schools or transporting children greater distances. It's a tweak to the new-school-construction formula.

However, there is/was in this or the previous thread a suggestion of  'eliminating' all religion from public schools, and I still sense that agenda, and I don't believe that will fly as the response is 'it's integrated in the curriculum as well as existing as a separate subject'. See?

I could see the public system offering that as an alternative - religion as 'separate' instruction supplied by the various churches - to try to draw students from public and private religious schools.

I think that there is a lot of rhetoric flying around. One can consolidate a system of education where the focus is on programming rather than infrastructure. Religious instruction can be provided outside of the school day, say after school, and not paid for with public funds. It thus provides an "equal opportunity" to all religious and non-religious groups alike and thus no religion is privileged. This is about accomodation. We already have that in schools where we provide Muslims with space to pray 3 times a day. We should not fear the "other" but embrace diversity. So how we accomodate different beliefs and religious thought and discriminate or valorize one over the other?  

One can imagine many possibilities for an ideal world. 

It's working with the possible, though, that gets things done.

Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world (Tommy Douglas)

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

Bubbles wrote:

Try not paying your property taxes for two years then you know what government is all about.

Cool. I don't pay property taxes as a renter, although I guess I get soaked for them indirectly. But I do believe in public education. Sorry it had a poor reputation in your community.

ok, Lord Pamerston I will. You could jokingly say, "the funding formula made me do it.

The duplication penalty is already borne by the taxpayer in funding four school systems serving overlapping jurisdictions. The key here is that the per pupil cost of education rises as the density of the population served decreases. It “costs more” to provide the same level of service to a separate school student.

I mentioned the following previously as an example: If my Public school board amalgamated with our neighbouring Catholic school board, we could reduce capacity of 5,500 student surplus spaces that we share between us. Not only would we be able to get rid of partially filled schools, but also we would be able to eliminate the redundant administration and duplicated services that these two boards prop up. Doing this, we would free up over 3.6 million dollars annually and another million dollars if we calculated according to our smaller coterminous board’s per pupil funding allocation.

So to recap, because per pupil cost of education rises as the density of the population served decreases (less students dispersed over same geographic location), our neighbouring separate board gets about 1 million dollars/annually for their students.

So “Separate Susie” who lives next door to “Public Polly” gets more money attached to her student body to attend the separate school even if both those schools are in the same community and might be almost side by side on the same street.

 One could say that the funding formula made me do it.

We need to move to a single public school system for each official language. The discrimination in our school system is untenable and needs to be addressed. The public system is also in a financial crises exacerbated by the current level of duplication in educational jurisdictions. Communities are facing school closures, classroom supports are being cut, and maintenance backlogs total hundreds of millions of dollars in some boards. We cannot continue to waste money on "religious" school systems where most of the families using them are not demonstrably religious. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

"We cannot continue to waste money on "religious" school systems where most of the families using them are not demonstrably religious. "

But is religious education a waste? So much of our civil society is based on religious concepts. I have non-catholic friends that send their kids to a catholic school, because they believe some religious education is better then non at all. I suspect ignoring and marginalizing religious education has the potential of serious blowback. Religious education has not made me particularly religious, just as english literature has not made me an eloquent writer. Does that mean we should not have english literature in school?.

I had a hard time writing that as getting into a religous debate is going down the deep dark hole of nowhere. Everybody loses. 

The reason why I dropped that there, is that the data overall shows that attendance at the Catholic church has dramatically dropped, and thus kids attending separate school are not attending church, just like their parents. 

If people feel that a bit if religion is better than none - fine - just not on the public's nickle. Send them to Sunday school, like other parents do. 

 That's the harsh side of me. The better side of me says, fine, a little bit of religion is ok, so the Catholic church can provide that little bit of religion after school in the school building, and for that matter, where there is enough community interest, other non-funded religious groups can do the same. Thus it's secular, where no religious group is favoured. Kids could attend catholic education after school. 

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

janfromthebruce wrote:

I had a hard time writing that as getting into a religous debate is going down the deep dark hole of nowhere. Everybody loses. 

The reason why I dropped that there, is that the data overall shows that attendance at the Catholic church has dramatically dropped, and thus kids attending separate school are not attending church, just like their parents. 

If people feel that a bit if religion is better than none - fine - just not on the public's nickle. Send them to Sunday school, like other parents do. 

 That's the harsh side of me. The better side of me says, fine, a little bit of religion is ok, so the Catholic church can provide that little bit of religion after school in the school building, and for that matter, where there is enough community interest, other non-funded religious groups can do the same. Thus it's secular, where no religious group is favoured. Kids could attend catholic education after school. 

 

And where "a little bit of religion" folks want this, why we would ensure that kids can take a "world religion course" where all the religions are discussed in an open accepting way, and kids could talk about their various beliefs and rituals. It would be cool. And kids who don't have religious beliefs but other beliefs could talk about those too! I'd love to take a class like that.

(I combined your posts.)

The 'religion' part is a mine field, and that's why I say sharing facilities without demanding program changes is the logical starting point, without even approaching the 'minefield'.

The study of world religions - education about, not indoctrination in - is already approved in the curriculum. But I agree public money shouldn't be spent on religious indoctrination.

However, I think some flexibility around the scheduling might help - eg, as you mentioned Muslim students have certain times for prayers, and others religions might likewise be accommodated throughout the day. I just mean rigid adherence to 'after school' may not work best in all situations.

But how they staff and fund it, including all supplies and facilities, would be the responsibility of the churches/parents, of course.

Wage Zombie, in another thread asked me to expand on "discrimination here [and in relation to funding of 4 school systems in Ontario] and i'd appreciate it if you could flesh this out further, in another thread where the school system debate is on topic.  Who exactly is being discriminated against in the current system?"

In our present school system the Separate elementary schools may refuse children who are not baptised Catholic and do not belong to the Catholic church.

As an aside and to be fair, one of the conditions of getting public funding for Catholic secondary schools during the Bill Daves era, the separate school boards had to agree to allow non-catholics to attend their schools without discrimination. Thus the church ceded this.

In terms of hiring practices though, Separate School Boards may discriminate in their hiring practices based on Catholic baptism and a letter from their parish. Thus they can discriminate in hiring only "catholic" teachers, and other employees who may have all the other necessary pertinent qualifications to fulfill a job with their education system, except they are not catholic.

 Back in 1876, when upper and lower Canada became one, they made a constitutionals deal to protect minority rights. In one, they protected English schools in Quebec, and in Ontario they protected Catholic minority rights. For the most part, it was really about protecting language but when the 2 provinces came together language and religion were divided pretty much along English/christain and French/Catholic. 

 The idea back in the mid 1880s was to protect minority rights - in this regard religious minority as the later group was much larger.

However, if you check the pie chart above, one will note that NOW Catholics are a very priveleged minority amongst other minority religions in Ontario who do not receive funding for their religious schools.

So the original reason to protect a "minority" with special privilege is not relevant now as an rational argument, and creates resentment from other religous groups who may also want to have public funds for their own schools. 

If you look at the pie chart, and taken together those who are "christian, other identified religions, and also those who identify no religious affliation" is a very large cohert and is who the "secular public school boards" provide education to. 

In equity and fairness which are the hallmark of principles that underpin New democratic philosophy, we should fund all or fund none to be fair to all. 

Incidently, NFL use to fund many different religious based schools and ended it, as they were going broke funding separate relgious schools. It fractured the education system as the focus was on infrastructure rather than focussing on education programming. 

One needs to go to the bases of why we fund public education in the first place, and from that philosophy move to the practice of delivering education to fulfill that mandate, philosophy of our society. What kind of society do we want and what kind of public education system would best be able to help create that society. In my humble opinion.

______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!

I think we need a special school system for the colour blind, these coloured pie charts are so onreadable to them.

That's a pretty poor argument saga.