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Shopping for Public Schools
As any real estate agent will tell you, a lot of parents choose their homes on the basis of how good the neighbourhood school is. Savvy parents, anyway. To make it easier for parents to figure out which schools are doing a good job, the Ontario government has set up a School Information Finder site. Until recently, the site had a shopping basket feature that made it really easy for parents to compare schools, but this feature was removed after People for Education, an organization that purports to speak for parents, objected.
Click here to watch a recent TVOParents - Your Voice debate on this topic. It is actually pretty interesting to watch Annie Kidder, spokesperson for People for Education, try to explain why she sends her own daughter to a special school but is actively working to prevent other parents from being able to do the same. In the words of Michele Landsberg (wife of Stephen Lewis) who sent two of their children to independent schools, “It was against our principles to do it, but you do not sacrifice your kid to political principles.” Presumably, she thinks it’s okay to sacrifice other people’s kids to her political principles.
On the other side, defending parents’ right to choose their children’s schools, is Claudia Hepburn, an articulate and passionate believer in school choice. Unfortunately, for some reason the moderator chose to give Claudia only about half the air time allowed to Annie Kidder, and so viewers may be somewhat frustrated by the one-sidedness of the discussion.
The TVOParents site also gives you a chance to vote on the issue of whether parents should have easy access to comparative information about polls. At press time, the poll was running 69% in favour, 31% against.