According to this CBC poll a majority of the citizens of Ontario want to end discrimination in our school systems by abolishing the Catholic school board [Ontarians want public, Catholic schools to merge: poll].
This is, of course, exactly the opposite of what the Progressive Conservative Party is proposing. They want to extend funding to all religious schools. We have just discovered that their leader, John Tory, has doubts about evolution and favors creationism [ John Tory Promotes Creationism]. With a bit of luck this will blow up in their faces and we'll be able to get rid of the parallel public and Catholic school boards. Maybe it's just the stimulus we needed. Thanks, John Tory, for being an IDiot.
[Hat Tip: Jeffrey Shallit at Recursivity (Stupid Tory Tricks: Religious Schools In Ontario Could Teach Creationism, Get Public Funds)]
5 comments :
Taking funding from the Catholic system is not politically realistic given that it serves almost 700,000 children and has the unwavering support of all three parties at Queens Park.
Even if removing established faith-based school funding were politically feasible, would it really be beneficial to take a step that would likely result in huge numbers of families making a painful decision to remove their children from publicly regulated education? Shouldn’t publicly funded education should be including more children, not excluding them? A growing array of needs and preferences, like special schools or programs for arts, sports, natives, blacks, Ukrainians and gays, are supported within publicly funded education. Why should families who insist on a faith-based element in the education of their children not be part of this inclusive trend?
Extending funding to the small excluded minorities is the only fair and politically viable way to solve the current unacceptable discrimination. It is the least impact way to fix the discrimination, and it will benefit all Ontarians by ensuring that these schools, which are already operating are brought within the publicly regulated system and will comply with the Ontario curriculum, hire accredited teachers, and be accountable publicly.
We wouldn't be taking funding from the Catholic system; we would obviously merge it with the existing public system. There's already been movement in that direction already--in most jurisdictions, the two boards share busing, for example. Also, the amount of religious instruction in Catholic schools seems to have been reduced from when I attended over a decade ago.
Basically, what's the point of a separate Catholic system? How many of the parents with children in Catholic schools are likely to send them to private Catholic schooling should the two systems merge? Not very many.
Publicly-funded education already has a place for any child. All other faiths including Catholicism are represented in public schools, and all comply with the Ontario curriculum. Parents of any faith or none can send their child to public school. Even public schools are permitted to support religious extra-curricular activities, so long as they do not interfere with school itself, so I don't see the problem here.
The issue is parents who want to send their children to a religious ghetto where they won't be "tainted" by members of other faiths. I support the right of such parents to send their children to private religious schools if they so choose, but I'm be damned if I'm going to see my tax dollars support their religious prejudices and the teaching of their divisive fairy tales. Those who want to isolate their children from the diversity of Canadian society instead of accepting that this nation is made up of diverse peoples who tolerate each other's beliefs even if they don't share them get no sympathy from me.
The disestablishement of the Catholic school system would take place in stages. The first stage would be to remove any discrimination in the hiring of teachers so that non-Roman Catholic teachers could be hired.
The second stage would be to abolish the required religion courses and make them voluntary and outside of normal school time.
The third stage would be to rename the schools. This would be accompanied by a law that opens them up to admission from any Ontario resident regardless of religious affiliation.
The fourth stage would be to merge the two school boards and eliminate any control of the Roman Catholic church over individual schools. Extra-curricular religious classes would be allowed in all schools.
We have just discovered that their leader, John Tory, has doubts about evolution and favors creationism ...
Nonsense ... we haven't discovered anything of the sort.
Tory tried to walk what he saw as an election-campaign tightrope and fell off ... badly. I believe he misjudged the height of the tightrope, and it's tough to stay on it with your foot jammed into your mouth up to the knee.
And what did he say to warrant your use of "favors"?? Nothing that I've seen.
Scott asks,
And what did he say to warrant your use of "favors"?? Nothing that I've seen.
I admit that I may have overstated the case against John Tory when I said he favors creationism. What we know is that he favors the teaching of creationism as an alternate "theory" of life's origins.
I don't know of anyone who emphasizes that evolution is only a "theory" who isn't a creationist of some sort. Do you?
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