Because of the education funding issue, my choices are among the PCs, Liberals, and Green Party. The PCs are definitely not getting my vote. I could vote Liberal even if they contradict themselves on funding Catholic schools when they talk about segregation of other students in religious private schools. I’ll have to weigh the education funding issue with other issues that matter to me. The Greens have a principled stand favouring one school system for each language community (English and French). I am highly likely to vote for the Green Party. This could be my first time doing so. The NDP just doesn’t matter this time.

You make an statement as fact, but the evidence does not support your basic assumption.
You stated, “such a call by the NDP does run the risk of alienating the 1/3 of parents whose children attend Catholic schools.”
Your assumption is based on the notion that all parents who send their children to Catholic schools do so because they want their children to receive a religious education. This assumption is wrong for a couple of reasons.
1. research conducted by OSSTF actually found that the preference for schools was based on the quality of teaching (over 50%), whereas selection based on religious instruction was about 16%.
2. Eliminating public funding for Ontario Catholic schools is not only politically possible, but the CBC commissioned Oraclepoll Research poll this summer showed it is what the majority of Ontarians (58%) want. Both Quebec (83% Catholic) and Newfoundland (37% Catholic) managed to do it in spite of the fact they are each proportionally more Catholic than Ontario (34% Catholic, all figures 2001 Census). The sky did not fall in either province.

Thus the reality is that a majority of people and obviously from a cross section of faiths, including Catholic, prefer a one school system.

The politics is beyond me why the NDP has not moved in this direction, but I think the silence is strategic, at this point.

I think we all need to stay tune here. Remember that the federal NDP has policy on its books that supports one school system, and so does ONDPY – youth wing of the party. Make no mistake, if the NDP runs on one school system, it will be the McGuinty Liberals left doing the hypercritical pretzel.

The main education issue for the NDP is full funding for the public school system, which includes the Catholic school system. The Conservatives, for reasons I don’t accept, want to fund private schools. This gives the Liberals another chance to play the scary Tory, “strategic voting” card- vote Liberal or John Tory will eat your kittens, sorry I meant,eat your children-while ignoring their own failure to fix the funding formula.

From the NDP site:
____________________________________________
HAMPTON WILL FIX FUNDING FORMULA, END FUNDRAISING FOR ESSENTIALS
date: August 29, 2007 – 12:00am
body:

NDP Leader Howard Hampton today announced he will put students first by investing in public education to make it better and more affordable for today’s working families.

“Public education is one of the most important investments we can make. Unfortunately, Dalton McGuinty broke his promise to fix the education funding formula. That’s depriving students of programs they need and it’s forcing families to pay for school essentials out of their own pockets,” Hampton said.

Peter – the way I see it, the problem with the funding formula is related to the problem with service downloading to municipalities/uploading of education funding to the province. Clearly, the first step is to reverse the Harris mistake and return control back to the municipalities and use the funding formula to top up inequities due to property tax disparities. This would also take the pressure off rising property taxes.

Would I have liked the Liberals to have reversed downloading in their first mandate? Yes. Was that feasible given they also have to catch up on 8 years of disinvestment in core public services (infrastructure, healthcare, education) *and* eliminate a $5.6 billion deficit? I doubt it. Just to accomplish the reinvestments and eliminate the deficit required breaking their promise not to raise taxes (I have no problem with the health premium). I’m not sure where the additional billions to deal with the downloading problem would have come from. I suspect that would be an important aspect of their second mandate. It’s clear that the Liberals had an ambitious agenda and over-sold what was realistic to do in 4 years (fixing downloading, eliminating the deficit, reinvestments in core programs, close all the coal plants, electoral reform, greenbelt plan, etc). It’s good to be ambitious but I think they’ve probably learned to be a little more realistic.

Adopting the Green position would have put them in conflict with the Ontario Secondary Teachers Federation which has been historically against this (since private school teachers are probably not unionised, and acceptance of the public school board collective agreement is not part of the proposal).

That said, the NDP do seem to have ratcheted up their attacks on the issue… on the Libs
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=767794

Greg, if you go further into the quote you will find this, where Paul Ferreira the chair of the Dufferin-Peel CATHOLIC school board was removed by McGuinty and is now running as an NDP candidate. My friends on the Hamilton-Wentworth public school board, which was put on trusteeship during the Harris years for putting in a deficit budget, are not too impressed with McGuintys failure to live up to his “ambitious agenda” in the first term (which may well be his last term). The overwhelming issue for 99% of those in any of the Ontario education systems -children,teachers, parents,is funding for the public school system. This is the NDP agenda you asked for.wouldnt you say it was worth considering ?
———————————————-
Hampton made the comments during a news conference with NDP Davenport candidate Peter Ferreira. Dalton McGuinty undemocratically removed Ferreira as chair of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board after Ferreira and fellow school board trustees refused government orders to cut classroom programs. Those included the Reading Recovery program for kids who need help learning to read.

Hampton told the press conference the NDP would fix the flawed education funding formula and keep it up to date. The first review would be completed by March Break, 2008, and be reviewed by an all-party legislative committee every year. That will mean giving local school boards the fairness and flexibility they need to address local concerns and priorities like English-as-a-Second Language instruction, special education waiting lists, repairs for rundown and unsafe schools, community schools at risk of closing and specialty teacher shortages.

“The status quo isn’t good enough. In the face of a global economy, where too many kids start behind and stay behind, we need to fix the years of neglect of our students and our classrooms. That starts with fixing the funding formula and making sure students go to excellent, properly-staffed schools that provide the programs students need,” Hampton said.

Hampton said his plan would put an end to the unfair pressure on parents to fundraise for school essentials. Parents raised $500 million last year to plug the gaps created by the flawed funding formula. The NDP will restore the Local Priorities Grant, at a rate of $200 a student, to give schools the funding they need for school essentials.

PJC — I sure hope the NDP has more than we believe in “full funding for the public school system”. I mean, who doesn’t? We need to fix the root problem — return school funding to the local level (funded by property taxes) and upload social services back to the province. That way any provincial-level funding is just top-up funding to ensure all boards have equal per capita resources, rather than rely upon a “funding formula” controlled by the government of the day (which makes it easy for subsequent administrations to cut off funding — not a sustainable solution).

Greg, going back to the future where school boards go cap in hand begging municipal taxpayers for more money won’t address declining enrolment. Anyway, municipalities are are cash starved too.

That said, you seemed to be confused. The system you recommend is essentially what we have now. Your tax portion for education is still on your taxes and is sent directly to the respective desinated board (of of four duplicates ones). The flawed funding formula than adds to that pot.
I know that as first, I am a public school trustee, and second, I live and own property in Ontario.

Whoh there Nelly!

We DO NOT need to reverse Harris’ decision to fund schools directly vs. school boards. School boards are notoriously bad at managing their money and when they run out, they just raise taxes. Most people do not pay attention to the school boards and let them tax and spend. There is far more accountability at the provincial level, and it is fairer since it is not limited to a single jurisdiction’s ability to pay. Richer areas can subsidize the poorer ones. Despite any problems anyone may have with the funding formula, and despite the fact that I agree that municipal downloading was a stupid idea, it was a very very good idea to eliminate the school board’s ability to tax. Leave it be!

The Green position as you report it is not very green at all. Greens respect and encourage diversity and decentralization. A Green devised education system would behave ‘as if’ each individual was empowered with public funding so as to choose a schooling of choice — and schools would have to compete for the education consumer’s dollar.

Herbinator — HERE is the Green policy paper on education. I don’t see where this is “not very green at all”. That’s not to say that I support it, just that I don’t think your point is valid.

I think that one needs only look at the ridings where the NDP is competetive to determine why Hampton has maintained a courageous silence on this issue.

Northern Ontario, Windsor, Hamilton and the Toronto ridings of Davenport and York South-Weston have significant rates of Separate School attendance (and Catholic voters).

This game of politics is silly and inconceivable

Even if the green party wanted to scrape the Catholic Education system they’re would be major uproars, is all you think about the people who send their KIDS to catholic schools because they can vote? What about the kids who actually ATTEND these schools? Do you think they are just going to sit by and watch THEY’RE school get demolished by some 60yr buffoon?

Now as a FRENCH CATHOLIC CANADIAN the government made a promise to my forefathers thus including me under this agreement called The British North American Act of 1867 this act (our constitution) protection MY RELIGION and my EDUCATION. If anyone so dares to touch catholic schools catholic kids WILL NOT just join a public school so easily.