Catholic school funding 5

It's not obvious from reading these threads.

There are ways to get a resolution to the floor, just as there are ways to block tf. The left has to be smart to win. Yes, We can.

The more things change, eh? Maybe old Egerton Ryerson was right:

Now can we leave the Irish out of this, please? This is distracting nonsense. There is only one religion which has its indoctrination funded by the public purse. It is neither exclusively nor predominantly Irish today.

 And that is my concern for all the children in our public education system and also the children who are not but might be if we put quality programming as the focus for excellence in education.

I sit in budget deliberations and know that I have to make decisions that effect what happens in my local communities, students and parents. This is about both social and economic policy and they are not separate silos but intertwined. 

In a thread else where today, Lord Turn. (sp) linked to this thread from May 2007 -

So for Wynne "fundraising becomes an important skill." If one rereads that link, babblers were all talking about the amount of fundraising Parent Councils are doing. When parent councils were first formed their objective was not fundraising, now that is still mainly what they do. This is not about frills. 

There seems to be a disconnect between the economics of funding education and what folks want. I actually think we have lots of money in education but it is being spent inefficiently - we need to get rid of the silos. I think in my school area that every kid should be able to go to the outdoor education centre for "free" (in other words paid by the school board) rather than costing say, $75.00 per child. Planned educational class trips and bringing in speakers should also be a part of the education as it broadens children's outlook. 

I guess I'm of the mind of doing the most of what we have. I can tell you all now, no matter who is in power provincially, allocating of tax dollars is a problem that requires thinking beyond the past ways. I can remember when my kids were very young in the early late 80s and through the Harris years, how tough it was to come with the money to pay these "user fees" that just continue to grow. I cannot image what will happen as we enter the depression of 21st century. Talk to the kids, and they appear a lot brighter about this and they can clearly articuate what is important to them.

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

Did this used to be in your signature line and with the new interface it just looks like part of your post? 

Because everytime I read it, I just think of the reverend's wife in the Simpsons yelling "Won't someone please think of the children?!" IMHO It reduces your post to a catchphrase, makes you sound repetitive and minimizes the effect of whatever you are trying to say. 

Hi Summer, it's part of my profile but I need to figure out how to
change it so that folks see that is what it is. The new interface of
babble has me somewhat baffled (and many others share that sentiment). Thanks for your opinion

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

thanks little lost in Bruce County - those youth they think they are so smart-alec (sp?)

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

The most frightening thing about that article isn't the stats, but the comments that follow.

I can well understand the thought that the patriarchal Conservatives are the 'family' oriented party for a Christian traditionalist, but how they ever claim that the Conservatives aren't complete sell-outs to corporate interests just boggles the brain...

 So it's best that the NDP represent 78% who do not and that means offering folks a non-denominational platforms where everybody is welcome

 Platforms with policies that reflect universal accessible opportunities for all regardless of folks ethnic, racial or cultural backgrounds, social or economic status, individual exceptionality, or religious preference.
And it means providing a education system that does just that.

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

What did they do while the Catholic kids prayed?

In my town of 5,800 we have a secular elementary school, a Catholic elementary school and a secular high school.  The secular PS is over 100 years old and two years ago got funding to repair and paint the exterior stucco.  About 7 years ago, even though they were facing declining enrollment, St. Joe's elementary got funding to do away with a few portables, fully renovate and further expand their school. 

Today St. Joe's student population is half non-Catholic....they're the ones that when trotted off to Mass during school hours cross their arms over their chest  and receive a blessing from the priest rather than the sacrament.  The teachers there report that only one child per class goes to Mass on a regular basis.  They know because they take up the Homily every Monday morning with the whole class. They say about 10 of the Catholic kids go to Mass at Christmas and Easter, the rest just don't go. In grade 8, parents of St. Joe's students, Catholic and non are told that if their children are academically inclined, they should go to the bright shiny renovated and expanded Catholic SS in the city.  If they are not academically inclined, they should stay in town and go to the secular SS.  Parents do as they're told figuring that the local SS can't meet their child's needs.  Our PS principal gets parents coming in asking whether they should send their kids to the Catholic city school or our community SS.  Non-Catholic and Catholic high school students are on buses three hours a day but hey it's one way to keep your kids out of trouble.  About 150 students leave our area every school day for the city.  Most go to the Catholic school, some are going for French immersion others go to private schools.

Teachers at the two elementary schools compare notes, it's a small town.  Their opinion is that the secular school has more kids with more pronounced learning disabilities, have less resources but do more for those kids.  Our high school does more for the "non-academically inclined" students than St. Joe's every did.  David Thomas, the director of education for the Upper Canada DSB says that our board has become the go-to board for kids with special needs.  The less PC among us would suggest that it is a dumping ground.  

Were it not for the library, our secular PS could close its second floor.  We have a student population of about 246.  St. Joe's has about 450 students.  Our high school has about 525 students.  The board is trying to sustain the highschools so has decided that grades 7 and 8 will be moved to the high schools as enrollment declines.  This will put our PS under the magic number (200) and it will be slated for closure or will become a "community hub" or be absorbed into the highschool as well and become a JK to Grade 12 facility.  We already have one of those in our board and a few more are already in the works.  

Stop the insanity.

George, I think this is a critical issue. Disabled people remain the poorest of the poor. I fully support integration of children with disabilities. I see this as no different an issue than racial or religious integration. I do not have a child with an identified disability. But I worked as an occupational therapist for 20 years in the community, as adjunct faculty at Queen's and in research with colleagues in the Canadian Independent Living Movement and Disabled Peoples International. So I am not your average parent (in that regard only!) Since deciding to be at home with my kids, I am behind on the literature. I have never worked as an OT in the school system so can only comment as an active parent volunteer within one secular public school.

IMHO where integration of children with disabilities is failing miserably is in the first few years of school. There is inadequate funding for timely assessment/ diagnosis and intervention/support. To get an EA in the classroom, a child must have pretty severe physical limitations or behavioural issues. Your average child with a learning disability or those children who come from very socially disadvantage families don't get an EA. Naturally, parents take a look at the disruption taking place in their children's classrooms and wonder how it's affecting their child's learning experience. Some look for a way out.

But teachers teach differently than when we were kids. My eldest son has been in split classes all along. Within our small school, there are three classes with grade 4 students where kids are streamed according to academic and social abilities. Yes, the kids in the lower streams risk stigmatization but they also get to take on leadership roles that they would never have had in a single grade classroom. Besides splitting the classes, in grade 2 they had my son spend the mornings with the grade 3 / 4 class for reading. This did not involve the hounding of an overbearing parent, we didn't find out about it til a month in. In grade 3, his science teacher saw that he handled the grade 3 science curriculum with ease so he was encouraged to go beyond that (within his own class) and mastered the grade 6 science curriculum for the same module. He's in Gr 4 (a 4/5 split) right now and is tackling grade 7 spelling. He's doing this all within a classroom where older kids with pretty involved learning disabilities are also thriving. He doesn't think twice about the fact that John needs a computer to write or Jack only reads at a grade 2 level because of inadequate ESL. (He does wonder why Jack isn't getting more help.) These kids happen to be two of his favourite playmates..... And on top of all that, in this small community, his two very best friends are Muslim and Buddhist.

A society can't legislate a change in parental attitude or prejudice toward disability, race, or religion. It can't force parents to care as deeply about their neighbours' children as their own. But Ontario can reduce duplication and inefficiencies, provide caring teachers with adequate resources, and integrate children so they can do what comes naturally.

Another way too long post. Sorry!

So has Paul Miller, MPP in the heavily Catholic riding of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, just committed political suicide for supporitng that dangerous radical Michael Prue?

I love this story:

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/jobless-non-religio..., non-religious teachers turn to Catholicism in attempt for employment[/url]

With the Vatican falling on hard times, this may be just the kind of good-news story they need!

[url=http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/education/article/1115602--funding-fo... for Ontario Catholic schools under fire in court challenge[/url]

Ontario has been there done that got the T-shirt. Move on nothing to see here.

It means that there has already been two Court cases on this matter, both have already gone to the Supreme Court of Canada and the constitutionality of Catholic school funding was upheld. And private religious school funding was denied on a constitutional basis. That is " what the fuck" it means.

1867? Hey why not revert to the health care funding formula as per Constitution of 1867 while we're on a roll?

Why not reach back even further to, say, Greco-Roman funding rules for education and health care?

Better yet Hammurabi's code of ancient Babylon. Now we're cookin' with gas.

[url=http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/10/17/catholic-school-funding-unconsti... school funding unconstitutional, woman argues in court challenge[/url]

LOL - the author of that phony study is the same Professor David Johnson who did [url=http://postmediavancouversun.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/ebrief_74.pdf]a... "study"[/url] showing the harm done to children (especially, oh, the poor children) by teachers' strikes. In case the McGuinty Liberals, great champions of workers' rights, didn't go to a top-notch Catholic school and couldn't understand the good professor's subtle message, he spelled it out for them:

Got any more two-bit phony scholars to prove the inestimable value of Catholic schools, Fidel?

If you go back and look at the Supreme Court cases of the 1980s, you'll see they only ruled that Ontario had the authority to fund Catholic high schools, not that it was compelled to do so.  That's what the case was about.  They based their decision largely on the existence of a "constitutional compromise/deal" that saw denominational school rights granted to religious minorities in both Quebec and Ontario.  Quebec eliminated public funding for denominational schools over a decade ago, which means that the "deal" has now been ripped up by one of the parties.  Thus the legal basis for the Supreme Courts 1980s decisions no longer holds.  Conditions are ripe for another challenge.  The challenge for the justices of the Supreme Court will be to come up with another excuse for Ontario Catholics to have greater civil rights (in education) than anyone else.  They'll need to come up with a new excuse for non-fundamental and exclusively Catholic denominational school "rights" to trump everyone else's fundamental right to equality.

First they came for our social programs. Then they attacked separate school funding. We wouldn't be talking about money and "Catholic school funding" had our corrupt stooges not handed off the remaining powers of money creation to private and foreign bankers by 1991.

We say "Catholic school funding" now, but the bastards really don't like public funding of any worthy cause. Feast your eyes on the teachers unions reports and on what GATS is all about over the long haul. The neolib bastards eventually want to end public funding of schools in general. 

Yes there is a dead rat under the floorboards long time in this country. The country has experienced a prolonged period of deindustrialization at a frenzied pace ever since.

And this just in from the absentee corporate landlords running Ontario into the ground report:

Oshawa loses 1000 manufacturing jobs to Michigan   (and 9 spinoff jobs for every manufacturing job to follow)

More job losses and potentially even more disgruntled voters.

Does anyone actually believe that stopping public funding of separate schools will somehow fix the whopping annual budget deficit in Ontario? Not a snowball's chance!

Good, because you wouldn't have much of an argument with people like me who understand the deliberate attempts to strangle public funding in general for political reasons in this and other countries.

I'm for leaving them be.  So whatever it is that's "worth it" must be good enough for you regardless of everything else that matters.

There are very many things that are broken in the province of Ontario besides a lack of school funding. So many issues and going concerns it's not even funny anymore.  Curious as to why youre so hot to trot on defunding something that actually does work. Is it down to something that a Church worker did to some kids 40 years ago? Is it because of that house/palace arrest of Galileo on the Church payroll way back when? What? Why should we defund a style of education that works and namely in the here and now, in your opinion?