Thank heaven for religious schools — they keep our public system honest
Posted by Christy Clark in Columns
The premier of Ontario could be having a tough time right now. He’s in the middle of a hotly contested election and his opponents believe they have lots to complain about.
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He signed a pledge saying he wouldn’t raise taxes. He spent millions advertising his promise. Then he introduced a hefty new health tax.
But no one’s talking about taxes in Ontario. They’re talking about education — in particular, the Conservatives’ promise to extend public funding to religious schools.
Although Catholic schools already receive 100 per cent of their funding from the province, Dalton McGuinty opposes extending funding to other types of religious schools. He argues it’ll hurt the system by taking money from public schools.
In B.C., all religious schools that meet provincial criteria have been 50-per-cent government-funded since 1977, when Bill Vander Zalm was education minister.
I remember my father, a public-school teacher and sworn enemy of Social Credit, telling me the decision would spell doom for public education in our province.
Boy, did he turn out to be wrong. Extending public funding to religious and other independent schools has turned out to be one of our system’s great strengths.
Those schools provide parents with choice in a province where public schools have long resisted differentiating themselves from one another.
The B.C. public-education system is one of the best in the world. But offering essentially the same programs at every single school doesn’t provide much choice for those kids who don’t fit the mould. And it doesn’t work for families for whom religion is an important part of schooling.
There are those who say that allowing religion a place in state-funded schools messes with the separation of church and state. But who says the state has primary responsibility for educating my children?
It has an obligation to ensure that a high-quality education is available to every child. But it shouldn’t be the sole discretion of the state to decide how that education should be delivered. I’m a parent; that’s my job.
And it’s hypocrisy to complain, as many critics of religious education routinely do, that faith-based schools preach a biased world view.
So do public schools. It’s called secularism, and a good number of parents don’t subscribe to that world view.
They care so much about that issue they’re willing to pay for their kid’s education twice — first through their taxes that go to fund public schools, then to cover the costs of a religious education that is only half-funded by government.
And thank goodness they do, because religious and other independent schools inject an element of competition into the system that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
No institution improves when it has a monopoly. Schools are no exception.
Knowing that parents can vote with their feet and get their kids an education elsewhere is part of what keeps public schools honest.
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I feel funding religious 100% cheapen things. Keeping public school honest is the best reason to fund religious school. It is a different product all together.
I do agree with you on another issue. The BCTF union shouldn’t be the licencing board for all teachers. The licencing board can be independent to the government and as well as to the union.
“No institution improves when it has a monopoly. Schools are no exception.”
When you put it that way, government should be no exception, either. The problem is that you’ve just confused the pizza with the cook and the delivery boy.
Education is publicly funded by taxpayers who all have one thing in common — a need for a standardized system of knowledge whose purpose it is to give children the tools with which to become fully functioning adults. Education is standardized, not a monopoly.
The monopoly would come in only if there were only one deliverer…only one school in the entire province.
Everyone needs to learn how to read, do basic math, have some knowledge of history…all the basic stuff. And it’s cost-effective to have everyone contribute with their taxes, because everyone needs it.
Religion, however, is not needed by everyone. And it flies in the face of equality for everyone to be made to contribute to something of which they get no value.
Catholic schools should get no public funding for the teaching of religion. Period. Religion is something that should be contained within that culture, but not funded by the citizens who get no benefit from it.
I have no objection to religious schools. But I do have a major objection to being forced to pay for them.
How can you talk so evenly of schooling with religious-minded themes without even a mere whiff of acknowledgement towards the thousands of children who have suffered on the road paved with the good intentions of religions and government in institutions called “native indian residential schools”?
Christy, great editorial!
In addition to keeping BC’s public schools honest, each child who attends an independent school in this province actually saves the public education system money.
The majority of independent schools in British Columbia actually operate at a lower cost per pupil than public schools. Should the province’s independent schools close their doors tomorrow, it would cost the province $317 million more per year to educate the 67,500 students in the public system. Plus, an estimated $1 billion of new capital funding would be required to construct the additional spaces that would be needed to accommodate these students.
[...] If the Liberal-Lovin’ Lemmings of Ontario want four more years of lies, obfuscation, ‘health’ taxes, hidden taxes, cover-ups, crime and lawlessness, union-pandering, discriminatory education funding with questionable results, banning everything under the sun, long waits for medical attention, back-door funding, never-ending native stand-offs and broken promises – then go for it. [...]
[...] 29th, 2007 · No Comments If the Liberal-Lovin’ Lemmings of Ontario want four more years of lies, obfuscation,‘health’ taxes, hidden taxes, cover-ups, crime and lawlessness, union-pandering, discriminatory education funding with questionable results, banning everything under the sun, long waits for medical attention, back-door funding, never-ending native stand-offs and broken promises – then go for it. [...]
it is great!