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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
The Toronto Star, using Freedom of Information, has obtained information about the total amount of private money flowing into Toronto-area publicly-funded high schools. Read all about it here. The fact that there is an enormous range of funding among schools is positioned as being unfair to less affluent students who are deprived of certain services because they’re too expensive. There is also the mandatory suggestion that these funds are necessary to bridge the growing gap between provincial funding and the actual cost of educating students.
Really? As our Sunshine for Schools shows clearly, provincial funding has been growing steadily and significantly every year, despite declining enrolment numbers. Between 2003 and 2009, for example, provincial grants to school boards grew by about one-third - from about $15 billion to about $20 billion.
Furthermore, students at the highly-funded high schools profiled by the Toronto Star are not doing particularly well academically, according to the Fraser Institute rankings (the rankings in order of excellence start on page 61). St. Aloysius de Gonzaga at “only” $1 million does the best, with an 8.8. score. Next is Mayfield ($1.3 million) which scores 8.1. Michael Power ($1.3 million) scores 7.8 and Turner Fenton ($1.4 million) scores only 6.6.