> (Ed Weick)
> >The right-wing Government of Ontario has recently introduced a tax
credit,
> >to max out at $3,500 in a few years, to better enable parents to send
kids
> >to the private schools of their choices. The public system will, of
course,
> >continue, though it is already struggling and will be further weakened.
>
> Presumably, what this means that only those parents who have earnings well
> into the higher tax bands will fully benefit from this. A pity that the
> Ontario Government couldn't have given an honest full-value voucher to all
> parents.
Actually two sets of parents will benefit. High income parents is one. The
other is parents who send their children to faith based schools such as
Jewish schools, Protestant Christian schools, etc. The former probably
don't need the extra tax benefit, though they will take it. The latter have
for many years complained that Catholic schools are publicly funded because
of commitments in the Canadian Constitution. They have lobbied for similar
treatment and governments have by and large resisted, though we may now have
the thin edge of the wedge.
> >What bothers me is that the tax rebate is not based on broad study or
public
> >discussion of what an education system should be like to meet present day
> >needs (i.e., what mix of public and private, what mix of arts, sciences
and
> >technical subjects, etc.), but on neo-liberal political philosophy.
>
> Well, I wouldn't criticise the Onario Government for this. Governments (or
> indeed anybody else) have long since realised -- at least in England --
> that they cannot possibly forecast what jobs will be needed, even a few
> years hence. 30/40 years ago we had Skill Centres in England which gave
> gave superb re-training to older adults in a variety of engineering skills
> then in short supply. By the time it was set up and in full swing, most of
> those jobs were overtaken by NC (numerically controlled) machine tools. I
> think that the skill training laid on by schools and universities should
> reflect demand by the students. The latter will be influenced by their
> parents who are much closer to the changing job scene than any
> government/expert forecasting body.
OK, I concede some of this. But I do believe that we can some pretty good
forecasting based on current and recent trends. We may not get it right,
but getting it even reasonably close to right would be a big forward step.
I would venture that, while catering to the demands of their students,
universities continually forecast. Because appropriate teaching staff takes
a long time to develop and capital facilities take a long time to plan, they
would not be working in their interests or continuity if they did not do so.
It is our secondary school level that is currently messed up. It's become
underfunded, downgraded in the eyes of the public, and something of a
pitched battle between government and the teachers. Neither it nor
government appears to be in a position to do any forward thinking.
> >It will
> >introduce "competition" into the education system, and to the true
believer,
> >competition (whatever that is) is naturally good. Despite serious
> >underfunding, growing teacher shortages, and perpetual labour turmoil,
> >competition from private education will make the public system smarten up
> >and thus become a better system.
> >
> >What is more likely to happen is that, with further damaging initiatives
> >from the government, the public system will become run-down to a point of
> >being unable to provide quality education. Parents who want to send
their
> >kids to wealth or religious based private schools will then have a much
> >better reason for doing so than they now have, and neo-lib politicians
will
> >be able shrug their shoulders, walk away and feel that the market has
done
> >its job.
>
> I'm afraid I disagree strongly here. Ed's argument is precisely the same
> that has been advanced by the Labour Party in England for the last 50
years
> and was at its strongest about 25 years ago. Indeed, at that time, certain
> eminent Labour Party Ministers such as Anthony Crossland (otherwise a
> benign Oxford educated philosophy don) was actually pushing for the total
> abolition of private schools on the grounds that they deprived the state
> schools of the brightest students. Thankfully, this totalitarian step was
> never taken.
I'm not an advocate of the abolition of private schools, but I want to see a
strong public system which provides kids with an education comparable in
quality to private schools. I don't want to public system sacrificed to the
benefit of the private system.
> And this is the nub of the problem. Unless the parents, and in turn the
> children, are motivated in order to work conscientiously at school, then
> education just becomes a passive consumer product. It has become a "right"
> that parents demand. They hand their children over to a state school and
> expect that their children will automatically become well educated without
> any effort. What my children experienced 30 years ago has become far worse
> since.
I don' think this gives enough credit to parents of educators. My wife and
I have a daughter in a local secondary school. She has just completed the
tenth grade. She is, according to psychometric tests, a very bright girl,
but has had problems throughout in focusing and paying attention. Over the
years, her teachers have been excellent with her. My wife is on the school
council and has first hand knowledge of the effort and hours educators and
administrators put in for the pay they get. For the most part, they really
care. What they produce is far from a homogeneous consumer product. What
they face under the current system is burnout.
> (It is very interesting that the accounts I've been reading recently of
the
> new voucher-driven charter schools in America, even of those in the worst
> run-down school districts of the large cities, all say the same thing. The
> teachers work the children hard. The children enjoy it. The parents
support
> it. Most of the children are at least two years ahead in reading and
> arithmetic than the state-run schools. The motivation behind these new
> charter schools is really recapitulating the early decades of the new
> schools in the industrial cities of England when working class parents,
> themselves miserably poor, actually paid for the education of their
> children -- and almost all went. Both parents and children were
motivated.)
I'll simply have to take your word on this. I haven't done any reading on
voucher systems recently. However, I would argue that a well funded,
peaceful, respected public system would also produce good results. Our
local high school, one of the most reputable older schools in Ottawa,
continues to turn out very good students in increasingly difficult
circumstance.
> (Ed Weick)
> >neo-lib politicians will
> >be able shrug their shoulders, walk away and feel that the market has
done
> >its job.
>
> At the risk of being labelled a "neo-lib" I feel sure that the market
> *will* do its job. The free market rapidly rapidly eliminates inferior
> goods and services -- why shouldn't parents eliminate the worst schools
and
> stimulate the better ones to do even better? I'm baffled to know why not.
I
> think that, privately, the Ontario Government politicians know just as
well
> as Labour Party politicians in England (privately), that state education
> has been going downhill for the last half-century and that there's really
> no hope of rescue even though they dare not say so openly.
Markets are based on self-interest, not on the interests of society as a
whole. As well as inferior goods and services, they can eliminate a whole
lot of things. What apalls me about present trends in our society is that
we can no longer distinguish between what belongs in the private sector, and
is therefore of interest to particular members of society, and what belongs
in the public domain, and therefore of interest to us all -- to our
continuity as a good society if you like. The Ontario government
notwithstanding, I don't see education as a marketable commodity. I see it
as a responsibility of society as a whole. Unfortunately, however, I may be
going the way of the dinosaurs, or perhaps it's the dinosaurs that are
returning.
Ed Weick
Visit my rebuilt website at:
http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/
