Ontario Greens - keep fighting for the truth!

Last fall I was alarmed to read newspaper articles infering the GPO was backing off their one school system platform.  I have since be reassured by Mike Schreiner and Darcy Higgins, the policy coordinator, that they are definitely still advocating for one school system.  I've been  happy to see the media keep pushing for clarity on the issue- because Mike is not giving clear enough messaging.  I think he'll become more clear and concise as he has to keep responding the direct questions.  He need to simplify to these points;

The GPO will form one school system comprised of English and French Public school Boards

As required by the Education Act and the Ontario Human Rights Code, no publicly funded schools will discriminate on the basis any protected human rights, including religion.

All schools will accomodate all students's and employee's religious requirements in a manner that respects the equity rights of the student or staff.

Publicly funded schools may provide optional non-sectarian education about religion. These programs must be optional  as students and their parents have the primarly responsibility for guiding their own  faith development

Faith based studies and practices will be permitted outside of regular school hours, and will not be publicly funded.

Public education funding will be directed towards programs and services that enable all our diverse students toreach their individual potential. 

from policy memo 119, June 2009, re; equity and inclusion:

School board policies on religious accommodation must be in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the requirements stated in Policy/Program Memoranda No. 108, “Opening or Closing Exercises in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools”, and  No. 112, “Education About Religion in the Public Elementary and Secondary Schools”. As part of their new or revised equity and inclusive education policy and implementation plan, boards will include a religious accommodation guideline in keeping with theOntario Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of creed (includes religion) and imposes a duty to accommodate. Accordingly, boards are expected to take appropriate steps to provide religious accommodation for students and staff.

The intro. to this policy identifies that catholic boards can continue to discriminate as per section 93 of the constitution act.  This is the section that NFLD and Quebec amended, in bilateral agreements with the feds, in the 90's to end their inequitable public funding of denominational schools.  The ontario legislature must do the same and maybe if we become poor enough- $25 billion deficit!!!- our elected representatives will follow the wishes of most citizens and do so.  It'd got to be embarrasssing for them to take heat for cuts to health and social services while they fund exclusive education for catholics

Michael wrote: "The relevant issue, it seems to me, is whether the duty to accommodate extends to facilitating religious worship / indoctrination in public schools in cooperation with various faith groups (which I understand the GPO is proposing)."

I took a look at some of the government policy documents, and it isn't clear to me that the duty to accommodate is intended to facilitate religious worship in public schools.

PPM 119 says:

5. Religious accommodation School board policies on religious accommodation must be in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the requirements stated in Policy/Program Memoranda No. 108, “Opening or Closing Exercises in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools”, and  No. 112, “Education About Religion in the Public Elementary and Secondary Schools”**. As part of their new or revised equity and inclusive education policy and implementation plan, boards will include a religious accommodation guideline in keeping with the Ontario Human Rights Code, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of creed (includes religion) and imposes a duty to accommodate.Footnote 11 Accordingly, boards are expected to take appropriate steps to provide religious accommodation for students and staff.

Footnote 11 refers to this OHRC document talks about accommodating religious dress / symbols and break policies: Policy on creed and the accommodation of religious observances. However, the section on "break policies" is directed at employers/employees, rather than students in public schools. Some clarification is required here, because from what I've been able to find so far the legal cases have come down against allowing indoctrination in public schools. (see next post)

**EDIT: PPM112 was revoked as of 9th of September 2009.

Hi Michael,

It makes complete sense to me, based on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that public schools need to accomodate the religion based needs of all students.  And that schools cannot require any student take part in any religious class or program.  My understanding  of the GPO policy is  it aligns with these two statements.  That said I haven't read any 'new' policy, and what I've heard is kinda tangled- wanting to please everyone and leaving concrete facts lacking.  A Muslim OSS buddy told me how happy she is with her kids school offerring fun programs away from the cafeteria during Ramadan- this is the kind of respectful and inclusive programming that the GPO ought to be promoting, and it is very reflective of the new Equity and Inclusion Ministry of Ed. policy.  Why do you believe that the GPO is actually promoting school led devotions?  I read it as accomodation, not delivery.

Yes, Michael, Quebec does require schools to include their cultures/ world religions curriculum.  I know this includes all schools that receive full or partial public funding.   I'm not sure about accredited schools that are entirely privately funded and I'm not sure if parents or students of age can opt out.  I'll look it up.  It's Quebec's answer to fostering diversity and equity but it's a mess.  Violates both Charter rights  and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child- Canada is a signatore to that document.  To paraphrase -children have the right to choose their own faith/ belief and parents are guides  for young children.  Many Quebec schools and parents strongly object to the 'cultures' course- knowing they only have so many impressionably years to brand their chosen  creed onto their children.

James, to my knowledge the GPO is still committed to ending the separate schools system- they prefer to call it 'merging' but the fact is it's one system that accomodates all students, and the only way to provide that is to make it a secular system.  Secular means not faith based, and it requires accomodation of all our diverse students and their various ways of belief.

Wikipedia- the ultimate source- haha- says the 'ethics and religious cultures' course is compulsory in Quebec  for all schools, private and public, and for all students at every grade level.  First required in the 08-09 year, it is currently challenged by 2 court cases.  Also, most Quebec parents oppose it.  In Ontario we would be crazy to make any religions course compulsory for students but we could require it be in the curriculum- like social studies- with an opt out and alternative programming available for all.

Micheal, I am not a lawyer.  I'm a nurse.  I coordinate a local chapter of Education Equality in Ontario, and I'm a founding member of the One School System Network.  My other work centres on developing and providing community programs and supports for families.  My opinion is the CRC strives to protect children with a bias towards parental guidance apart from state interference.  I understand that legally this is complex.  Maybe a mandatory non-sectarian course could legally survive a Charter challenge, but it shouldn't. Unless you can prove that parents are harming or neglecting their children by refusing to let them participate in a school course about religion the charter says the state should keep out  (to paraphrase)

Just read the new GPO platform for Eastern Ontario and it doesn't even mention merging the public and separate systems.  I don't understand why Mike is afraid of promoting this platform that will strenghten education, is fiscally conservative, and is pro- equality.

Michael,

My mistake, too lazy to proofread-  I used the word charter when I was referring to the Convention on the Rights of the Child(CRC).  I interpret Section 14 to mean that if a parent does not want their child to participate in a school religion class the parent's position will be uphead.  And I agree with this, too.  I'm not religious but I have great respect for other ways of belief and they have a point when they complain that a compative religions course undermines their own faith teaching to their child.  Why would GPO ask for trouble like this?  Elective classes are fine. 

Polls show consistantly that Ontarians prefer one school system, and everyone got an education about how easily that can be achieved in the 2007 election.  Prior to that the myth that the Catholic system is written in stone in the constitution and can never be changed was widely believed.  The GPO can truly influence public policy on this by continuing to state that they would form one system.  It's not a polarizing issue if you stick with the simple premise of forming one system.  The other stuff, like maybe partly funding other schools, or offering religion classes is not part of that simple position.  I think any funding to any private school would be political suicide right now- $25 billion deficit, but saving money by forming one system, and directing those savings to educational programming and supports is a very appealling position.  Mike should proudly focus on the positives.  Even catholic parents, when asked way back in 1996, were evenly split on prefering  a consolidated system.  It's only polarizing if you don't promote the positives.  By all means be open to allowing faith programming in public schools outside of regular school hours and open to all who chose to participate- but don't pay for it and don't force it.

Paula wrote: "By all means be open to allowing faith programming in public schools outside of regular school hours and open to all who chose to participate- but don't pay for it and don't force it."

In my view, this isn't the role of the state. The state should not facilitate religious indoctrination by allowing groups to use state property and resources for this purpose. I don't think it is right ethically, and I suspect it isn't right legally - but what a tricky question - Charter, Human Rights Code, UNCRC, children's rights vs parental rights, private rights vs public rights / state obligations. Yikes! I really think the state should stay out of it. Religious indoctrination is for parents / guardians to do on their own time and with their own resources. If parents / guardians want the state to assist with that, then can they complain if the state decides down the road to address the extent of parental rights to indoctrinate their children? What a can of worms.

I wonder if any of the advocates for 1-school system have ever had their child in a school that was totally dysfunctional. A school board that was inept, consumed by their own complacent self-serving bureaucracy. Completely adverse to taking any actions whatsoever. We saved our daughter's life by moving her to the Catholic system where there was in fact a semblance of standards, responsibility and effective discipline. (We are not Catholic.)

While there is no logical justification to have a publicly-funded alternate school system based on one religion, it is also true that there is no example of a government-run 'monopoly' which does not eventually sink down to the lowest common denominator; oblivious and contemptuous of the public it is supposed to serve. 

Without competition, the individual has no recourse. We need more than one bank, one airline, and as non-ideal as it may appear on paper, more than one school system. Not ideally based on a 'religion', but if not, based on a set of moral standards with respect and real consequences for actions. 

Competition is not inefficient, it is good for everyone, it brings out our best, not worst side.

In some English-style private schools, students are not ranked; in fact, marks are a private matter between the school the student and his or her parents - which is the way it should be. 

Perhaps having teachers competitively 'forced-ranked' like industry is extreme. But there needs to be some way of weeding-out people who are ill-suited or simply don't possess the skill-set to be a teacher. Teacher's college doesn't do it. There needs to be a probationary period where the teacher is 'evaluated'. I know that scares a lot of teachers. My wife is one, and many of my relatives - but you know what? That's the reality of 'life'. New hires in every company are being evaluated and there is always a very small percentage that just don't fit. School is about children learning, not about providing a safe life-time job for each and everyone who thinks, "I'll be a teacher". And if you are sincere and make the effort; prepare, demonstrate, engage the class, that will be recognized. 

A would-be teacher who can't control a class, who can't create the learning environment, who can't clear the hall, who doesn't 'prepare' but 'wings-it', who can't explain the simplest concept without confusing everyone (we've all had profs who were brilliant but couldn't teach their way out of a paper bag), or who thinks they are there for an easy safe ride need to be directed to another profession. Teaching is a very difficult, draining and mostly thankless job. Its the best for everyone all the way around.

I have never suggested ranking schools on test scores. We both pointed out that you can tell a good school when you walk into one.

The fact there are too many graduate teachers in Ontario and very few jobs does not necessarily mean they are being hired on the basis of performance. Up to now its been done strictly on 'senority'. You get in line and wait your turn. How many teachers have been told they are not suited for the job? How many teachers on 'probation' have ever been turned down? None to my knowledge.

I've taught myself, so has my wife and we've had kids in schools. Where the odd teacher is completely unqualified to teach a subject; and we've had to correct the 'teachers' work at home - - every day.  Or others who developed mental problems which caused them to be verbally and physically abusive to children - they were transferred to other schools instead of suspended.  Its a union-mentality which needs to change.  

The vast majority of teachers are dedicated and work hard. Its not fair to them that there is not a selection process based on a quality, not position in line.

Ontario schools are quite good.  The Fraser Institute released their 2010 Report Card today and highlighted this info.. "Among the 57 countries and 10 Canadian provinces that participated in the 2006 PISA international testing, Ontario ranked 5th in overall science results; 5th in reading; and 10th in mathematics".

The problem of the fully funded separate system for Catholics must be considered separately from the question of whether more funded school choice would be beneficial either fiscally or educationally.  It certainly would not be beneficial environmentally.  I'm a fan of alternative programs being offerred in real public schools.  There is no benefit to separating students into their own boxes, but there sometimes is a benefit to offerring unique programs to better serve unique students (ie, arts, sports, interests, aptitudes). 

The Catholic system legally discriminates on the basis of religion in  enrollment and employment and content.  The Ontario goverment is the body that can change this- with or without a constitutional amendment. Most of we 'one school system' supporters limit our advocacy to elimination of the fully funded discriminatory separate system.  Other questions- like partial funding for homeschoolers- deserve consideration of their merits apart from the province wide fully funded catholic model that few support.

I've agreed several times that alternatives should not be based on religion, and that the present system is discriminatory, as you have illustrated extremely well by your examples.

At one time the Catholic system was self-funding. As his last act before leaving politics, Bill Davis extended public funding. (I believe taxpayers now indicate where their school taxes should go?) 

So if you 'merge' the two systems, who owns what assets? Much of the land and the older buildings were self-financed. And I don't know if the system still receives additional money from the Church.  As usual, the devil is in the details.

It may make more sense to enact a law that prohibits restricting students and hiring on the basis of religious persuasion when any school or school system is funded either wholly or partially by taxation.  i.e. opening it up completely.

The other thing we often forget is; the government doesn't have any money of its own nor fund anything - the taxpayers do. So if taxpayers indicate their taxes should go to a particular system, and it doesn't, that's a problem also.

Again, I'm not trying to indirectly support a system based on one religion which is without any doubt, discriminatory, I'm suggesting some practical considerations that might actually be do-able.

If funding is actually based on student enrollment, then parents are still directing their taxes by choosing which school they send their child to. Nobody is being short-changed monetarily. Recall its the taxpayers’ money, not the government’s. The problem is that non-Catholics with elementary students have no choice now.

If you end discrimination, then the total system could begin to become self-adjusting. Some schools would fill up and the overflow would have to go to other schools. It would be obvious which areas need more classrooms and which don’t.

Paying for busing could be integrated by some arrangement. Simply pro-rated on how many students are dropped off at each school. Scheduling would need to be worked out, but that’s not rocket science.

I don’t know whether in the past Catholics paid double; for public schools indirectly in our many taxes and also private funding their Catholic schools, or not.  But I don’t think whose ancestors paid for what is going to be terribly relevant today.

However, land assets are not as you would wish, incidental to this. Buildings depreciate, but land appreciates and is extremely valuable. Is the Catholic Church simply going to handover all their land? Some schools are connected to churches. Beyond the complicated ethical arguments, how realistic is this.

Change is best accepted in small steps. Getting rid of discrimination at all levels would be a first step as it is the major grievance. Then integration of services.

Incidentally, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe currently, each district school board in the public system purchases all their own materials separately; books, computers, etc. Even though the curriculum is identical. Rather than the Province putting out one large tender and hard-ball negotiating for super prices, service, and conditions. (A buying group that large should have tremendous leverage, if there is the business acumen to exploit it.) If true, perhaps integration and cost-savings could start there. 

When you follow along with John Northey you quickly get to the "Why would we have 2 systems if they're both doing the same thing, serving the same students, employing people with the same qualfications?" question.   People like David Barclay try to make the case that competition improves outcomes.  Many people who want the public to fund their special interest schools tout that line.  Superficially, the evidence supports them, but it falls apart when you add controls to equalize the student populations.  The Ontario Auditor General addressed this problem in this year's report.  It clearly identifies the problem and succinctly phrases it.” Students with special needs or those for whom English is a second language can be exempted from writing EQAO tests. However, exempt students are included in public reporting of overall EQAO scores as having failed to meet the provincial standard. This lowers the overall scores of schools with high numbers of exempt students in comparison to otherwise similar schools with significantly fewer exempt students. Most teachers and principals we interviewed said that this practice could significantly distort reported EQAO results.”  Another contributer to a conservative blog, Crux of the Matter, examined the EQAO results of 2 coterminus catholic and public board pairings and found that the catholic advantage disappeared when you exclude all the '0''s for the 'did not complete' students.  Finland is another interesting example.  Disclaimer- I've never been to Finland- this is just from readings.  Finnish students consistantly perform at the top of international academic tests.  Their system has teachers with Masters degrees as basic qualifications, much latitude in how teachers may teach the curriculum and latitude in the curriculum.  The professional teachers can actually use their skills and knowledge.  There is no standardized testing to compare and rank schools.  Private schools are rare as the system does not make private school operations appealling.  A private school may be awarded funding by the state, as determined by local representatives,  BUT they must accept all applying students (no discrimination), they must offer all the learning and social supports that the public system offers ( this includes lunch), and they are prohibited from charging tuition.  As there's not much opportunity to profit, the few private schools tend to be faith based- but at least they don't discriminate as they do in Ontario.  The quality of the teaching between all these schools that are open to all becomes the grounds for competition and that actually does improve outcomes.

But all this is just a distraction from the real issue which is that we're wasting taxpayer's money on a province wide separate system of education for the largest religious group in Ontario.  The separate system discriminates on the basis of religion in  employment and enrolment and content.  The separate sytem is harmful to environment in that it requires additional facilities and additional bussing.  The Catholic students are not an at- risk marginalized population who require this separate system to enable them to learn effectively.  We can have one system and provide alternative programming according to learning needs and abilities, not religious groupings.

I hear you John and I'm aware that education is provincial.  The Green feds. could  make policy to end discrimination in all public funded organizations, as there are federal human rights protections, as well as provincial, and it is Canada, not Ontario, that has been sanctioned twice by the UN for violating our UN Human rights agreement because Canada has taken no action towards reducing the discrimination in Ontario's publicly funded school systems.  The feds. really pass the buck with their refusal to push the provinces to live up to the agreements.  They could give Ontario a kick in the ass over this and that might make it easier for Ontario to act as they could do a little buck passing of their own- saying, ...we'd lie down for catholic privledge forever but the feds. are making us honour that damned UN agreeement...

David, I think we agree on alot.  The difference is you consistantly link school choice and the separate system, while I consistantly separate them.  Public boards can vote to create alternative schools and programs- there are many in Toronto, and fewer as you get into  areas with lower population density.  These boards include locally elected trustees- it's not some ministry monopoly.  The ministry sure didn't support the Africentric school, but the board voted for it and so it is.  Aside from a few Catholic Children's Aid societies, education is the only ministry that provides completely separate systems for one population sector.We don't have Catholic LHINs, we don't have Catholic Health Units.  If we moved to one system for english and one system for french, local boards could still vote to fund catholic schools (but those schools couldn't discriminate- as you repeatly state you wish). But we wouldn't be saddled with this 7 billion dollar behemoth of a province wide system for one sector.  And we wouldn't have this ridiculous situation where the only school in some small towns refuses to enrol 2/3rd of the local kids because of the 'colour' of their faith.  And we wouldn't be bussing kids all over Onario when their local school is open to all.  And we wouldn't have boards squandering taxpayers money advertising themselves to poach warm bodies from other boards in this era of declining enrolment (see yesterday's Ottawa Citizen)

The issue of somehow supporting other private schools or homeschooling exists regardless of whether or not we have a separate system for Catholics.  A strong argument could be made that we could increase alternatives, and give tax breaks for those who opt out of the public system more easily if we included the Catholics with everyone else.  They're great at lobbying for themselves- they'd be a real help to all the others who want public funding.  BUT that is a political loser while merging the boards is a political winner- witness 2007.

There are different mechanisms available to rescind denominational school rights.  the cleanest is to follow Quebec and Newfoundland and Labardor's example.  Three provinces, Québec, Newfoundland, and Manitoba, have eliminated constitutionally protected denominational schools (Québec and Newfoundland in the late 1990s and Manitoba in 1890).  The Québec and Newfoundland Governments first obtained constitutional amendments rescinding denominational school rights through the bilateral constitutional amendment mechanism specified in Section 43 of the Constition Act of 1982. Basically the legislature of Ontario votes on the amendment, and then the federal government approves it.  In NFLD it took only 4 months to complete the process.  Once the denominational rights are removed, the ministry needs to work out the details of new boundaries and property ownership.  Despite the other parties claims that this would be hugely disruptive, it would be easy with good planning.  When the number of boards was decreased it wasn't a big problem for the students.  The full day junior and senior kindergarten is taking planning but it'll happen.  Our job is to determine the end goal- a fiscally responsible and non discriminatory publicly funded system- the ministry's job is to implement it as seamlessly as possible.

"I think your focus is mainly ideological and perhaps personalize ."

Well, yeah.  In 2004, my daughter was in Grade 9 and she stopped bringing home math homework mid year.  When I asked her why, she said they only had enough math textbooks for 1/2 the classes so they had to complete all their work during class.  Same thing happened with Science in Grade 10.  You could argue that not all students need to have textbooks but the reality was that she stopped bringing home work, and on EQAO tests her school is no shining light.  I have a science degree, I highly value maths and sciences and I know that getting a good grasp of the complexities of both requires consistant diligence   I saw red and started to look for financial waste in the system.  There's lots of issues but the province wide duplicate system for Catholic people was the standout from my research.  And it's discriminatory, another aspect about which I have personal ideologies.

We're the political party, we're not the Ministry's implementation team.  Of course the change should be done in progressive steps but at this point our role is not to micromanage those indivivual steps.  Our job now is to have the vision and change the laws that permit the separate system and it's discrimination.  It would be far better to just bring the Catholics to the table to end their discriminatory ways but they will not budge, so the legislative changes are necessary.

I know you'll challenge me on that 'will not budge' statement so let me assure you now that I have reams of documents to support it.  Most recently the Catholic board in my area refused to enter into a joint bussing arrangement with the public board, even though the Minstry has ordered this province wide.  And in the 90's, even though the Catholic system had agreed to stop using  teacher's religious denomination as a consideration in employment (as part of the legislation to secure full public funding to the end of Grade 13), they reneged on the deal by going to the Supreme Court to reaffirm their legal right to discriminate.  The Supreme Court cannot do anything to make the Catholic system stop discriminating until the Ontario legislature acts to amend the Constitution.

I know this sounds anti-Catholic, but it's not.  It's pro- equailty, pro fiscal responsibility, and anti-discrimination.  It just happens to be the Catholic school system that is discriminating so they're on the hot seat, but it's really the provincial government who are accountable for allowing the discrimination to continue unchecked.  Can't blame the Catholics for looking out for themselves.

I understand that you value choice.  I agree that parents need publicly funded options when neighbourhood schools don't meet their child's needs.  I think you agree with me that the choice offerred currently is fiscally wasteful, environmently harmful, and discriminatory.  I would not support any model for increasing school choice that  continues to treat catholics differently from everyone else.  Trevor's original post was about not understanding what the Ontario greens mean anymore because they're messed up the messaging with so much other stuff.  I a big believer in the power of simple statements.  But a plan that says we will direct more money into classrooms and educational supports to meet all our students diverse needs.   We will eliminate all religious discrimination in all school boards  enrolment, employment, and content.  We form  French and English boards based on smaller geographic areas.  I could go on and on but that's how we'll lose the central message.