POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

The support for total privatization is far lower than even the support for small experiments in say Charters.

Don’t believe me? Fine. I was heavily involved in the polling for the federations and other unions. Ask FI or some other deeper pockets group to do an honest poll on this.

You would be amazed how popular public education is and how unpopular privatization proposals are.

Yes, especially when union push-polling questions are worded so negatively against parental choice.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Polling is for internal use by federation only so no point in push polling, true picture required. Everybody who polls on this gets the same results The public system is the most popular thing in Canada after public health care. Basically almost all people who had a successful experience with public school and their parents, over the generations, supports the system. Endless news reports tell us we are in top 5 in the world anywhere from 2-5.

We graduate a higher % of students from post secondary than any nation on Earth by far.

This is why I say, commission your own poll on public support for public school and privatization. Get a consotium of like minded groups to split the cost.

John Tory found out that the Liberals and NDP after seeing the polling, could campaign fearlessly without compromise against his proposals which split his own constituency.

I know this is difficult for reformers to swallow but you will not get anywhere until you have a realistic understanding that the system is very popular and that privatization is very unpopular.

Naturally if you ask:

Should parents be able to send their children to a school of their choice? you will get a good result.

If you ask:

Should parents be able to take public tax dollars and redirect it to a private or religious school of their choice you will find only 15-20% support which is why you cannot find a political party to touch it with a barge pole.

Unions wouldn’t spend money on a poll about school choice if they didn’t think there was a threat to their position.  (They need to justify their existence to their members—and not to mention how members’ dues are spent)  They certainly DO manipulate the questions to get the responses they want.  Pull another leg.

Well maybe it’s time the union polled their own members.  From SQE’s study of demographics of families who choose private schooling:

“Nine percent (154) of our respondent parents held a teaching qualification, and most (71%) were currently teaching, 45 percent in publicly-funded schools.
Slightly over half (58%) of these public school teachers sent one or more of their children to a religiously-defined private school. The 2001 census estimates show four percent of parents with school-aged children employed as “teachers and professors.” This shows at least a modest tendency for professional educators to enrol their children in private schools.”

Dr. Neil Guppy’s (UBC) study of attitudes of parents in Canada toward education indicated that the lower the income of parents, the more they desired choice.

As recently as 2010, three years after the 2007 election, the TDSB did their own report on attitudes towards school choice. 

http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/Trustees/Ward_3/docs/Research Report on Factors Influencing School Choice.pdf

Interestingly, this report found (P. 18):
“However, other polls show strong public support for broader aspects of school choice, such as a
study commissioned by the National Post newspaper which asked Canadians a number of
questions about various dimensions of education. Ungerleider (2003) re-analyzed the data to
see what it revealed about the issue of choice. He found that almost three quarters of
respondents (74%) said that parents should be allowed to send their child to any school within
the public system and not just the one(s) assigned to their neighbourhood. A slight majority
(57%) also supported voucher-like arrangements that would enable parents to send their
children to any private school and have the tuition be covered by funds that government would
have otherwise given to a public school. Most Canadians also believed that the cost of sending
children to private schools should be offset by providing parents with partial (43%) or full (21%)
tax relief. Finally, most parents (70%) also liked the option of being able to send their child to a charter school, although parents living in Ontario were among those most likely to oppose
charter schools.”  [note: likely because Ont parents are not as familiar with them as western parents are]

and from the same TDSB report commenting on Dr. Guppy’s results:
“These researchers too found widespread support for the general notion of school choice among
Canadian parents. For example, 89% of parents agreed that “all parents should have the right
to choose their child’s school” and a similar percentage agreed that “parents should be able to
send their children to another school if they are dissatisfied with their current school.”
The authors noted that having the right to choose and having sufficient alternatives to choose
from was not the same thing, so they also asked parents if there was enough choice available.
About two-thirds of parents agreed with the statement “the amount of school choice available in
my district is sufficient,” although this finding varied significantly across regions of the country.
Compared to parents with children in higher income neighbourhood schools, parents with
children in lower income neighbourhood schools were more likely to feel that more choice
should be available. The findings clearly demonstrated that choice matters to parents, with the
majority of parents disagreeing, 45% strongly, with the statement that “school choice matters
little because all schools are pretty much the same.”

Its rather amusing of Doug, to pushed the anti-choice and tax dollars not being in the hands of parents, considering all the graft, corruption and abuse of taxpayer monies in the public sector across Canada and right in the heart of our national capital, Ottawa.

Doug ought to go on the web, and see what is being torn asunder and heavily criticized are indeed the push polls. Why? Its all the governments appears to be doing, governing by push polls, and likewise the public education system, who uses push polls to manipulate the students/parents into selling their soul to work for the best interests of the education stakeholders.

Its the very structure of the public education system, that only works for the best interests of the stakeholders of the public system, and never the students. Its why in every grade across the K to 12, close to 50 % are below grade level, because its how the public education system grows into a monolith bureaucracy that no longer educates children, In the Toronto Star, an article in the life of a supply teacher in Ontario.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/06/09/life_as_a_supply_teacher_in_demand_but_on_edge.html

Why are supply teachers in demand in Ontario - “Such assignment calls have been increasing alarmingly across Ontario recently as some permanent teachers rush to use up their allotted sick days — days they were once allowed to bank until retirement loomed — before the school year ends.”

LOL or just shake your head why all the fuss about sick days earlier in 2012 and teachers’ unions raging war about their lost sick days.

Below a comment from a parent that said it perfectly - “Normally I would not fuel the anti-teacher sentiments, as I have many teachers in my family. They are good people, hard-working people, who are good to their families and contribute to their communities. However, just last week I attended my daughter’s JK orientation. Out of 4 presentations made by the kindergarten teachers, only 1 discussed what the children would learn and how that knowledge would be communicated. The other three only made sure that the parents knew they would not zip up the children’s jackets, help them put on or take off their boots, open their food containers during lunch hour, help them pack their school bags, etc. 2 hours of hearing what the teachers would not do…nothing about what they actually do. I wouldn’t last long in my job if I took up the same rhetoric. I don’t know how you change this attitude, perhaps that’s just the union influence. Time for education vouchers. Next party to campaign on that premise will get my vote.”

Neither do I, but one suggestion for teachers is to change the list to the things that they can that meets the approval of their union and school board.

Will not zipped winter coats, button up coats, tie shoelaces, putting on or taking off boots, and a list of what the teachers won’t do in a two hour meet and greet is enough to turned any parent running for the nearest exit screaming for choice.

So yes, the public education system is all about having the students and parents to work according to the desires and needs of the employees. It has nothing to do with the education of children, and its why at the meet and greet meetings of various hues, what is never discussed are the education standards and expectations in learning.

And like the health system, that has been nickle and diming patients, where in the past month charging a $800 bill for TV and in another province, charging $25 a month for wheelchairs in old aged homes, the public education system has also been charging an assortment of fees. From transportation fees to athletic fees to extracurricular fees to the hidden fees of having parents pay for things that the school district no longer wants to provides. Private educational assessments and tutoring for the basics that the public education system no longer wants to supply.

Perhaps government should get out of education, but perhaps what should be paid attention to, what are the education services that the public education system are no longer willing to provide?  If as the public education system in Canada claims they are the best, why are they afraid of competition from the private sector?

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

All choice WITHIN the public school system is not privatization, it counts on my side. The more choice WITHIN the public system, the even lower the desire for privatization.

In short, every new alternative school within the public system means that privatization is LESS likely not MORE likely.

Is it controlled by a school board? Does it use union teachers? then I am for it and it counts on my side.

Go ask John Tory what he thinks about the PCs again trying privatization? I don’t hear Tim Hudak talking education privatization do you?

He is well aware it is suicide.

Sure it makes sense Doug, and that is if the public education system is offering choice.

But is it choice for the students and their education? More so, when the private sector has to stepped in to offered education remediation tutoring on the basics, and now assessment evaluations in the form of scholarships for students with reading difficulties.

That said, what is not being offered by the public education system are the very things the public education system are no longer willing to provide and delivered to the students.