Most of you are writing from Alberta so I will tell you a bit about school funding in Ontario: Over 650,000 students attend fully funded Catholic schools, about one third of the total students in this province. 53,000 students attend non-funded faith-based schools, some with school boards covering several schools and thousands of Jewish students. Catholic funding was guaranteed in our 1867 Constitution until the end of grade 9; in the 1980's the Ontario government voluntarily extended Catholic funding till the end of high school which is why high schools have open enrolement while Catholic elementary schools can demand baptism certificates.
Many, not all, non-funded faith-based schools are interested in joining pre-existing school boards as is done in Alberta which has a Jewish schools under both public and Catholic boards. Most of the faith-based schools already voluntarily follow the Ontario general curriculum. John Tory, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, has promised to invite all non-funded faith-based schools to join the Catholics in our publicly funded school system so long as the curriculum is followed, teachers are qualified, and the schools participate in standardized testing. Premier McGuinty of the Liberals insists on continued funding for the Catholics, while all other faiths receive zero! (McGuinty's dad chaired a Catholic board, he and his siblings and their kids attended free Catholic school, and his wife continues to teach at a Catholic school) The NDP also support the status quo on the assumption that while all faiths pay education taxes, they need to pay tuition while subsidizing the rest of the province's kids' education. The Green Party is at least advocating fairness - in the form of abolishing Catholic funding and having "One school system for all", but have not explained if they will also cancel funding for arts-based schools, native schools, french schools, etc! After all, either we support school choice or not!
Unfortunately, this debate veers into whether or not parents should even be ALLOWED to send their kids to faith-based schools. McGuinty has been the worst of the fear-mongerers with his claims that faith-based students are segregated and hinting we will have social unrest if we fund these students. Obviously he thinks only Catholics can be trusted to run faith-based schools.
There have been Jewish faith-based schools in this country for almost 100 years. For the most part, the students study an accelerated general curriculum in half the day and spend the other half on Jewish and Hebrew studies. These kids usually graduate speaking Hebrew fairly fluently, not something you can learn in Sunday school which focuses on just reading, writing Hebrew and Holidays. My nineteen year old went to Israel for the first time this summer after two years of University and I am proud to say he was able to converse fairly well in Hebrew.
I am very interested in five Ukrainian schools here in Ontario. They are funded under 3 different Catholic boards. While not Roman Catholic, they recognize the Roman Catholic Vatican and Pope as their religious authority and managed to get full funding. The Ukrainian Language and Heritage studies are funded by the parents, Churches and government heritage grants. The type of Catholicism taught is Eastern Rite (also called Byzantine) which celebrates Xmas on Jan 6 and Easter a week late. They pray in an old slavic language. I applaud this initiative and would like to see this funding model offered to other religions as well!
If you read this far, I thank you!
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