I rarely speak of my kids anywhere on the internet, but this has been really bothering me. My daughter is in the public education system. For the second time this school year, we have been asked to send in glue sticks and art supplies for class room use. Now its not that I mind doing that, but I was under the impression that these were things that our tax dollars pay for. Compare that to someone my wife knows who’s daughter is in Kindergarten in the Catholic school system. To learn about transportation, the class is going on a train ride between two stations, and then hopping on a coach bus to return. That way they learn about trains and buses. To top it all off, the field trip is entirely paid for by the school, parents do not need to fork out one penny for it.
How is it that one school system cannot even afford to buy art supplies, and the other can afford to put kids on VIA Rail?
When the public education system was founded in 1871, it was basically the protestant and the catholic systems. Protestant was the dominate because of the predominately English (British) decent of most Ontarians, but both were treated equally for funding purposes. Even in the last 20 years that I remember, the catholic system had better books, better class choices, smaller class sizes. What was to be a fair and equitable system has become a two-tiered education system.
I am not advocating that the Catholic board should lose funding, or singling them out because of religion, however I am advocating that both streams be funded equally. Fairness, something that McNutty promised, and yet all we get is a larger nose.
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