Favourite public school system?

Which of the school systems in the OP do you prefer in order of preference?

  • 1,2, and 3.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2, 1, and 3.

    Votes: 2 66.7%
  • 2, 3, and 1.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2, 1, and 3.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1, 3, and 2.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3, 1, and 2.

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • 1, 3, and 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

Machjo

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In the meantime, kids would be swishing back and forth between schools till everything settled.
Personally I like private schools and home schooling. Kids learn better. P-schools in BC teach to the lowest common denominator, so the brighter kids are bored all the time. Our kids complained about that so we pulled them and taught them at home.

This would be another advantage of a voucher system. If you home school, you could cash the voucher in yourself, and take it as your own teacher salary of sorts. You can't do that when the government just gives the money to the schools.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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In Alberta, I don't know.

But in Ontario, if they do, it's not 100%. The parents do have to pay at least a portion... if they're not Catholic. If Catholic, it's 100% covered by taxes. It's a blatant double standard.

It's the same in every province, and no, private schools do not get 100% funding, but then again, private schools can decide who they let in and who they don't. Public and the seperate Catholic Schools are not allowed to turn anyone away if there is room.

Do you think the private schools would be willing to give up that right? The right to refuse someone based on religious affiliation or IQ?
 

Machjo

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In Kloneville, we had a Catholic school on the next block over from us. Damn, those kids were well behaved, pleasant, friendly, and knew their stuff.
I have no idea if BC partially funds religious schools or what.

BC partially funds private schools (regardless of religious affiliation) based on what percentage of the pupils are BC residents. Again, a voucher system would automatically solve that problem too. international students would get no voucher to cash in, while the BC residents would.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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In Kloneville, we had a Catholic school on the next block over from us. Damn, those kids were well behaved, pleasant, friendly, and knew their stuff.
I have no idea if BC partially funds religious schools or what.


Yes they do, and all Catholics have the option of puting their kids in a Catholic school regardless of ability to pay. The arch diocese and the local parish ensure that.
 

AnnaG

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All we'd have to do is look at how Sweden went through the transition. So we have an advantage over Sweden in that we can learn from their mistakes in the process too.
That hasn't worked yet. Pols wander about the planet looking at various systems, come back and nothing changes. Campbull went to a few countries with really good healthcare systems, came back, ignored the systems he'd seen, and implemented BC's Health Authorities which was basically just adding another form of government. It stinks.
 

Machjo

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It's the same in every province, and no, private schools do not get 100% funding, but then again, private schools can decide who they let in and who they don't. Public and the seperate Catholic Schools are not allowed to turn anyone away if there is room.

Do you think the private schools would be willing to give up that right? The right to refuse someone based on religious affiliation or IQ?

No, in Ontario, we have a PUBLIC Catholic school system, 100% funded by tax dollars, but no equivalent for other religions. For any other religion, you must go private. Catholics don't need to worrry about that because they have their own public Catholic school system that other religions are not entitled to.
 

Machjo

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Yes they do, and all Catholics have the option of puting their kids in a Catholic school regardless of ability to pay. The arch diocese and the local parish ensure that.

When I'd moved to BC as an elementary school pulil, though nearly all in the school were Catholic (it was a French-medium school), the school had to be officially secular. At school, no religious instruction was allowed. Instead, I had to go to Catechism in the evenings outside of school because BC doesn't have a public Catholic school system, unlike Ontario. It's not a money thing, it's a legal thing. In Ontario, a public Catholic School board exists. In BC, all Catholic Schools are private.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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No, in Ontario, we have a PUBLIC Catholic school system, 100% funded by tax dollars, but no equivalent for other religions. For any other religion, you must go private. Catholics don't need to worrry about that because they have their own public Catholic school system that other religions are not entitled to.


The Catholic system is called a "seperate" school system, as opposed to the "public" schol system. Both Public and seperate Catholic systems are fully funded by the government and can not turn anyone away if they have room..... the "private" schools are partially funded by the government but have the ability to pick and choose who they let in. If they were to become fully government funded then would they be willing to give up that ability and allow anyone to enroll?
 

Machjo

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The Catholic system is called a "seperate" school system, as opposed to the "public" schol system. Both Public and seperate Catholic systems are fully funded by the government and can not turn anyone away if they have room..... the "private" schools are partially funded by the government but have the ability to pick and choose who they let in. If they were to become fully government funded then would they be willing to give up that ability and allow anyone to enroll?

In a voucher system, the government gives no school any money directly. Instead, it gives parents vouchers to cash in at the school of their choice, or to use for home schooling. Now of course there could be different rules as to which schools qualify to accept the vouchers. For example the government could place all kinds of requirements for a school to meet before it be allowed to accept vouchers, and then it's up to the school to decide from there. But by definition, in a voucher system, the government does not give money to the schools diretly, thus putting them all on an equal footing.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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When I'd moved to BC as an elementary school pulil, though nearly all in the school were Catholic (it was a French-medium school), the school had to be officially secular. At school, no religious instruction was allowed. Instead, I had to go to Catechism in the evenings outside of school because BC doesn't have a public Catholic school system, unlike Ontario. It's not a money thing, it's a legal thing. In Ontario, a public Catholic School board exists. In BC, all Catholic Schools are private.


No...realy?:roll: I never said otherwise.... what I said was every Catholic Family has the option of putting their kids into a Catholic School....I put my second youngest into A Catholic Elementary school in Abbotsford when I found out that our Parish would help with the yearly tuition. That's what I meant by the arch diocese and the local Parishes help anyone that can't afford the cost.
 

Machjo

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No...realy?:roll: I never said otherwise.... what I said was every Catholic Family has the option of putting their kids into a Catholic School....I put my second youngest into A Catholic Elementary school in Abbotsford when I found out that our Parish would help with the yearly tuition. That's what I meant by the arch diocese and the local Parishes help anyone that can't afford the cost.
Ah, but could it afford it on a large scale? You said it's the Catholic Church that would fund it, not taxes. In Ontario, it's taxes. To the best of my knowledge, there is no 100% tax funded Catholic system BC-wide.
 

gerryh

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Ah, but could it afford it on a large scale? You said it's the Catholic Church that would fund it, not taxes. In Ontario, it's taxes. To the best of my knowledge, there is no 100% tax funded Catholic system BC-wide.


knock knock knock....hello/.....anybody home??????


I never said there was.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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Machjo....you still haven't answered my question about private schools giving up their ability to refuse admission if they were fully publically funded.
 

Machjo

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knock knock knock....hello/.....anybody home??????


I never said there was.

So then how do you defend a privileged status in the law for one religious community but not for another?

At least in BC and Alberta and Quebec and a few other provinces, to the best of my knowledge, all religious communities are treated equally. As far as I know, Ontario is the only, or among the few, provinces that have legislated laws granting a privileged status to one religious community over others in the public school system.

Add to that that in this publicly funded school system, you have to be Catholic to teach in it! Now in a private system, that could be acceptable. But here we're talking about a publicly funded system granting one religious community a special privilege over other religious communities in government legislation itself.
 

gerryh

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So then how do you defend a privileged status in the law for one religious community but not for another?

At least in BC and Alberta and Quebec and a few other provinces, to the best of my knowledge, all religious communities are treated equally. As far as I know, Ontario is the only, or among the few, provinces that have legislated laws granting a privileged status to one religious community over others in the public school system.

Add to that that in this publicly funded school system, you have to be Catholic to teach in it! Now in a private system, that could be acceptable. But here we're talking about a publicly funded system granting one religious community a special privilege over other religious communities in government legislation itself.


as far as I know...Alberta and Ontario run the same system when it comes to Catholic seperate system and public system.....I would venture to say that Quebec is also the same.
 

Machjo

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Machjo....you still haven't answered my question about private schools giving up their ability to refuse admission if they were fully publically funded.

That would be up to the government to decide. I could see two options:

1. To qualify to accept vouchers, the school would need to accept all applicants even if they cannot afford to pay beyond the cost of the voucher. or

2. Any school could accept the vouchers.

I don't know for sure how it works in Sweden, but personally, I'd lean in favour of 1 above myself.
 

Machjo

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as far as I know...Alberta and Ontario run the same system when it comes to Catholic seperate system and public system.....I would venture to say that Quebec is also the same.

Quebec abandoned it a few years ago. Now they ahve English and French systems, both secular.

As for Alberta, I'll take your word for it. So then how do you defend that Catholics get this privilege in the law, but other religions don't?
 

Machjo

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Yes, partially, according to various criteria. However, in Ontario, we have public Catholic schools 100% funded by the government, while no parallel system exists for other religions. They must go private, and they are not100% publicly funded. If at all, I don't know, but certainly not fully. It would seem to me the only fair system is all or nothing. Either fund them all, fund none at all, or just give a voucher for it. Just a matter of principle.
 

gerryh

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Nov 21, 2004
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Quebec abandoned it a few years ago. Now they ahve English and French systems, both secular.

As for Alberta, I'll take your word for it. So then how do you defend that Catholics get this privilege in the law, but other religions don't?

because, the same as Ontario, it was a condition of joining confederation.