Of people within programs that give advantages or perceived advantages yo some children tend to like the free or subsidized advantage they get.

The general population believe we should not advantage some people over others especially with public money.

Doug,

Please speak for yourself! Some people, like the girl with Cystic Fibrosis, who is currently in the news, should definitely receive support from the coiffers of our currently fiscally abusive and irresponsible Liberal government. They can let Caledonia fizzle out with lawless and brute force by some who are considered above the law; they can cave into the demands of teachers’ unions; they can spend billions on NOT creating a clean energy power plant in order to re-elect one of their own, only to fire them later; and they can pretty much do what they want supporting groups that promote their own agenda using public money. But when it comes to helping some individuals lead productive lives by paying for their much needed medication, it becomes something they cannot do.

Other issues have criminals not behind bars, roads and sewage systems that are not representative of a first world province, and job losses and wages that are not representative of our needs.

But our current provincial governement chooses pretty much whom to support financially and whom not to support - WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS, and precious little accountability.

After speaking to parents at random about school choice, and in particular Charter Schools, out of the approximately 45 complete strangers I approached or was approached by at random in the strangest of places to start up converstaion, 100% of them are pro school choice.

The money follows the student. The SAME money follows the student. We the citizens are not out of pocket. And the only ones who may be, or may need to become more fiscally accountable with their superintendents, and curriculum planners, and textbook providers, and wonderfully appointed buildings like the ones on Hurontario and Matheson while many schools are crumbling, are the powers that be governing school boards.

What don’t you get Doug?

No one is out of pocket, BUT the school board. The governement doesn’t need to collect more taxes; so we don’t need to cough up more money.

But the money for a charter school, goes directly to the individual school based on registered enrollment and attendance. This money does leave the public system - TRUE, but if the charter school fails (and accordin to you it will) then the money goes back to the school boards the following year. Remember that all Charter Schools require a Charter that will meet and be approved by the Ministry of Education.

Why not let parents decide which school is best for their kids. Teachers are not gods, nor are they demi-gods. They are hard working professionals who may not always know what is best for each and every child they teach.  Different strokes for different folks. It cannot be a one system fits all….................as you well know by mentioning that your wife runs a private teaching system of sorts in a previous comment section to one of these blogs.

Tell me: why does she stay in business?

Could it be because the public system is NOT good enough for all, and therefore some need to invest their own funds for remediation, tutoring, extra support, or simply extra explanation by another person who does it not necessarily better, but differently in such a way that the client (the student) gets it?

Stop speaking for the public Doug. You do not represent me or the 45 random people I’ve spoken to. WE ALL WANT SCHOOL CHOICE.

And not all would use it completely. One Mom told me she would send her daughter, but not her son. It’s the parents choice to know what is in the best interest of their children, not the schools’ or the government’s.

Doug - the time is now! You can make all the excuses you want, but I want my tax dollars to support learning - not a system, or a school board that dictates all the rules.

Not all kids learn the same way, and not all kids receive the support they need in the current system. Why do you oppose change?

Eventually more and more kids will learn online anyways, making the current system obsolete. Grant it, that’s many years off, but seriously, instead of wanting our province, and our country to be on the leading edge of providing well-rounded intelligent citizens, you are simply ready to accept mediocrity.

END OF PART 1/2 (thanks for the idea Nancy)

Watch Ukraine and Russia very carefully, and heed the advice of Angela Merkl and Hillary Clinton, it appears they know their history, even though none of them lived in a Communist country (asssuming Merkl was raised in W. Germany). But how many Canadians, born or raised here know their history? Our system doesn’t teach world history until grade 11 or 12.
Homeschooling has a program for elementary school kids to learn world history, as do many private schools that are lucky enough not to follow the Ontario Curriculum. And among better math skills, and better writing skills, and good instruction from textbooks NOT on the Trillium List, I want my kids to know their history. I want them to know what soft annexation is. I want them to know that history repeats, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I want them to know that there are ulterior motives to rule and suppress economic development for the sake of power. And I’m proud that my kids know where Crimea lies. And I’m proud that my kids know the demographics of that country. And I’m proud that my kids know the basics of both Russian and Soviet history. And I’m proud that my kids are putting the pieces together and saying, “Mom, with a Russian naval base in Syria, Putin is really strategically placing his army and navy all around Turkey. Could that mean something?” And my kids are Canadian. And my kids did not get any of this information from the public school system.

You can say what you want. We live in a free country, in a democracy, and free speech is still allowed, be it such that it not bring ill will or discrimination against our fellow man - and I WANT SCHOOL CHOICE FOR MY KIDS, AND ALL KIDS!

Parents are to make the educated choice, not my government.

Who else wants school choice?

END OF PART 2/2

Part 1 of 2

As I was reading the article, I was thinking the arguments by the Public K to 12 crowd were weak if not hypocritical. I was thinking of the initiative by Obama of the gathering of the wealthy of private dollars being pumped into the public education system, targeting the low-income student population of the blacks, but what of the other low-income children. A hypothesis stirred inside my head, and I went to work to gathered the information.

“Does the government have an interest in helping families send their kids to Bishop Brady or the New Hampton School? Should businesses be rewarded by the government for contributing to such an effort? Of course not.”  http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/10213560-95/editorial-education-tax-credit-program-should-be-repealed

I thought this was highly amusing, since the large bulk of private dollars are being poured into the public programs paid by tax dollars, to pay for the bells and whistles. So what is the dollar amount of donations to the public education schools, and all are tax deductible?  I realized it would require a bit of work and time to dig out the dollar amounts because there has been little research in this area. But what I did find, it is the public education and health receiving the bulk of the private donations to finance the things in education, that should be provided but are not provided. One essay from Jay Greene - believed published in 2003 called - Buckets Into the Sea - Why Philanthropy Isn’t Changing Schools, and how it could - http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CHoQFjAI&url=http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/People/Greene/Buckets_in_the_sea.pdf&ei=jwYaU8usD8uuqQHG2YH4BQ&usg=AFQjCNHR__ybeDZo0eVrkuBCPWdEeq62kw&sig2=5H35C5yxnc_PNrD0M088aQ&bvm=bv.62578216,d.aWM

Part of my hypothesis was correct. Another article - Orthodox Union Criticizes New Hampshire Court Ruling Rejecting Scholarship Tax Credit Program - Concluding - “Taken to its logical conclusion, this rationale would invalidate any charitable donation to a religious entity, since an individual’s dollar placed in the charity box would have otherwise flowed to the government’s coffers.

“This ruling must not stand. The Orthodox Union will work with our friends and allies to have it overturned by the New Hampshire State Supreme Court.”
http://advocacy.ou.org/2013/orthodox-union-criticizes-new-hampshire-court-ruling-rejecting-scholarship-tax-credit-program/

Further evidence, that if we followed the arguments of the public school advocates, that no public money should flow into the hands of private schools. Therefore, no private monies should flow into the schools to provide for the bells and whistles. I can go further, but essentially the arguments of the Public K to 12, are weak because it is based on the assumption that a) public schools provides quality education for each and every student and b) private monies flowing into the public schools enhances the education quality and services. Pray tell, if the public schools are providing quality education for each and every student, why the need to have private dollars flow into the public schools to finance the breakfast programs,  or pay for the after school tutoring program at the school?

In another - “Critics are skeptical: they say that education is a public good, and shouldn’t be left to the whims of marketplace.”  http://nhpr.org/post/school-choice-advocates-pitch-tax-credit-scholarship-program

The public good? If so, why do parents have such a difficult time in receiving education services at the public school, that best fits the individual child needs.  Stories abound in both Canada and United States outlining the parents side. It is often forgotten by both sides, but always conveniently forgotten by the public school advocates. Over at LD Online - The IEP and the legal aspects reviewing legal cases - “http://www.ldonline.org/article/6078/

Part 2 of 2

Alex Gerstmyer v. Howard County Public Schools

“In his decision, Judge Motz described the public school IEP as “… nothing more than a collection of forms prepared for other students stating only general goals and not at all tailored to Alex’s special needs.”
Because the IEP was not tailored to Alex’s unique needs as a child with dyslexia, Judge Motz awarded Alex’ parents reimbursement for their son’s education at the Montessori school.” 

Scholarship tax credits, vouchers are rooted in the case files of children with disabilities. If there was on thing that fought tooth and nail by the pubic K to 12, it was the children with disabilities. It is still an ongoing battle with the public schools to provide education services that are beyond the regular classroom. It soon be coming to a Canadian school district, and like their counterparts be paying public dollars to send the dyslexic child to a private tutor for reading instruction or to a private school.

Moving to the next argument - “Our public school systems have long played a central role in supporting democracy. Those systems are now under attack. We who value democracy must be on the lookout for bills that quietly deplete our already-scant public education resources, all the while devaluing the principle of public education as a whole.”  http://truth-out.org/news/item/18904-public-education-in-the-crosshairs-alecs-private-scholarship-tax-credits

Democratic? How democratic is it, when education services are denied to the students, and than are force to take classes apparently under the umbrella of learning, without the reading and writing skills in place to understand the lesson, let alone write a test? How democratic is it, when the public education proponents cons the students to believed it was the mysterious forces of privatization for their downfall in passing grade 3, rather than pointing the fingers at the real culprits. Over at Doug’s blog, a recent posting that could be called one long rant describes the so called democratic principles of the proponents of public schools. “Jamila’s story would be a tragedy if she was the only student driven out of school by the standardized testing controlled by Ontario ’s Orwellian sounding Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) and its like across North America . She is not. ”  http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com/Jamila.html

To which it is rather amusing, when the EQAO is finance by public monies, and not by private monies no matter how the Dougs’ of the world twist the facts. Doug’s portrayal speaks more of the deep rooted cultural biases of the public K to 12. The refusal to look inside. The fear of finding evidence that the public K to 12 have mutant features that are no longer serving the public good, let alone providing a quality education for one and all.

I leave off with this bend-twister of maintaining the status-quo. The status-quo of the higher income schools, and parents paying for the bells and whistles such as designer wear sport gear to go along with the i-pads to be used in the after school tutoring program.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/09/06/why-charitable-donations-to-public-schools-are-ok/

While the rest of the schools in the district go without and education services are providing according to the zip code of the students. Equal opportunity for all children is not the forte of the public K to 12. If anything the K to 12 public establishment takes full advantage of the public school students, and gives the finger to the students with lesser means or ability or both in the hope that they do go away but not before they reach their 18th birthday or graduate grade 12.  Than the students meets the real world, are told that they have to do on their own dime on stuff that should have been taught and mastered in the first 12 years of schooling.

Both of you are all over the map. I am happy to vote over and over on school choice say every 10 years with the provincial election. I dont mind a bit because you will always lose. It is not a ‘natural’ right.

What part of the majority does not want you to have school choice is difficult to understand?

Part 1 of 2

Funny how the public education advocates avoids the inside of the public education system. Funny how they make statements without ever providing evidence to support the statements. Funny how I find the same type of school choice support by the parents in my little corner of Canada, far removed from urban centers. Living in more rural locations, attending the local public school students do received more attention than urban students. Yet, somehow that doesn’t cut when the school makes a decision that a student who won the public speaking fair and square, according to the rules but is not permitted to go to the next level. Why?  The response was the student might freeze up on stage speaking in front of a strange audience. As a parent, I called it for what it was, discrimination against the LD students. Down my way, LD students are not academic, let alone be capable of public speaking making the whole room fall into laughter. It is the cultural bias of the public K to 12 establishment that really irks the parents in my rural location. The second favourite topic is the instructional practices where mastering the times table is frown upon by the education establishment.

Hence education choice is on the lips of parents of diversity and span. Below is a video that should put a tear in some parents’ eyes, and as well what some parents would pick for their children, if they had choice. The practice much frown upon by the public education establishment does a lot for this group of students attending a LD private school. “THE ADDRESS, a 90-minute feature length documentary by Ken Burns, will air on PBS in the spring of 2014.  The film tells the story of a tiny school in Putney Vermont, the Greenwood School, where each year the students are encouraged to practice, memorize, and recite the Gettysburg Address”  http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-address/home/

The Canadian public education system have yet to provide the evidence to support their statements, that LD students blossom and succeed in their schools. The academic outcomes for Canadian LD students in the K to 12 schools is that the vast majority sit at the bottom of the achievement charts. The education of LD students by the K to 12 public education establishment is what one might call,  the ‘low expectations’ education track. Zip codes don’t matter so much, but the size of the parents’ pocketbooks to provide the private services.

Part 2 of 2

Moving on, let us peek at the type of choice that might be inside a public school. The title should educating by zip code. It caught my eye, because it was about greenhouses. Thinking back to my rural high school I attended in Ontario….....hold on…...we had a greenhouse, a library where the teachers of today would swoon over, to lecture halls to fully equipped labs. And not one student had to pay extra for the supplementary materials or the use of the chemicals in chemistry class. Whatever happen to the fully stocked school?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/greenhouse-labs-spur-student-learning-manhattan-rooftops-2/

Check out the public schools on the list - in zip codes of high income. I did, oh my one ought to look at the test scores. http://projects.nytimes.com/new-york-schools-test-scores/counties/new-york/districts/new-york-city-district-3/schools/p-s-333-manhattan-school-chldn

The public school officials have very strict regulations of who qualifies to attend this school. If not within the school zone, one doesn’t attend.

However the above is not my beef, nor the greenhouse is the issue. It would be lovely to see a greenhouse at every high school across the country, but at the very least it would be nice to see the high school libraries fully stocked but are not in the 21st century public schools.

The cost to build a greenhouse runs about one million dollars. “While NY Sun Works does not secure funding for its partners, the organization does support all grant writing processes, and provides information and support to get funds.
“At PS 84, most funding came for public sources, mostly from council members and the borough president,” Zamora says.” http://seedstock.com/2014/03/03/new-york-nonprofit-builds-on-site-greenhouses-in-city-schools/

So one can see, it leaves the other public schools with lesser means out in the cold. Going back to the Greenhouse project - http://nysunworks.org/thegreenhouseproject  -  There is a PDF file at the bottom that is of interest. This is the typical MO on how the higher income public schools gets approval for the bells and whistles that the school does not require, but it would be nice to have. “Test results found that four in ten 12th grade students did not perform even at a basic level of science understanding, and only about a fifth were judged to be proficient in science, with just 1%
performing at an advanced level4. The Report card discovered that students in urban centers consistently underperformed in Science disciplines-across racial and class lines and that New York to other states in the region-including NJ, PA, and CT.” 

The test scores. They were not talking about the students at the Manhattan School for Children, but using the scores from other schools that had far fewer resources, teachers of lower income, to obtained their one million dollar greenhouse. One can only imagine if a lower income school approach the school district for funding to fully stock the school library. A greenhouse proposal would be laughed at, but the school library funding would be hem and haw, and finally denied based on the school’s test scores.

The same can be seen in Canada. The higher income schools are tended to by the public school officials, while the lower income schools are controlled and restricted by the school officials. The parents of the lower income school are mocked when they want higher academics for their children. Education services are denied on a regular basis and then the education establishment repeats the message, a falsehood that parents and their children are satisfied customers. No need to provide school choice or even private tutoring services for the dyslexic children. Apparently they don’t need to read well, according to the educationalists of the public K to 12. We have an app for the low reading abilities.

School choice - yes for the students that are no longer being well served by the public education system. Yes Doug, it just might mean the majority if parents had the ability to have the education funding following their children.

No political party in Ontario will touch school choice with a barge pole.

And I guess all of them will stand on the side of the educationalists - saying NO to the bottom 50 %, the kids with disabilities and an assortment of other kids that just don’t fit the norm of the one-sized-fits-all public schools to all education services beyond the classroom because a) they don’t meet the criteria and b) they are passing.

Perhaps this will be the year, a class action suit launched by parents, suing the school boards to pay for the private tutoring costs.  If there is one business that is a sure bet no matter the location - rural or urban is tutoring. Just asked some of the teachers who can’t find a full time gig at the schools, and open up a tutoring service.

School choice is going to become an option, since all the talk up and down the political and education circles is the great need to have the students acquired the 21st century skills. Rather hard to do when well over 60 % of the students do not have a solid foundation in the 3 Rs. What is even more funnier, is having Minister Kenney visiting Germany to check out their apprenticeship program. If that becomes a go, the K to 12 education system will be undergoing a transformation, so kids will know what a hammer is as opposed to a screw driver. Nowadays, in Ontario and other places, the students pay on their own dime and enrolled in a college program called the per-apprenticeship program. You should check out the stories of the teachers instructing the students - “Most students have not been exposed to the tools of the trade in the K to 12…...........”  Worse yet, for the grade 12 graduate they are completing for seats with the adults who are being retrained. And then there is the math skills of the grade 12 graduates…......not looking good at all…......so don’t count your chickens just yet, the cows and horses have not come home to roost upon the public K to 12 education system. Nor the politicians who just might be buying the lines from the Conference Board and other economic powers such as the banks’ CEOs who want something done about the low literacy and numeracy levels of Canadians.

If the parties don’t engage, public money is not going to private schools. Very unpopular decision. Get real.