SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Winning the battle but losing the war

A new Ipsos Reid poll finds that 58% of Canadians believe private school education is better than public school education. Even more telling, 63% of Canadians would send their children to a private school if money were not a concern.

A couple of snippets from the Global Toronto report

• Dissatisfaction with schools varies from province to province, however. People in the Prairies tend to give their schools top marks. Fifty-three per cent of people living in Saskatchewan and Manitoba would grade their schools with an “A” or a “B.” 
• Labour unrest does seem to be a significant factor affecting people’s overall perception of the school system. The lowest-graded schools are in British Columbia where 26 per cent of people gave the school system a “D” or “F”, and Ontario where 23 per cent of people gave those same low marks. 

This ought to give the Ontario and BC teachers’ unions pause, since their militancy runs the risk of driving away more parents from the public schools, accelerating the province’s enrolment decline and the associated need for teachers.