| INSIDE THIS ISSUE |
Zero Sum Game
(OQE’s annual ranking of school boards) |
The Failure of Failure
(an exposé of faulty math programs that doom students to failure) |
Two-Tier Public Education
(new light on school user fees) |
Intra-Curricular Activities
(a devastating analysis of Ontario’s new language arts curriculum) |
Charter Flight
(the profile of a popular new charter school) |
Keeping Them in Their Place
(hard questions about teacher union opposition to help for low-income families) |
Shaking the Money Tree
(a rant against the amazing gullibility of New York businessmen) |
Not-So-Special Education
(an eye-opener about the human cost of poor teaching) |
An Expensive Safety Net
(Andrew Nikiforuk explores the burgeoning private tutorial industry) |
Still No Money for Books?
(but lots of money for supply teachers!) |
Saying No to Zero Tolerance
(a better plan for achieving safe schools) |
Breach of Contract
(a discussion of how the vision of Martin Luther & Egerton Ryerson is being violated) |
Uniform Delight
(good news about school uniforms along with other aspects of traditional schools) |
A Trojan Horse
(advice from New Zealand on regulated university tuition fees) |
Marketing a School Board
(a look at what happens when market forces gain access to school boards) |
| And lots more - Publications of Interest, What’s
New?, OQE Stuff, Letters to the Editor, etc. |
|
From the President
New Boss in Town
The Ontario Liberal Promises
In October, a provincial election in Ontario brought a Liberal government to power. Prior to the election, the new premier, Dalton McGuinty, made 231 promises to voters. Of these, 25 involved education.
Many of these promises are motherhood-and-apple-pie statements.
- “We will make sure schools are safe so students can concentrate on learning.”
- “We will treat our teachers with the professional respect they deserve.”
These pledges are short on specifics.
Some promises were simply foolish.
- “We will put in place a real cap of 20 students per class in the all-important early grades.”
School board officials across the province told the Liberals that this hard cap would be nearly impossible to implement, given the additional cost. We would need to hire many more teachers, and schools everywhere would be searching for extra space for more portable classrooms.
- “We will make learning mandatory to age 18.”
Again, a pledge that seems unlikely to be enforced. At present, it is impossible to keep all 16-year-olds in school.
One promise is a blow to all who favour choice in education. As I write, legislation is being enacted that will not only cancel the province’s tax credits for independent school tuition, but also will make the cancellation retroactive to the beginning of the year.
- “We will…cancel tax breaks for exclusive private schools.”
The wording of this promise is misleading. Since only a handful of the province’s nearly 900 independent schools is “exclusive”, voters might legitimately have concluded that the Liberals were planning to continue to allow Ontarians of modest means to take advantage of the tax credits to send their children to the inde-pendent school of their choice. The average independ-ent school in Ontario charges less in yearly tuition than the government spends on its publicly-funded schools.
continued...
|
