FPTP vs MMP

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
>> I used to be very much opposed to funding of any parochial schools,
>> including the Catholic system, a few years ago but have since changed
>> my mind. It seems to me that the most ardent opponents of funding of
>> parochial schools profess a faith, though they don't call it as such,
>> of secular humanism. Quite often, these same people are the ones who
>> argue that Christmas should be called "Winter Festival", or some such
>> ridiculous euphemism, and Christmas trees should be removed from
>> public buildings. More often than not, the people who promote these
>> views are not Jews, Hindus, or Muslims but rather people who a
>> generation ago would have been called "Christians" and now consider
>> themselves to be agnostics or atheists.
> POV from a sample size of one.
> 
> When we were raising the kids in Brampton, the school was a living
> breathing Benetton ad. All faiths, all colours, at least a dozen or two
> first languages.

That describes the school that my children attend. My wife and I have 
never sent our children to parochial schools but we are certainly not 
opposed to the idea of other parents doing that.

> That school indeed had a Winter Festival. At the concert you had Jewish
> kids singing Christmas carols, Hindu kids lighting Kwanzaa candles,
> Muslim kids playing dreidel, and the Christian kids explaining Diwali.
> 
> Yes, there were Christmas trees, I think there was even a nativity
> scene. But the trappings of all faith's winter festivals were also
> welcome for everyone to see.
 >
> I couldn' t have been prouder. The school system could not have served
> all those kids better, in demonstrating that everyone has something that
> is important to them but not everyone shares the same 'something' --
> diversity as a strength, not a weakness. My kids would never have
> received this kind of exposure has they spent their time in a school
> (literally) preaching one faith as the Only One That Matters.
> 
> With few exceptions (Buddhism notably among them), religions tend to be
> mutually exclusive. And almost by definition, they must define their
> particular faith-based ethics as superior -- more divine, if you would
> -- than those of other religions.
> 
> What you call Secular Humanism is a religion only to the extent that it
> has a core ethic, and its own view of human nature. Unlike most
> religions, it is not mutually exclusive.

That presumes other religions do not accept other faiths as being 
legitimate. Some of course do not but Buddhism is not the only one that 
recognizes other faiths. I have met many fine adults who are the 
products of parochial schools. There are many rural areas in this 
country that are ethnically homogeneous and many of them have strong 
religious beliefs but they have also managed to turn out fine, 
upstanding citizens from public schools. In other words, it is not the 
act of living in an ethnically diverse area and culture grazing that 
automatically creates good citizens. All the Kwanzaa (a manufactured 
holiday if there ever was one <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwanzaa>) 
candle lighting in the world is no substitute for studying and 
understanding the basis of our democracy. All that "inclusiveness" and 
"multiculturalism" is window dressing and amounts to nothing if Canadian 
children are ignorant of the history of this country and the foundations 
of liberal democracies.

> Even without government
> funding, many faiths manage to do quite well offering Sunday school
> which augments the public "core ethic" with those specific to the
> parents' wishes. The key word is "augment", not " replace".

If I ran a parochial school, I would have difficulty accepting public 
funding the way that it was proposed by John Tory because it would come 
with too many strings attached. Actually, I would have difficulty 
accepting those same conditions even in a secular school. Part of the 
reason why parents opt out of the public system is that the public 
system does not meet their expectations because it is geared towards the 
lowest common denominator. Another very practical reason is that many 
parents do not have access to daycare and when you compare the cost of 
private schooling of three year olds to daycare, the private school 
often is cheaper. It is NOT just about religion.

It was with some bemusement that I read a letter to the editor in the 
Star by a (unionized of course) public school teacher who was 
incredulous that a Christian school that had been profiled spent an hour 
or so per day on religious education. She indicated that she had 
difficulty delivering the minimum curriculum and wondered how this 
school could spend so much time on religious education while still 
meeting the curriculum requirements. A teacher or administrator from 
another parochial school responded that it was because their students 
had longer school days. Even that school day was shorter than the days 
my children have in a secular, independent school.

So why would parents who have the option of sending their children to 
the local public school opt for a secular private school, in many cases 
by making significant financial sacrifices? The motivation of parents 
who opt for private parochial schools is obvious, though I believe there 
is also an element of dissatisfaction with the academic standards in the 
public school system. In the case of my family, it is that we made a 
conscious decision that being multilingual was very important. My son 
has been studying in a bilingual (English/French) environment since he 
was three and today at 14, he is fluent in both languages and speaks, 
reads, and writes French as well as any of the children from France of 
his age we have had stay with us on exchange programs. In addition to 
that, at his school, they started on a third language in Grade 1, in his 
case, Mandarin. He is certainly not fluent in it but he can converse at 
a basic level and read and write that language too.

My son will graduate from high school with at least a third more credits 
than he needs to gain admission into university. He has no electives or 
spares in high school (he's in Grade 11). He has to take all the 
sciences, all the maths, Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology, 
History, Geography, Music, Visual Arts, Civics, and Economics, amongst 
other subjects. The one-size-fits-all public school system does a poor 
job of serving the needs of children like him who have the interest and 
ability to learn beyond what is in the too-easy curriculum.

The only difference between parents who cannot afford to send their 
children to private schools and those who can is money. In places where 
vouchers were implemented, parents who could never have considered a 
private school previously, behaved no differently than parents who could 
afford private schools after the implementation of vouchers. Some 
elected to send their children to private schools while others did not. 
Good public schools thrived. Bad ones either got better or died. Isn't 
that how things should work? Teacher unions, the power of which must not 
to be underestimated, will of course use all kinds of incendiary 
language and claim the system will be gutted and all that. It is all 
rubbish. That has not happened in places where this has been 
implemented. Right now, we have the worst of all systems, one where 
there is no competition to the government and union monopoly on public 
schools.

To send your child to Earl Haig Secondary School in North York, for 
example, you have to live in the catchment area in a home that is 
*older* than a certain age. In other words, if you move into one of the 
new condos in the area, tough luck. Your child cannot go there. How is 
that fair? There is quite a demand for that school because it has a 
reputation of being a good school. In a voucher system, that school 
would thrive. If they have room for 1000 students today, if 2000 
students with vouchers came to them, they could use that funding to 
expand the school. That would probably be at the expense of some other 
school, let's say a bad public high school. I do not see how injecting 
that kind of competition into the system could be a bad thing.

This is all very reminiscent of the so-called debate surrounding the 
health care system. The moment anyone dares to suggest that there may be 
room in the system for greater private delivery of publicly-funded 
services, the usual suspects will start blathering on about "two-tier 
health care" and start beating the straw man of the U.S. model. The 
reality is that we already have a two-tier system, one for people who 
can afford to just go to the U.S. to avoid wait times and another for 
those who cannot afford it. We maintain the fiction of universal 
coverage by delisting services and ration services by having wait times. 
We used to laugh at the ambitious Five Year Plans of the Soviets but few 
people seem to notice that we have imported that same discredited model 
of central economic planning into our health care and education systems, 
two programs that now consume the lion's share of tax revenues.

> To this extent I am quite happy to promote and defend "secular humanism"
> as a core ethic which represents the values of this particular society.
> Religions are welcome to augment this, and even challenge it when they
> wish, but I don' t believe that children should be brought up in
> religious ghettos and only introduced into the mainstream near
> adulthood. Anyone who considers themselves "non religious" will at least
> have their kids in an environment that promotes a minimally useful
> ethical code.
> 
> Like it or not, the Charter of Rights essentially defines Canada as a
> secular humanist country rather than one based on the dogma of any of
> the mutually exclusive faiths. It accepts religions within its midst up
> to and until the values of those religions adversely affect
> non-believers. This characteristic is not shared by many countries but
> it is ours.
> 
> If I had my way, there would be a single public board, but school boards
> would be encouraged to fund optional faith-based _supplemental_ programs
> (not far different from the 'heritage language' programs funded by many
> school boards right now).
 >
>> I found the arguments put forth by all political parties wanting on
>> this issue but in particular, I found the position of the Liberals
>> most indefensible. McGuinty's use of such divisive language as
>> "segregation" with respect to funding parochial schools was just
>> reprehensible and offensive.
> If the shoe fits... It may  be offensive but it's still accurate.

Why is it "segregation" when 53,000 children of various religions other 
than Catholic get funded but "inclusive" when 450,000 Catholic children 
get funded?

>> His claim that stopping funding of Catholic schools was not possible
>> due to constitutional obligations was just political cowardice. If he
>> were truly concerned about "inclusiveness" and against "segregation",
>> he would pledge to stop funding Catholic schools but of course that
>> would be politically suicidal.
> Eventually we can hope someone will have the courage. Certainly the NDP,
> were it to be in a majority position, would consider the move...

And the Greens, apparently. At least those are defensible positions. The 
positions of the Liberals especially, and the PCs to some extent, are 
both inconsistent and indefensible.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists