My thoughts on this issue are twofold (believe me, this ALWAYS comes up at any policy meeting in the NDP that I’ve attended.) On the most basic theoretical level it is plain that public funding for religious schools ought either to be abolished or extended to all religions where numbers merit. That said, the expansion of public funding to all religious schools is not an attractive option and the the revocation of funding from the Catholic schools seems like more trouble than it is worth; that is, there are much more pressing issues that the Government of Ontario should be tackling, even just within the K-12 portfolio. You are correct to point out that one of the reasons for implementing Catholic school boards in the first place was to protect the large minority population of Francophone and/or Catholic Ontarions throughout the province, and particularly in the North and East. I have a number of friends from Francophone communities in Northern Ontario who attended nominally Catholic schools that are really there to preserve French, rather than Catholic, traditions and culture.

Bottom line on this one: I think that politicians who want to see real changes take place in this province are well-advised to not touch this issue with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. Regardless of which side you fall on, the political baggage is so great that you would stand no change of seeing progress on the myriad of other important issues facing the province.

PC Leader John Tory deserves great respect for standing up for principle, in his pledge to extend fair funding to non-Catholic faith-based schools that agree to comply with full public standards. With only 53,000 children affected, compared with over 650,000 already attending fully funded Catholic schools, his initiative is clearly a matter of fairness rather than votes.

It is disappointing that Premier McGuinty has stood up to oppose the provision of fairness for non-Catholic minorities, particularly in light of the fact that his father, the late Dalton McGuinty Senior, was such a passionate advocate for public funding for independent alternative schools, including all faith-based schools. These already schools exist today, and bringing them into the public system will increase integration and ensure appropriate regulation, while solving a longstanding gross unfairness. The families in question pay full education taxes so money is not an issue.

While it’s tempting to draw clear lines for rhetorical purposes or even just for simplicity’s sake, I don’t think the issue is as clear cut across partisan lines as you claim. You generalize that “many on the left — including many NDPers — argue that religion has no place in schools whatsoever.” I’m not sure why you give that impression when you must also be aware of the NDP’s deep roots in the Social Gospel Movement which has grown more post-modern these days among many leftists, branching out to include ecumenical (i.e. inter-denominational) and inter-faith movements (e.g. growing cooperation between Catholic Liberation Theologians and First Nations Solidarity Movements). On the other side, there is hardly a right-wing consensus behind John Tory’s idea to expand public funding for all religious schools. Many conservative Catholics are against this and would only go so far to entertain Tory’s idea for the tactical purpose of preserving public funding for their own schools. Many federal Conservatives are already tired of the tactical concessions Harper has been giving up in order to hold on to power at the expense of his base supporters. And when one takes any time to check out the diversity of MPP and constituent opinion beyond party leaders, the Liberals aren’t so clearly in favour of the status quo as they are ambiguous on the issue. The fact that this issue lacks consensus across party lines is actually a major contributing reason why none of the parties are likely to change anything from the status quo. Tory’s proposal might get the ball shaking on this one, but it probably won’t be rolling anywhere for some time.

Having said that, this sleeping issue deserves well thought-out debate so that we at least know which direction we should be going even if we aren’t going anywhere right away. While sleeping dogs lie, we can still be looking for better dog food or a good vet, so to speak. Passively doing nothing until the dog wakes up sick or starving is probably not the best way to approach the situation.

Apologist arguments that appeal to current conditions as “historical fact” are no more convincing than those who said slavery would never change because it, too, was rooted in history. Of course I’m not equating religion with slavery (although some might make that argument), I’m only pointing out the fallacy of an argument that’s akin to saying “the status quo should continue because that’s the way it’s been done for a long time.” The argument falls even flatter when the historical fact, as true as it is, concerning the protection of Catholic and French minorities is invoked. If anything, the social changes that have taken place since the Quiet Revolution have left the contemporary condition of Catholics (French and otherwise) in a social context that doesn’t automatically equate with the original historical reasoning behind separate schools. If preservation of French culture is still the issue of concern, then it has less and less to do with Catholicism these days.

In any case, the issue is being approached from the wrong angle. It shouldn’t be about an either/or choice between secular or faith-based education. The problem is evident from the language itself: “secular education” hardly makes room, if any, for the study of religion (and when it does, it’s often hostile towards it); conversely, “faith-based education” hardly makes room, if any, for the study of subjects on their own terms, particularly sex education, science, or law. It doesn’t seem right to argue that public money should pay for the advocacy (rather than study) of anti-abortion campaigning, Creationism/Intelligent Design, or Sharia Law. At the same time, it seems absurd not to study these issues in public school when understanding them is essential to any democracy that aspires to have an informed citizenry.

In case I’ve not yet made myself clear, I think the answer involves a synthesis of sorts: One public system that is not based on faith but, rather, incorporates religion as a subject to be studied (whether as elective or mandatory credit is another debate). I’ll go even further and suggest that where numbers call for it, public schools should do their best to accommodate religious students and staff with space to practice daily rituals (e.g. prayers). York University (a far more “secular” university than the Christian-founded University of Toronto) provides a good model for the kind of balance I’m talking about here: Education may include religious studies, but the education itself isn’t based on faith. At the same time, those who wish to practice faith-based rituals at school (whatever the religion) share a designated space called the “Inter-Faith Chapel” (“Inter-Faith Temple” might be less Christian-centric, but the semantic debate is yet another one to add-on).

The danger of what Tory is proposing is that it appeals to the kind of people who want education to be faith-based and segregationist, which it shouldn’t be. While some conservative Catholics might want faith-based education, the current Catholic education system is not actually based on faith anymore (by law, separate school boards in Ontario are supposed to teach about contraceptives in sex education, evolution in science, and Canadian and International Law in the social sciences). At the moment, the divide between public and separate schools has narrowed and should continue to do so with the kind of synthesis, or some variation thereof, suggested above. While it’s understandable that Tory’s recent campaign announcement is designed to grab the attention of non-traditional PC voters (i.e. the Liberal’s multicultural support in the GTA), his proposal is more likely to embolden a movement that will desire greater division across religious lines. Why anyone with a sense of history would want to encourage such a thing after seeing the effects of partition in places like India, Ireland, or Palestine is incredibly short-sighted or, at the very least, ignorant about the successes of ecumenical and inter-faith cooperation around the world.

Mike — how does expanding public funding for private religious schools “increase integration”?

Simon – I don’t think we’re that far apart in our thinking. But your language presumes that there *is* something wrong with the status quo (why else would you characterize defending the status quo as an “apologist argument”?). You have not provided evidence to support that position. If you read this blog, you will know that, as a reformer, I rarely speak out in support of the status quo (hence my claim that “This is one instance where I think the status quo is the best option”). You are putting up a straw man — I’m not defending the status quo because “it’s been done for a long time” as you suggest, but rather because I don’t think there is a problem with the current administrative structure of public and private schools in Ontario. Changing this is not about improving education, it’s merely political football — at best it’s a symbolic gesture, at worst, a nightmare for kids, parents, teachers and school boards. If you want to engage in a philosophical question of the role of religion in a secular education system, no problem, it’s a worthy discussion. But at the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves whether changing the funding structure will lead to better results (in both academic and social terms). I’m not convinced it does.

John Tory’s fair proposal is not about simply handing public money to more students. It is about bringing non-Catholic faith-based schools into the public system under existing school boards. These schools would no longer be private and unsupervised! They would be integrating and participating in our public system while funded by their communities contribution to education taxes.

Non-Catholic faith-based schools are for the most part no frills schools where parents who pay their education taxes are struggling with tuition while thier communities, who also pay education taxes stuggle to subsidize the families who cannot pay. Why should they be treated differently from Catholics?

We all want to preserve our culture/language. If the Catholic school system was set up to preserve what was then a minority culture, why should what are now minority cultures not be allowed to participate in the public school system in a similar manner?
Would we accept health care for one faith only when we all pay education taxes?
Catholics have the choice of a secular public education, a French Catholic education, or an English Catholic education for their kids. Why should all other faiths pay taxes and only have one funded option? If all non-Catholic faith-based students switched to public schools tomorrow the money should be there from the tax base, up till now we are saving money on these families backs. The message I keep hearing is that there is no saving to switch kids from public Catholic schools to public schools so leave them. The same logic should be applied to the non-funded faith-based students.
In 1867 women could not vote – that’s our history too! History is never an excuse for inequality.
Ontario is the only province to fully fund one faith while all other faith’s schools receive zero! As far as relying on the Constitution to justify Catholic funding, that argument can only support Catholic funding until grade 9; funding for Catholic high schools was extended by Bill Davis in 1984.
In addition to Catholics and French students, our public school system includes arts-based, sports-focused, and special needs (behavioural management) students. We have a Native school in downtown Toronto as well as a gay/lesbian high school. Penetanguish has a fully funded Protestant school system (not sure why) and the GTA/Hamilton area has 5 Ukrainian language/heritage Byzantine/Eastern Rite schools under various Catholic boards. Why is school choice OK for everyone except non-Catholics who want faith-based education?
These schools exist and have the right to exist. We should care about fairness and the fact the UN Human Rights Committee (not the political UN Human Rights Commission) ruled in 1999 and 2005 that Ontario is discriminating and putting Canada in violation on international law.
I support John Tory’s proposal to invite these schools into the public system with restrictions.
Support Inclusive Public Education!

Gila — funding private schools does not mean those schools will suddenly become a part of the public school system. It’s a nice rhetoric statement from John Tory, but just saying it doesn’t make it so. For these schools to become part of the public school system, they would need to be absorbed into the local public school board. Are you (and John Tory) proposing that control of private religious schools we handed over to the public school boards? I don’t think so. His proposal is a public subsidy for private schools (that happen to be religious). As I said, I doubt there would strong little support for separate Catholic school boards today. The basis of public education should not be along religious lines. It’s far preferable to have a single public system where kids learn about all different religions, than to shuffle kids into separate boxes because they happen to have different faiths.

I wouldn’t support creating separate Catholic schools today (or more specifically, I wouldn’t support expanding public funding to them). But withdrawing public funding from them now would create chaos and hurt both the the separate school boards (by forcing the closure of many separate schools) and the public school boards (by forcing a new wave of students upon them). My assessment is that Catholic school boards, while they started out as a way to protect Catholic/francophone minorities, they are today more or less a parallel public system. I’m not sure religion is that central to their mission any more. Do we *need* separate Catholic school boards today? No. But, it would be a nightmare to dismantle them. It wouldn’t improve public education, it would only cause chaos.

Tory’s proposal would balkanize the education system even further, promoting a segregation of Ontario’s kids along religious lines. This is a step backward, in my opinion, and has nothing to do with improving the quality of education in Ontario. Tory’s language of “fairness” and “equality” covers what is, at heart, a crass political move. He is trying to rally support on the right for religious education, and simultaneously siphon off some traditional Liberal support from certain communities (Toronto Jews, 905 Muslims, etc) that might support public funding for their religious schools.

The arguments you raise were the exact same as were raised 23 years ago when public funding was extended to Catholic schools – depleted money for public schools, increased segregation, and pandering for votes.

But, that didn’t happen. The only thing that happened since then is that previous opponents to the extension of funding now argue that it “may have helped the Catholic minority”.

That said, there is nothing in the platform that calls for public funding of private schools. Now, you may not agree with the Tory platform, but that doesn’t change the content of the platform.

The platform is explicit that schools will be set up in identically the same way as the Catholic system, schools will participate in the standardized testing and publish results publicly, and properly ensure teachers are accredited.

In addition, there will be an $800 million increase in funding for public education in 2007-08, climbing to an increase of $2.4 billion by 2011-12.

I think, though, it is fair to debate that you disagree with the platform, without re-writing it, and that there is no additional funds for public education.

Personally, I don’t truly support the policy – I think the planned investment in public education and expansion of services for the community is enough – but I don’t see the doom and gloom.

Jim — you said: “there is nothing in the platform that calls for public funding of private schools”. But that’s precisely what it does. The platform provides private schools with $500 million in public funds for 53,000 children that attend private faith-based schools. This works out to $9,434 per child in public funding. The platform does not address whether these private schools would continue to charge tuition or receive private monies (it says only that they need to publish standard test scores, have similar teacher credentials and teach the Ontario curriculum). So, these private schools would continue to collect private monies, plus receive public funding. They aren’t “being brought into the public system” at all. They are simply being given public subsidies in exchange for agreeing to some additional policies. They are still private schools.

The additional $300 million in Tory’s budget is for public schools, which have over 2 million children (an additional $150 per child). Tory’s $9434 per child for private faith-based schools exceeds even what the public school boards get. For example, the Peel school board, where many of the targeted faith-based school population lives, receives just $7502 per child in public funding — even with Tory’s additional $150 per child, that’s still just $7652 per child as compared to $9434 per child for the private faith-based schools — almost 25% less (and public schools don’t receive the additional private monies that private schools do). It makes no sense.

The NDP has always supported funding the public Catholic school system. Every so often some unsuccessfully challenge that policy and lose, because the policy makes sense from a fairness perspective and from an efficiency perspective. We don’t need to get into a “flame” or religious war but I would point out that apart from the historical and constitutional argument, there are so many in the Catholic system it doesn’t make sense to turn it into a private system e.g. deny it funding or reduce its status to that of say a Jewish or Moslem school system. The situation is different from other faith based schools because of history and because they are small private systems. The rough equivalent is the bilingual nature of Canada- English and French. It doesn’t make sense to remove the status of French – try to turn Canada into a solely anglophone country or to make a whole slew of other languages official.

Greg — Yes, I assume we’re pretty close in our thinking, especially on social issues like this one. I figure implicit agreement is enough, though maybe I could say “right on, Greg!” more often.

And while you’re also correct that I presume “there *is* something wrong with the status quo,” it’s not because apologist arguments are wrong in and of themselves. An “apologist,” by definition and in the non-pejorative sense of the term I’m using, is simply a person who defends a position of the day — like the status quo or ideas/systems that are already well established — against an attack. So, no, I don’t disagree with you because you’re an apologist for the current system; it *is* possible, after all, for apologists to correctly defend the establishment or status quo (Plato, as we know, was quite a successful apologist).

I think the root of any disagreement we have has little to do with philosophical/ideological difference but rather with how to go about actualizing the ideas many Ontarians share.

For one, I think defending the status quo is not only a barrier to further actualization of a better system; it also provides grounds and justification for regressive agendas (like Tory’s) and puts any suggestion of progress on the defensive. Just refer back to Gila’s argument to see how someone uses your false logic against you to defend their own.

One of my points in my first post already highlighted such false logic through an argument by analogy, which is quite valid since empirical evidence and “facts” aren’t the only valid devices in argumentation, especially normative (i.e. should/ought-based) argumentation. When, for example, you say “the status quo is the best option…[because] Catholic separate school boards are a historical fact in Ontario” you’re making a normative argument that claims the present system is the most valuable (best) because of the original (historical) reasons for which it was set up. The normative link between past and present value is not automatic, especially after conditions have changed, and it’s your obligation (not mine) to provide evidence that there is a valid link, which was not done. For me to set up an argument by analogy that illustrates the same temporal break in logic you make between unconnected past and present value systems is not a straw man, as much as that’s one of your favourite rebuttals.

If anything, you set up a straw man against leftists, NDPers and PC’s by over-simplifying their positions as monolithic and mutually exclusive. To this I pointed out the fact that many people with differing political and religious views agree that religion can still have a place in a single public non-faith-based education system. I’ll add another fact to this point: The results of a 2001 Vector Poll stated that 56% of Catholics believed a unified school system 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. Many more stats like this are provided by the likes of Education Equality in Ontario [EEO] at http://www.oneschoolsystem.org. EEO, like many other groups advocating for a single (and diverse) public system, draws its support from across the political spectrum with members of all three major Ontario political parties who come from a variety of religious backgrounds, including Roman Catholic.

There’s also the problem of Ontario’s school system being found in violation of human rights by a UN Committee, not once, but twice (1999 & 2005). I can also support these findings with anecdotal evidence, having worked and studied in the separate school system. Even though I worked in a relatively progressive Catholic high school, there were still serious discrimination problems. When a principal admitted two Muslim students to our Catholic high school (as is the right of any non-Catholic when it comes to secondary school), the racism they had to endure from students and staff who weren’t used to non-Christians was so unbearable that they had to leave (this is but one structural symptom of a segregationist system). Even a Christian friend of mine who was qualified to teach science (at the same school he attended as a student, no less) was rejected because he wasn’t Catholic. Why should Catholicism be a prerequisite to teaching science of all subjects? This happens quite frequently in other departments, too. With this being the reality in a progressive Catholic school that has graduated famous human rights advocates, I’m very much concerned for the entire separate system.

Heretofore, I haven’t even mentioned the extra costs of a duplicate system, nor have I touched upon regional and environmental concerns I think you’d be interested in where many students have to travel past so many schools just to get to their own. I think these problems require attention, too, but to keep exploring each issue in depth would sacrifice concision and brevity already more than I have.

What all these problems should illustrate is that we should be looking at alternatives to the status quo. And while there are certainly ways to run a more streamlined system poorly (anyone can erect and hack down as many examples as they’d like), there are also single system models that can work and make education better in Ontario. Constitutional arguments cited by some that claim this can’t even be done are false (Quebec, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador have all made the transition). Plus, we have the opportunity to build a public system that incorporates religious studies and respects minority rights (some of what’s happening at York University is but one model example of this).

Any further demand for faith-based education goes well beyond any right to study religion and be able to practice one’s faith among others in a school system. Educational institutions that prioritize education are not and should not be faith-based institutions. Religious institutions like churches, synagogues, mosques and other temples and faith-based groups already have a protected place outside the public education system.

What Tory is proposing for education is similar to what many neo-conservatives and neo-liberals are pushing for in health-care: public-private-partnerships that strip cash from an already under-funded public system. The result is easier access for a narrow constituency at the expense of the best quality of service for all.

Has the status quo brought us the best quality of service for all? If we’re not there yet (and I don’t think we are), then we should continue with at least some reform and change in that direction. Defending the status quo includes the defence of inequalities that currently exist in the system. Such a “moderate” defence, even with the best of intentions, actually gives religious segregationists accepted but not acceptable reasons to build upon what they and John Tory are asking for, which won’t only ruin the current stability that many value, but also entrench further social division and inequality across religious lines.

Ontario should just let the individual choose on their income tax, which school system their taxes fund.

The platform provides private schools with $500 million in public funds for 53,000 children that attend private faith-based schools.

No, that’s what Kathleen Wynne said. While I think it’s fair for you to use Liberal arguments as your own, you can’t say that’s PC Party platform.

Be that as it may, it assumes that all 53,000 students currently enrolled in private schools are going to immediately switch to a public system – which simply isn’t going to happen.

Jim – fair enough, the $500 million comes from the Liberals. It’s a little troubling that the Tory platform doesn’t put numbers on their pledges. But according to the Sun’s Queen’s Park Bureau Chief,
“Tory says extending full funding to faith-based schools could cost $400 million”. So let’s re-do the math — Tory would give $7,547 per child ($400m for 53,000 kids) of public funding to private religious schools, roughly the same as what public school boards get. But, of course, the private schools also collect private tuition. Unless there is an explicit requirement for the private religious schools to stop collecting private tuition (i.e. so they are on equal footing with the public and Catholic school boards), then the policy makes little sense. Why should private religious schools get both the proceeds of their private tuition and the same level of public funding as the public schools? You are creating a serious disadvantage for the public schools. That’s the economic problem. But I also don’t like the social implications. I don’t think that we’re better off having Ontario’s children growing up only with their own kind, which is what the policy promotes. I’d prefer to have a robust public education system that everyone has a stake in. Contrast that with the U.S., where the education is so balkanized and in disarray for the majority of kids (only those rich enough to afford private school get a good education in most states) — and I’ve seen this first-hand having taught in the U.S. It’s not the way to go.

The flaw in any analysis of this nature is that one can not be certain whether there will be an influx or an outflow of students from one system or another once the funding has been restructured. So, John Tory’s numbers appear commensurate (roughly) with the per-pupil funding for public schools, currently. Once the (non-Catholic) religious schools are fully funded, however, I postulate that quite a few more families will opt to send their children to the (now essentially free) faith-based schools meaning that Wynne’s (invented) estimate of $500 million may be closer to the truth. In the end, though, who really knows what the effect will be?

All we can really do is try to draw inferences from what’s happened in other jurisdictions or at other times. In the 1980s, when funding was extended in the Catholic system beyond grade 10, enrolment in the newly-funded senior years went up dramatically. Similarly, in the US, when funding was extended through the voucher system to religious schools, enrolment in religious schools went up markedly. In both cases, the total funding for the system remained, essentially, static. Hence, the total funding for the “public” system went down and schools were closed or transfered between boards. I think it’s fairly safe to assume that something similar would happen under Tory’s plan.

Note that I’m not arguing whether that’s necessarily a good or a bad thing. I’m simply pointing out that the 53000 number is likely to increase substantially under the proposed new reality and that that will necessitate shifts in personnel, in funding and in physical plant.

I would agree that trying to dismantle the existing Cathloic board would be exceedingly difficult and create a lot of chaos. However, there may be certain areas where an integration of the 2 boards into one public system may work quite well. Why does this have to be an “all or none” change, or an “all at once” change?

There could perhaps be some school boards in areas of lower population density that struggle to efficiently deliver services. But with some sharing of real estate and other resources, there could be some very significant gains. There may even be advantages in urban areas.

I guess my point is that the 2 school boards we have now operate completely independent of one another. There are likely some resources that could be shared that would be mutually beneficial, and that could be the first step to eventual integration of our school systems. At the very least, it could deliver better value to the taxpayers.

Yes, Dave, I suspect you are right.

Simon — there really are two different conversations taking place here. On the one hand are the theoretical, perhaps even philosphical, questions about what administrative structure makes the best, and most just, education system (which I take is your principle rhetorical objective). On the other hand are the very real implications of dismantling the existing administrative structure and rebuilding it to meet what we *think* is a better system (my argument for leaving it alone — and note that I’m talking about the administrative structure, not about curriculum, funding formulas, whether it should be streamed or de-streamed, etc — so it is inaccurate to ascribe my acceptance of Catholic boards as a defense of all aspects of the system).

At the end of the day, we may simply have different criteria for evaluating the education system. For example, in none of your arguments have you made the case for change based on performance (that is, you don’t demand change because Catholic schools perform poorly). That isn’t to say your rhetorical logic isn’t valid (I’m sure it is), it’s simply that we aren’t using the same rationale for our respective positions. And that may not be surprising, since you are a philosopher and I am not (indeed, my work deals precisely with the messiness that happens “on the ground” in cities — a position that affords me the opportunity to see the often large gap between theory and practice). On this particular issue, I take a very practical approach, judging the merits of one course of action over another based on actual and anticipated performance. In general, having been educated, lived, and taught in Ontario, Quebec, Massachusetts and California, I think on balance Ontario’s education system is pretty good. And where it iS lacking, can we reasonably argue that it is because there are separate Catholic boards or do we look at reforms to funding mechanisms, curriculum, streaming/de-streaming, etc? (I don’t think you’ve made the case of what problems exists, nor that the existence of Catholic boards lies at the heart of said problems)

Thus, for me, on this particular issue (and I stress this because on other issues, I do argue on more theoretical grounds), I ask myself, does the merger of Catholic school boards with the public boards lead to better performance? In some cases — those to which Dave above referred (where two boards independently lack resources, be it financial, human or otherwise) — it may well be more advantageous to merge. If so, there is a strong case that merger will yield better results and I’d be all for it (assuming that said boards choose to merger and are not forced to merge by dictum from above).

But merging the two types of school boards province-wide into one system means that either: a) existing public school boards would get bigger (number of students, geography, or both), or b) you have to re-district the province to ensure that school boards don’t get bigger (by my count, we have 71 school boards in Ontario: 31 English Public, 28 English Catholic, 8 French Catholic and 4 English Catholic). Option a) is undesirable to me — except in the above circumstance, I question the notion that bigger is better for school boards. Do kids win when their school board suddenly doubles in size? Unlikely. Arguing in favour of this (on “efficiency” grounds) would be like backing Mike Harris’s rationale for amalgamating municipalities (which I don’t think was a good thing at all). I believe quite strongly that each issue has a range of scales at which they are best addressed (for example, social services are not best addressed by municipalities). This is true of government and school boards alike. You need to look only at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to understand why a massive school board is problematic. And Option b) is undesirable politically and practically, since it would mean moving trustees from one district to another, moving kids around, and shifting teachers across existing boards (which impacts their pensions, seniority, administrative roles, etc.). And for what? The theoretical notion that it results in a single “unified” public system? In practice, the school boards operate pretty autonomously (with basic guidance from the Min of Ed), as they should. In the end, you still end up with autonomous school boards. It’s a lot of heartache for what amounts to bureaucratic tinkering. As I’ve made clear, I wouldn’t support separate boards if we were to start from scratch, but we’re not starting from scratch and I’m not convinced that education in Ontario would be better off by amalgamating the boards. I understand that your arguments in support may be different. Fair enough.

(FYI, my claim of Catholic board being a “historical fact” was not meant to validate the original rationale for their creation, but rather to merely recognize that their existence is entrenched constitutionally; thus, to wish them away on philosophical grounds, even if desirable theoretically, is not desirable politically)

(Your point that NDP and PC positions may well be less monolithic than my opening statement suggests is a valid point — although as an NDPer in support of a single secular public system, you aren’t exactly countering my opening claims, even if you are open to having a space for teaching religion (academically, though not necessarily as a moral code) within that system. Regardless, the Vector poll illustrates a separate point — i.e. that Catholics (as opposed to NDP and PC supporters) are divided on the usefulness of separate boards, which isn’t surprising since not all Catholic choose to go to separate schools.)

I think the conversation between theory and practice is and should be linked in praxis. And since a conversation rooted in praxis is necessarily multidimensional, I don’t think it is right to reduce it (or split it) into a battle between philosophy and pragmatism (I’m certainly not of any philosophical tradition that seeks to divorce ideas from practical application in the real world). I think theory and action can and should form a symbiotic relationship in the way Adrienne Rich suggests that “theory — the seeing of patterns, showing the forest as well as the trees — theory can be a dew that rises from the earth and collects in the rain cloud and returns to earth over and over. But if it doesn’t smell of the earth, it isn’t good for the earth.”

But it sounds like you’re saying my ideas don’t “smell of the earth” or take enough of a “practical approach” to deal “with the messiness that happens ‘on the ground’” in order to make “the case for change based on performance.” If that’s what seems lacking, then I certainly need to emphasize and clarify this vital “practical” component of the conversation.

When it comes to dealing with the messiness that happens on the ground, I’ve already mentioned some of my personal experience in studying, teaching and volunteering in the separate school system. These direct experiences and observations support the finding of human rights violations by two UN Committees in 1999 and 2005 which empirically show that our segregated system contributes to structural and personal discrimination and systematically refuses work to teachers, including non-Catholic Christians, in one third of the public education system. Clearly, our current system is not performing as fairly or justly as it should.

Another problem that exists in the separate board is the confusion among many teachers and parents about a system that claims to be faith-based on one hand while conforming to provincial standards on the other. While it is the provincial standard to teach about evolution in science, contraceptives in sexual health, and abortion rights in Canadian law, some teachers feel it is their right (and duty) in a faith-based system to ignore or even teach against these public standards. There is both a theoretical and practical conflict between this kind of faith-based pedagogy and the Ontario curriculum. While certainly not all Catholic teachers subscribe to faith-based pedagogy, those teachers who do let it affect their performance are not acting as educators but as preachers and political advocates. There are already protected institutions (by no means trivial or token institutions) outside the education system for these activities. To use personal faith as an excuse to circumvent curricula is to do a great practical disservice to students in the separate system, not only to the many separate school students who (after grade 9) are not Catholic or even Christian, but to the freethinking Catholics as well.

Yet another practical problem has to do with infrastructure and the environment. Between the two public systems, often in the same neighbourhood, one school board operates above student capacity while the other is under-enrolled. Often times, students are shuttled miles away to overcrowded schools when there are other schools within walking distance that have room for them. Because funding is tied to enrolment, many schools lack the resources they need while others even face closure. Some have already been closed, exacerbating overcrowding in the schools that remain open. The efficiency I argue for has nothing to do with Mike Harris’ rationale for amalgamating municipalities. While his rationale was used to justify the closure of municipal offices and the downsizing of services, mine is precisely the opposite — to keep schools open, class size down, and balance funding so that infrastructure can be maintained properly.

In sum, I think any judgment on the performance of a school system that violates human rights, circumvents curricula, needlessly damages the environment and unnecessarily closes schools should find that at least some changes are needed to remedy these very practical problems.

Like I said before, “anyone can erect and hack down as many examples [of poor single systems] as they’d like.” You succeed in doing this with your explanation of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Your arguments by association are valuable in showing the kind of single system we don’t want. I don’t want that system either. But that doesn’t mean we should not or cannot progressively build a single system through an appropriate synthesis of our current systems.

I, too, agree with Dave’s suggestion above, which is hardly a defence of the status quo. It nicely addresses some of the environmental and infrastructural concerns I mentioned. And it would be a bonus if a move towards integration would be allowed to come from the grassroots. But it’s not like this kind of grassroots pressure doesn’t already exist. In order to make it possible for different school boards to cooperate in the local ways Dave suggests, it seems there would need to be legislation which permits this. Furthermore, additional change would be needed to address human rights violations and curricula evasion.

On all accounts, it seems ideas are making the case for some practical change.

(As for claims that the separate system is so “entrenched” constitutionally that political change is undesirable or even unlikely, I’m skeptical since Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador have all made the transition.)

(Insofar as my support for the NDP (this time around) applies here, I still don’t fall into the camp you say “argue[s] that religion has no place in schools whatsoever.” And I’m not only open to having religion taught as an academic elective, I also support public funding of religious space within public schools, akin to York University’s Inter-Faith Chapel (IFC). Something like an “inter-faith temple” — or whatever the community decides to call it — could be a part of any school (many Catholic schools already have chapels that could be shared in a new single system, currently “secular” schools could designate a classroom for such a new space, while other schools might not need them at all). All this is also quite easy to justify to those who cynically counter with questions like “why should I pay for it if I (i.e. my child) won’t use it?” Answer: Because the parents of religious children who do use it will also be paying for business labs, art studios, etc, that their children might not use (incidentally, such a system is a beautiful example that demonstrates how pooling public money can help serve all our diverse needs; it could help reinstate “faith” in the public system). As an architect, I’m sure you can imagine the challenges, but above all the possibilities, in designing and then seeing new schools that have faith spaces that are structurally and functionally better than York’s IFC… My original point in all of this was that the division between “secular” and “faith-based” erects an unnecessary (and false) dichotomy that not only leads to ridiculous spectacles like Christmas trees being removed from court houses, but more significantly, inhibits us from envisioning new ways of doing things that can work, and work well. So yes, as an NDPer, I support a synthesized system even though I choose to finance the separate board at the current time. Do all NDPers share this position? Of course not. My point (and counterpoint to yours) is that this should not be a partisan issue.)

Just another note (a rarely short one) on the issue of administrative structure:

I’m certainly not in favour of “dismantling the existing administrative structure and rebuilding it.” In fact, I’m quite anti-Cartesian (i.e. I don’t agree with Descartes’ philosophy of “demolish[ing] everything completely and start[ing] again right from the foundations.”

What I’m advocating is progressive synthesis, not Cartesian upheaval. Can administrative structures, if they are indeed working well in both systems, not be synthesized in such a way that takes your concerns into account? I didn’t know “dismantling…and rebuilding” was a prerequisite to change. I thought we could be accountable to what already exists and build upon it in new and better ways.

Greg, Your reasoning on religious schools in Ontario are exactly what you have been arguing against on another Ontario election issue: the referendum. You say “the status quo is the best option,” and point out that “separate school boards are a historical fact” and even use this perennial gem: “there is no need to fix what isn’t broken;” all of which are the oft-repeated by-lines of the Status Quo camp in the electoral reform debate. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander: for example, why would anything being a historical fact in Ontario be an argument to continue it, save for tradition alone?

There’s an newly-organized One School System campaign: http://www.oneschoolsystem.org that presents much the same reasons for reform that Quebec has already accepeted when that province switched to a secular education system: equality, tolerance and the elimination of religious discrimination in publicly-funded schools.

Andy — It is a logical fallacy to suggest that argument A on issue A does or should equal argument A on issue B. For example, I have argued on this blog that we should adopt a principle of “if you use it, you should pay for it” with respect to the use of highways. By your logic, I would necessarily have to adopt the same principle with, say, the use of the health care system (i.e. be in favour of a pay-as-you-go approach). But I don’t support that principle on health care. Different issues, different principles. Same goes for electoral reform and the administrative structure of Ontario’s public schools.

With respect to whether it is “broke” or not, I judge the respective systems by whether they substantially achieve their purpose. The purpose of the electoral system is to fairly translate votes into seats (i.e. to reflect the will of the people in the distribution of political power). In my opinion, the first-past-the-post electoral system fails to achieve its central purpose. The purpose of the education system is educate people (which takes in a wide range of goals too long to list here). In my opinion, in general Catholic schools perform well in their central purpose (indeed, I might even argue that they out-perform most public school boards). So on the basis of performance, the FPTP electoral system fails, while Catholic schools do not. So I think FPTP is broke. But I don’t think Catholic schools are broke.

As I noted above in my reply to Simon, my reference to Catholic schools being a “historical fact” was “to merely recognize that their existence is entrenched constitutionally; thus, to wish them away on philosophical grounds, even if desirable theoretically, is not desirable politically.” In the case of electoral reform, we are having a referendum on the issue — the people of Ontario will decide whether to accept MMP or not (albeit with a strange 60% threshold that is neither a true majority 50%+1 or a super-majority of 2/3rds…). Importantly, the acceptance of MMP would not take away rights from any group — if anything, it expands opportunity for political representation to women, minorities and the First Nations. Now what if there was a referendum to abolish Catholic schools (or funding thereof)? Here, if we voted in favour of reform, we must take away rights from a particular group of people. It’s a classic case of the tyranny of the majority. It’s the same reason why the constitutional amendments in many U.S. states that ban gay marriage constitute a tyranny of the majority. To me, it is one thing to extend rights to others, but it quite another to explicitly take them away (particularly once they’ve been granted).

If my goal was to achieve philosophical purity across all issues, then perhaps I would not be so willing to examine issues on a case-by-case basis. I suppose this approach makes me a poor partisan, particularly in Canada, where membership in (or rather, advancement in) a given “club” (party) is all too often dependent upon subjugating your beliefs to those of the group-think. My goal is simply to advance solutions to problems that accommodate the widest range of acceptance and that achieve the best results for those particular issues.

While the desire for a single secular school system may be desirable theoretically, the attainment of it does not strengthen the central mission of the education system. Indeed, I would argue it would be harmful. I don’t adhere to the belief that centralized control of schools by the Ministry of Education benefits kids. I believe that schools must respond the unique challenges they face and not be forced to apply one-size-fits-all standards handed down from above. So I’m not particularly concerned as Simon is that some teachers are exercising individual judgment. Teaching is an art, not a science that can be scripted.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the principles of the one-school system approach, but for the reasons I’ve stated, I cannot support using the tyranny of the majority to achieve it.

Rather than the non-Catholic majority force its will upon the Catholic school boards, I think the best approach to achieving a “one-school system” is to seek strategic opportunities for board-by-board integration where Catholic schools (and the parents of kids who attend them) would voluntarily join forces where such a merger offers clear benefits to the kids (for example, where two boards lack resources independently).

While such a solution will surely not meet your expectation of theoretical purity, it is, in my opinion, the right approach to what is a complex issue.

democraticspace,

I agree with you that the “Tyranny of the Majority” must have limits, but I don’t think those limits include the continual toleration of a Catholic school board. To turn your argument around, aren’t we actively using the “Tyranny of the Majority” to impede any public funding for other Faith-based schools. Shouldn’t the Jews, the Muslims, and/or the Hindus use the same argument to seek funding for their school that you use to defend the continual funding of Catholic schools. To say that the “Tyranny of the Majority” is bad when it comes to taking benefits away, but ok when it comes to preventing the dispensing of new benefits is bad form.

To compare gay rights issue to a Catholic-only exempt system is a false analogy at best. The majority, by common consensus, has no right to rule on consensual sexual practices between adults, as that only affects me and my partner. However, I see no problem with the majority dictating (within the secular framework as always) how the public school system will be build up, as that directly affects all of us. Naturally, this will lead to deep conflict when it comes to faith education, but rather than say that the majority of the people should not be listened to, I propose that democracy be used in this case. Furthermore, by using the simple democratic method, the only fair and sustainable solution will eventually be reached: a unified secular school-system that is open to faith, but makes it clear that it is apart from the state provided education.

Now, the transition will be hard, but to say that something is hard should by no means stop us from trying. No sudden jerks, but rather gradual integration. It might be risky, but the current deep flaws in our two faced education system make the risk worth taking.

“I believe that schools must respond the unique challenges they face and not be forced to apply one-size-fits-all standards handed down from above.”
I thought Simon dispatched with that objection. All subjects will be secular and indeed one-size-fits-all standards. I want my kinds to learn the same biology, the same English, the same Geography that a Catholic child is learning half-way across the province. But where the unique challenges (I assume you mean the multiple faiths) come into play, each school can provide as much as is reasonable to students (including matching recess to prayer times, providing dedicated class rooms, etc etc).

“So I’m not particularly concerned as Simon is that some teachers are exercising individual judgment. Teaching is an art, not a science that can be scripted.”
I think you might be twisting Simon’s words somewhat. There is a difference between deciding to teach cell anatomy before metabolism in your biology class and teaching creationisms instead of evolution. It is these limits (preaching is secular subjects) that must be unified across both school boards (I hope you agree with this) and the current Catholic school board has been very inadequate at doing this.

I see the education funding issue in Ontario as a basic human rights concern. Leave religion out of the education system altogether to ensure that all children receive the same funding. We will all benefit from this in the long run. The Catholic School Board has carefully preserved the myth that it would be extremely difficult to remove the Constitutional clause, not so! Other provinces have done it( as explained in OneSchool.org). History and tradition are no excuses for inequality, it is time to move on and do without double standards.

Looking back at the original post, I cannot see how you can conclude the status quo in our education system is the best option. The very fact that a costly and discriminatory (on several levels) school system exists for a single favoured faith group is the reason why the Tories are now proposing complicating things further by funding additional types of religiously segregated schools. They and the religious school vested interests that currently back them (in large numbers) will never let up until one day, they finally succeed in busting our public school system into a million segregated pieces, each serving their own religious constituencies. Take away public funding for the Catholic system, and you remove the pretext of “fairness” they are using as a political lever to extricate their own state funding. Don’t, and one day the Tories will be in power again and might very well do irreparable damage to our public school system (if segregationist theo-cons are still at the party helm — not that all Tories are cut from that same cloth — many hate this policy).

As for the upside of a move to one unified school system, it is a lot more significant than you think. It is certainly on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars per year (never mind the end of religious segregation of children — Hamilton Catholic school board is only 7% non-Catholic vs. the 66% figure for non-Catholics Ontario wide). English Catholic school boards generally receive hundreds of dollars more per pupil per year than their coterminous English public boards. French school boards universally receive thousands of dollars more per pupil per year than their coterminous English boards. The Ministry of Education provides higher per pupil funding to smaller school boards and those serving less geographically concentrated student populations. It does this not out of blatant favouritism, but to overcome the substantial additional costs incurred by smaller boards in transportation, administration and governance, and purchasing (fewer opportunities to realize economies of scale). Of course, the largest (English public) boards also incur higher costs than necessary, as they also serve less geographically concentrated student populations than they would have under a unified system.

As for the “administrative nightmare” that a merger might create, think again on that one too. That is just fear-mongering from the Catholic/religious school vested interests. A merger would streamline administration by eliminating a lot of duplication and enable the sharing of both physical and staff resources. No “administrative nightmare” resulted when Quebec and Newfoundland eliminated public funding for Catholic schools and went to one school system for each official language. There was no great social upheaval or societal meltdown either, despite the fact that both Quebec (83% Catholic) and Newfoundland (37% Catholic) are proportionally more Catholic than Ontario (34% Catholic – all figures 2001 Census). Most Catholics (see previous post re: Catholic opinion polling) already support one school system, as does the majority of the Ontario population (CBC poll, summer 2007).

The Catholic system WAS NOT set up to preserve a minority culture, as Gila’s post suggested. For one thing, Catholic and Protestant “culture” is pretty much indistinguishable. Can you tell a Protestant from a Catholic on the street? No — and you couldn’t in 1867 either. The separate system was set up to keep two mutually intolerant religious factions apart for social peace. That kind of intolerance just does not exist to any significant degree today, whether between Christian factions or any other faiths. It is time for people of various faiths to move forward together.

As for the religious lobby’s claim they get nothing for their education taxes, I’d dispute that too. I think they need to reconsider what they pay taxes for. They, along with every other taxpayer in Ontario, pay taxes to cover public services universally accessible to all (except for publicly funded Catholic schools, which have a constitutional license to discriminate in admissions and hiring against non-Catholics). It doesn’t matter whether you have 10 kids or none — you pay the same taxes as others with the same income. We all benefit from an educated and healthy workforce, so we all pay for public schools and public health care according to our means — no exceptions. If you choose to contract private alternatives to those public services (whether that be for education or health care), that is your right, but don’t expect the taxpayer to bear the cost.

As for the difficulty of removing the Catholic system, it is not difficult at all (see Denominational School Rights in the Canadian Constitution).

The Constitution Act, 1867 (the British North America Act) gives provinces the authority to unilaterally eliminate denominational school systems while providing affected parties with an appeal to the federal Parliament. Manitoba exercised a similar authority in 1890, with Ottawa declining to intervene.

The Constitution Act, 1982, provides an amendment mechanism through which provinces can rescind denominational school rights through a simple bilateral agreement with Ottawa alone. Quebec and Newfoundland each secured such an amendment in the 1990s, prior to moving to a single public school system for each official language.

All that is required is a political party with a principled leadership to establish the primacy of fundamental equality rights over non-fundamental denominational privilege. Let’s hope that such a party comes along before Ontario’s religious segregationists do irreparable harm to our public school system and our society.

the above comment is from Leonard Baak – President and Media Contact of OneSchoolSystem.Org; obviously, you are against the status quo (which is to say, that it doesn’t matter what my rationale is, you would still say the same thing)

“A merger would streamline administration by eliminating a lot of duplication and enable the sharing of both physical and staff resources.” This is exactly the argument used by Mike Harris to merge municipalities. You would be a fool to argue that amalgamation has improved the quality of public services.

I have no interest in a system that reduces the number of school boards. Simply rolling the Catholic boards in with the public boards is unacceptable. Think of the analogous situation politically — it’s like taking half of the province’s ridings and merging them into the other half. The result is that the same administrative structure is suddenly handling twice as many people (indeed, that’s one of the problem with municipal amalgamations). No, you would have to create new smaller (geographically) school boards so that they are no larger (in population) than the existing school boards. This is certainly possible to do, akin to redistricting the provincial ridings. But redistricting the province’s school boards would be something of a nightmare. All employees’ pensions are tied to their particular school board, as is their seniority. Trustees would need to move to different boards, depending on where they live.

And for what? Better school performance? No. What we get is a theoretical “idea” of a one school system. Withdrawing funding from Catholic school boards does not create one school system. You still have autonomous school boards — only now there are fewer of them because you’ve withdrawn funding from half of them and forced them to merge with others. The school board trustees should be responsive to the people who elected them, not merely bureaucrats implementing a standardized one-size-fits-all “system” as directed from the Ministry of Education. Do you really think the needs of my K-to-12 school in rural Ontario are the same as those in downtown Toronto? I can assure you they are not.

It’s not that I disagree with the theoretical concept of a collection of school boards that are, in theory, all called “public” (as opposed to one called “public” and one called “separate” or “Catholic”) but the problem is that to do it now is merely a symbolic administrative shuffle that does nothing to improve the quality of education in Ontario.

If parents of children attending Catholic schools and the Catholic school boards themselves want to voluntarily join with their “public” counterparts — and if the majority of Catholics want that, surely it will happen, no? — then I would gladly support their efforts. But I think that must be a choice that they must make, not one that is forced upon them from above.

So I am going to weave in this debate as a public school trustee. The difference between the forced amalgamation by Harris for municipalities and school boards is the fact that school boards share the same geographical space. Presently we are propping up 4 systems of education with all the duplication and redundancy that it entails, from school buildings, services, and administration. We have half empty schools operating sometimes beside one another.
I know, you will say that we should partner. My school board is the poster child for partnership with our Catholic counterparts, and it is not enough. We are held up as the example for boards across the province, but all these partnerships and even fixing the funding formula will address DECLINING ENROLMENT.
All these boards are competing with one another, and in the process wasting money. That’s right, a social democrat saying we are wasting money. We don’t need more money in education, not if we had one school system. We would have lots of money to put into the classroom. You know, where the kids are, the ones we all say we want the best education for.
One system would provide the money and resources to put it where it counts – IN THE CLASSROOM.
There would be more money for more and better programs, specialized programs. We would be able to provide libraries with librarians, art supplies instead having parents fundraising all the time. We would be able to provide more and better transportation, and equity here. Some kids, instead of being bussed, would be able to walk to school – fitting with promoting a healthier lifestyle. We would be able to retrofit the school buildings remaining, making them into environmentally friendly buildings because we could afford to do that. And guess what, each student would be treated the same in terms of funding. No more better transportation for one set of children compared to another.
Because we would get rid of all this duplication and waste, we would have lots more money to hire teachers and resource staff. That’s right, there would be lots more teaching jobs available no matter your religious affiliation.
In our board,for instance, if we amalgamated with our catholic partner we would be able to get rid of surplus student space (along with too many school buildings, admin buildings) and save 3.3 million dollars a year. Plus we would be able to get rid of 2 superintendent positions at a savings of $350,000/year. This is not including transportation savings and so on. Think what we could do for all the children who attend publicly funded education in Bluewater with this additional money. And if we had worked this money figure out using the Catholic funding formula, we would be able to save almost twice the money. Think what we could do for kids in the classroom with that kind of money?
And heads up here, most boards in Ontario are small to medium, only Toronto, York, Peel and Halton are big boards. The rest are like Bluewater. Putting us together would not be traumatic at all. That is a straw horse.
We only lack political will and doing the right thing by kids.
I will leave the rest to a parent who wrote me recently.
“I am unsure why there is such a resistance to slaughtering this sacred cow. I am sick of fundraising for every little log and swing seat – let alone an entire new piece of playground equipment!”

Indeed, let’s literally share the same grass and become one publicly funded secular school system! Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let’s have them learn together too!

I sure add, that the Ontario School Board Association, along with most trustees, advocate for teaching of a world religion classes, and have policy from 2003 advocating for a one school system of governance in the province. It already provides for accommodation, where there is space put aside for muslims to pray for instance.
In this regard, secular just means that religion is not part of education beyond teaching about world religions or non religions.

And you wouldn’t have force boards to come together into one. Policy would be that all savings from joining would be kept in that board. Boy would there be pressure from all parents in all boards for boards to do the right thing. They could quit fundraising, and paying all those additional school fees.

jan (aka janfromthebruce) — a partisan NDP public school trustee backing the call to get rid of catholic school boards? shocking!

No, a paristan school trustee, you represents the children and their education in the communities I represent and the taxpayers of the municipality of Kincardine and the township of Huron-Kinloss. Incidently, I am supported in this regard in my communities across the political spectrum. I have card-carrying liberals and conservatives quietly telling me so.
As for the NDP, last I checked, they were staying in the same camp as the liberals, hence Devon’s remark at the beginning. I wouldn’t say that the party executive and central is welcoming my thoughts with open arms, more like they would like me to quietly go away.
But your liberal talking points are so obvious – with all that talk of chaos, strive. Libs say that everytime they can and repeatedly.

Oh, and the parent I quoted, I would strongly suggest that she votes liberal, and repeatedly!

Can I start by getting serious about the bird-like comments of some on this blog. It seems we has ostriches (Liberals who can’t seem to face the problem); vultures (Conservatives who want to feed off the issue for a few votes) and penquins (voiceless, useless wadlers with noting to say)ie NDP.

Some questions:

1. Why should Ontario take the sole public funding of Catholic schools seriously?

2. What is Ontario’s future with any one of the 3 options (stop,continue, extend) public funding of religious schools in Ontario?

3. What is really going to happen?

To 1., let’s look at it in historical context. From 1841 to about 1855, Catholics (mostly Irish immigrants) were vulnerable to anti-Catholic, anti-Irish sentiments and separate schools were needed. However with the support of the Quebec (Catholic) legislators and Ontario big business (who were willing to sell out Ontario’s people with any alliance to support their railway expropriations etc), Ontario had successive waves of a publically funded Catholic system jammed down its throat from first Montreal, the Quebec City. When the outcry finally reached a crescendo in the early 1860′s, sell-outs like MacDonald and his railway buddies, co-opted George Brown – support Brown’s dream of a united Canada or support the dismemberment of Catholic schools in Ontario. Brown chose Canada. Ever since we have been fed stories of the glory of Confederation, while the left-overs of a cheap political deal festered for 140 years.

Does that make this problem unique? You bet. The arguments under which this structure came about – a so called agreement at Confederation had Ontario accepting public funding of one religion if Quebec didn’t push on the Protestant schools. That arrangement ended in 1997 when Quebec said it would not protect them and wanted to have secular schools based on language. Accordingly Ontario is under no obligation to maintain reciprocity in a dead deal.

So the continuation of Catholic schools in Ontario is important to the 70% of Ontarians who have been compromised, who are offended and whose Civil Rights to no favouritism under the Charter of Rights are being violated, as recognized explicitly by the Supreme Court.

2. Ontario’s future is probably one of immigration from Muslim countries as other sources (India in particular) become economically strong. Catholic immigration is over unless it comes from South America. So with growth rates as they are, the expectation is that there could be as many Muslims as Catholics in a decade or so.
Then where will we be in either the ostrich (Liberal do-nothing)or vulture (Conservative who-gives-a-damn-about-public-education) solution – producing extreme anger over special funding to only Catholics or having at least 3 major school board types – public, Catholic and Muslim. Think about the problem of our children avoiding contact with children not of their school type now and expand on it. Think about what ghettoism brought to Britain.
Frankly it’s so appalling to me, I can’t believe it’s the same province where in my youth we talked about ‘Opportunity for all, favouritism for none’.

I guess we lost our way when it became ‘favouritism for those who can muscle enough)

Re the third question on what is really going to happen – the solution I wish to offer is based on the sensibility of the people as opposed to the self-interest of Ontario’s 3 disappointing parties. When 30% (Catholics) are supported by 100% of the parties, it is to be expected that the 70% are going to start asking questions that those parties are not going to like.

This election will not put the public funding of schools of one religion to rest. My prediction is that the people of Ontario will come out of it angry and hungry for a solution that removes the stench of favouritism and replaces it with a satisfying aroma of co-operation between people of various religions. And any party which hesitates to go there will be stigmatized and punished.

Jan, Leonard — I presume that you will be voting for the Green Party in the election then? (since they are the only party calling for the withdrawal of public funding for Catholic schools)

Re: “obviously, you are against the status quo (which is to say, that it doesn’t matter what my rationale is, you would still say the same thing”

I have heeded the various arguments on this blog and give my rationale for disagreeing with some of them. Nothing I haven’t heard before, believe me.

Yes, I am against the status quo, as most Ontarians are (CBC poll, summer 2007). Most favour one system and some favour extended religious school funding instead. Those are the “moral” options, whereas continuing unique, undeserved, and unwarranted special entitlements for a non-disadvantaged minority (the largest and amongst the more advantaged in the province) is immoral. Too bad most politicians can’t recognize what most voters can.

The immorality of the status quo is also highlighted by the fact many school boards, forced by their circumstances, are now ripping bread from the mouths of children by cutting special education, specialist teachers, classroom supports, and maintenance. This is all occurring while hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted every year propping up a religious-in-name-only duplicate school system attended by families who mostly never even cross the threshold of a Church (75%+ according to various Catholic sources, including Catholic Education, Ensuring a Future, 2005, by Fr. James Mulligan). Don’t think there is a better use for that money?

If Catholic parents really give a hoot about the spiritual upbringing of their children, they’d play a role themselves, as their non-Catholic neighbours do. The state not only does not need to be involved, it shouldn’t be, otherwise it will inevitably find itself in the role of arbiter, deciding which faiths are valid, which are not, which are real, which are fantasy, and which deserve funding. Only hurt and offense can result from that.

Because of declining enrollment, many rural, urban, and northern communities are facing school closures. In some cases, this will mean (or has meant) that a community is left entirely without a publicly-funded school where all can attend and work. Catholic schools have an absolute right to discriminate in admissions to grade 9 and in hiring at all grade levels. Even when open to non-Catholics, however, the particular religious bent makes them a non-option for many. Many (particularly non-Catholic) families have been and will continue to be thrust into situations where their kids have to endure long commutes to neighbouring communities to attend a publicly funded school that will either accept them or that will be acceptable to them (religiously neutral environments).

Declining enrollment has resulted in hundreds of seriously under-enrolled schools province-wide — schools which are substantially more expensive to run on a per pupil basis than schools where enrollment is closer to capacity. The reluctance to leave families without schools in their own communities has meant that many school boards have left those schools open rather than force a closure onto a community without another nearby option. A merger of the public and separate school systems would allow the province-wide inventory of under-enrolled schools to be cleaned up almost overnight, with half empty public and separate school populations combining in the best of their two facilities (allowing simultaneous divestment of the costly “lemon” properties). This would spare many Ontario communities the trauma of a school closing, create truly neighbourhood schools, and result in more cost effective schools (thus more money for all that stuff currently being cut).

Leonard, if it is so self-evident that Catholic schools should “go away”, even to Catholics, is it not fair then let those parents and Catholic school boards choose to integrate themselves into the public system? I object to the top-down command-and-control tactics of forcing this change. And I think that most parents of children attending Catholics schools would too. Especially since the Catholic schools, in general, outperform the public schools. It is odd indeed to try to shut down schools that, on average, perform well.

Declining enrollment will continue to be a problem so long as we don’t adopt different approaches to different regions, as I’ve said many times on this site before. This is caused by regional disparities that have been exacerbated under globalization (the abandonment of regional policies in favour of agglomeration policies). But if the situation is so dire in rural and Northern communities, then would these boards not voluntarily merge? Indeed, that is happening in some cases. But let’s be clear, without broader economic development strategies in rural and Northern areas, we will continue to see declining enrollment as population, especially those with kids, decline in rural and Northern Ontario. I’d be curious of which communities have no public school, as you claim.

The argument you make for closing down Catholic schools (i.e. integrating them into one location) works in reverse as well — by concentrating schools into one location, you inevitably force some students to travel farther than they would otherwise be able to (i.e. those that would otherwise choose to attend a separate school which is closer). So it’s not a particularly strong argument. Obviously, if you close down half the schools, they will be farther apart.

I think you are talking out of both sides of your mouth — on the one hand you call it a “religious-in-name-only duplicate school system” and on the other you say “the particular religious bent makes them a non-option for many”. Which is it? Are they religious or not? In my experience, since they receive public funding and teach the Ontario curriculum, they have become closer to the former than the latter.

I just don’t buy the argument that fewer, bigger (in student population) school boards is better than many smaller ones. You argue it on “efficiency” grounds. But if there are two schools that each lack resources that cover the same geographic territory, and whose enrollment is both dropping, I would imagine that they would want to merge voluntarily.

Why don’t you want to tell the school boards and parents decide? Why do you want to force it down their throats as a one-size-fits-all solution?

Alberta has the best education system in Canada and one of the reasons is the competition which results from school choice. However in complacent Ontario we have limited choice and seem to want no choice at all.

International jurisdictions with ample school choice almost always produce more capable students than we produce in Ontario. New Zealand, Norway and many Germany outshine us. However we do better than the Maritime provinces which offer zero choice. And of the two school systems in Ontario, the Catholic and the Secular, the Catholic system on average does better than the secular system.

Yet in full view of these facts, Ontarians seem to wish to embrace a zero choice system, which is lacking in transparency and where one school board has complete power over the destiny of the children within it’s walls. This is unacceptable and wrong.

I suppose it’s too little to late to comment on this form, but declining enrollment is just a part of a much bigger problem:we’re killing ourselves.

Such a summary sounds harsh perhaps laughable. But with a female fertility rate of 1.4 children, we are well below the coveted replacement level of 2.1. How many people do we have to lose before we begin to smell the coffee?

Many will argue that we can overcome this problem by outsourcing our breeding to other countries and this is certainly true. But most of our immigrants are from parts of the world where religion is so tightly entwined within their being that it may take a hundred years or more before they adapt our secular values. And even this assumes that their commitment mechanisms break down to such an extent that full assimilation will occur.

If secular values are the source of our infertility, than why would we want sections of our community which are still fertile to embrace infertility-abortion, recreational sex, chemical infertility, career first/family second etc? If we destroy the last cradles of reproduction we place ourselves in total dependence upon immigration. Ontario grows closer to the demographic event horizon of 1.3 a fertility rate from which no society ever recovers. Food for thought.