As a provincially appointed adviser pores over the books of the Vancouver School Board, the financial woes of boards across the province have pushed another financial issue into the limelight: whether tax dollars should support private schools.

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If they want that type of education, they should have to pay for it.”— Julianne Doctor

At its annual meeting last week, the British Columbia School Trustees Association – the umbrella group for 60 boards in the province – passed a resolution asking the Ministry of Education to redirect funding from independent schools, other than band schools, to public education.

The resolution may not get much traction in Victoria, where the provincial ministry says the more than $200-million a year that goes to private and independent schools reflects democracy and parental choice.

But the motion will resonate with many teachers and parents, including Julianne Doctor, spokeswoman for the Vancouver School Board’s District Parent Advisory Council.

“Private schools should not get public school funding,” Ms. Doctor said in an interview. “They shouldn’t get tax dollars. … If parents choose to send their children to a private school, they anticipate that it’s going to cost them money. If they want that type of education, they should have to pay for it.”

The debate over public support for private schools has percolated for years and tends to flare up when tight government budgets squeeze board budgets, Fred Herfst, executive director of the Federation of Independent Schools Associations of B.C., said yesterday.

Eliminating public funding for private schools would mean that they would be forced to boost their tuition fees, driving some students out of the programs, he said. Other costs now covered by the private system – such as for land, buildings and the portion of educational programs – would have to be borne by the public sector, he added.

“They [public schools] would not only get the money, they would also get the cost of educating those students,” Mr. Herfst said. “So the net gain for them would actually be very little.”

In B.C., Catholic schools are considered

via www.theglobeandmail.com

Most people in B.C. don’t know high numbers of children are entering school doomed to fail, a new poll says.

But once people are aware of the problem, they support big government spending to fix it.

The poll — commissioned by the YWCA Vancouver and released Wednesday — was based on the findings of a study that shows 29 per cent of children in B.C. enter kindergarten “developmentally vulnerable” with low test scores in a number of important skills.

In Vancouver, the “developmentally vulnerable” figure is 37 per cent.

Experts link this vulnerability to lack of childcare spaces, and increasing time and cost pressures for dual-income parents struggling to balance work and family life.

Vulnerable children are more likely to suffer poor health, fall into crime, fail in school, and underperform in the economy, the study by U.B.C. professor Paul Kershaw, concludes.

In Kershaw’s study, commissioned by the B.C. Business Council, researchers tracked over 140,000 children in B.C. for a decade. Vulnerability figures climbed during the study period, Kershaw said.

YWCA Vancouver CEO Janet Austin said the new poll of 800 respondents from across B.C., half men and women, shows 70 per cent underestimated the number of children who are developmentally vulnerable.

But high numbers supported measures to help children and families, with 89 per cent supporting more affordable childcare spaces, and 83 per cent in favour of financial support for low income families. Almost 60 per cent supported extending parental leave to 18 months from one year.

Most surprisingly, Austin said, 60 per cent support additional government spending of $1 billion or more per year to reduce child vulnerability.

“This is a remarkable number,” Austin said. “What’s new in this poll is we’ve asked specific questions about cost.”

Kershaw’s number crunching conclusion is, if the province invests $3 billion per year in early learning and family support, child vulnerability numbers can be cut drastically, which will reduce future social costs, and drive the economy with healthier, better workers.

Vancity CEO Tamara Vrooman said business leaders are starting to buy the idea that investing in early learning is the key to future prosperity for B.C.

Vrooman, Kershaw and Austin acknowledge in the current fiscal reality it’s a tough sell to draw tax dollars to fund early learning.

But Kershaw says his investment plan is a better stimulus package for economic growth than any other in the world. And the cost of not acting is too high to contemplate, he says.

“The vast majority of the B.C. population is still in the dark about a massive social problem,” he said. “There’s already a canary in the coal mine.”

Vrooman said, “we are already taking a cost increase decision by not taking action [on child vulnerability.] We can choose to ignore it but it will increase our costs and lower productivity.”

via www.theprovince.com