Many people are upset that Catholics are getting preferential treatment in Ontario schools. Some say the solution is to do away with the separate school systems entirely, leaving us with one public system on which we could focus all our resources. While its proponents claim numerous benefits for a single-system solution, they never mention the costs. Reformers who have been dealing with the reality of our schools know these costs would far outweigh the benefits.

People supporting the removal of public funding of Catholic schools also claim that a single system would integrate students of different backgrounds even more than the present system. Over the years, educators have encouraged us to believe that such integration will foster increased tolerance and harmony. Conversely, any attempt to provide parents with meaningful choices outside of the existing publicly-funded schools will, we are told, quickly turn Ontario into Northern Ireland or Bosnia. Implicit in the integration argument is the contention that a single publicly-funded system is also the best vehicle for delivering equity of educational opportunity because all students have access to the same quality of education.

These status-quo positions are tough to argue against because nobody wants to sound as if he’s against peace, harmony, and equity. Even a cursory investigation of today’s schools, however, exposes a reality where integration is far less than claimed and where equity of opportunity remains an elusive ideal. Go a little further, and you’ll find that the structure of the present system actually thwarts integration and equity of opportunity — a situation that would only get worse in a single system.

If we moved to a single system, geography would become an even greater determinant of the make-up of the student population in each school than it is today. But geography is a homogenizing influence. The communities feeding into most schools are not widely varied in socio-economic terms.

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