--

"axeman chris" wrote in message
...

"Janet" wrote in message
...
In Ontario we had a very short lived tax credit that allowed parents
to
send
their kids to religious and/or private schools and receive gov't money
to
do
this. It took $ directly out of the public system. Thankfully our
new
provincial government got rid of that in a hurry. Public school
funding
is
in enough trouble without that sort of nonsense.

Jacqui


But one must also go on to say that here in Ontario we also have
publically
funded religious education Jacqui.... That would be our seperate school
boards ( read Catholic School Boards for our Ameri-friends)! It's
guaranteed
constitutionally under the British North American Act as well as the
Tache
Act.

Janet in Niagara Falls, a proud Mom to 3 students in the seperate board.
)

Yes, I think we are a bit unique that way :-) However, since the separate
schools are now fully funded with taxpayer money, they are under the same
sorts of obligations as the public board is. Anyone can attend whether
the
student is Catholic or not - you just have to accept the Catholic aspects
of
the curriculum. And that's fine - it's the "exclusivity" of many of the
private institutions that I find bothersome, as well as the lack of public
accountability. I also think that because the separate boards are so
large
that a great deal of plurality is maintained through the diversity of
students. There isn't the narrowness of viewpoint that some faith based
schools are prone to.

Having said that, I would still argue that we only need one public board.
Nothing against Catholics - I'm married to one! The overlap of services
between the two boards in our area (Hamilton Wentworth) is phenomenal.
For
example, there are 2 French immersion schools within walking distance of
my
house (one public, one separate), yet many areas of the city and
especially
rural areas have no access at all to this program. Bussing is another
overlap that costs lots of $. When money is such an issue in education
these days I hate to think of what is spent on dual administration,
maintenance, special education and other such services. It would at least
be nice to see some cooperation between boards over shared services (like
bussing). At any rate, that's just my point of view. My public school
teacher, Catholic husband disagrees with me and I'm sure many others do
too!
It's just nice to be able to air views on education, differing though
they
may be. It's one subject I cannot bear apathy about!

Jacqui, in Hamilton... getting ready for yet another big thunder storm.
Looks like my poor water lily is going to take another beating today.


Jacqui the whole same obligation as the public boards is only partially
true... In the seperate boards our kids have 4 extra mandatory credits
required at the highschool level, that being religion. It's also only
partially correct about anyone attending. Technically speaking either one
or both parents must be Catholic in order to direct their school taxes to
the seperate board. Catholics are also enrolled first, if there is room left
then non-Catholics are given the option. We have been in 3 schools in the
last several years that were over-flowing so non-Catholics were not
permitted to enroll.

As one involved extensively in education in this province, specifically in
the special ed. arena I can tell you something... Both Hamilton boards have
notorious reputations across this province for not working well together as
well as being rather radical at times. There are places in this province,
Niagara being on the top of the Ministry list, where our boards work well
together. Not only do have a "joint use" school here in Niagara Falls where
one side of the building is a public school and the other is a seperate
school and the 2 share a gym and library in the middle of the building. Both
our boards also share busing where they can. The seperate board also
implemented a staggered start and dismiss program several years ago so buses
are used for several schools which dramatically reduced the transportation
budget. Both our boards also are involved in a buying co-op which reduced
the overall cost of paper supplies and textbooks. The Niagara Catholic
District School Board has repeatedly been on the ministry's excellence list
for practices like these, amoung others. Because of practices like these and
fiscal restraint in the past my board is in great financial shape, so much
so that my oldest son just moved into his brand new, state of the art
highschool at March break with another new elementary school slated to open
in September, and that's just here in Niagara Falls. )

As a Mom to 2 identified students I can tell you with certainty that there
is no savings to be made in the area of special education. Kids need
services no matter which board they are in. Our experience has been that
services are much more readily available here in the seperate board. So many
of the services required by these kids are one on one services that
congregating kids in one board or one school would make no difference. It
would only be detrimental to the kids. Jacqui get on both your boards
butt's... it's time they loose their radical way of thinking and start
figuring out how to work together to make the funding formula work for them,
not against them! )

Janet In Niagara Falls, not looking forward to these forcasted storms! O

"Ka30P" wrote in message
...

Question to my sister Canuks -- I went to elementary school in Vancouver
BC in
the 60s and I remember being read Bible stories. Specifically Joesph and
his
Coat of many Colours. I didn't think much of it until I was older, in the
states and the whole religion in public institutions started to take
center
stage.
Do any of you remember religious teaching in elementary school? I attended
grades one thru three, then grades seven thru nine.


kathy :-)
A HREF="http://www.onceuponapond.com/"Once upon a pond/A

In the '70's we would be told Bible stories centred around the major
holidays like Christmas & Easter. Other than that I don't remember any
other bible stories being told. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had
though. I grew up in a small community where we were almost all white and
Christian. The most exotic we got was the lone J.W. kid who left class &
stood in the hall during the national anthem & the Lord's prayer. Once I
was in high school the only religious aspect of school was the optional
"World Religions" class, which was academically very interesting and also
full of lots of great debates on various religious teachings & morality in
general.

Jacqui

"Janet" wrote in message
...


--

"axeman chris" wrote in message
...

"Janet" wrote in message
...
In Ontario we had a very short lived tax credit that allowed parents
to
send
their kids to religious and/or private schools and receive gov't
money
to
do
this. It took $ directly out of the public system. Thankfully our
new
provincial government got rid of that in a hurry. Public school
funding
is
in enough trouble without that sort of nonsense.

Jacqui


But one must also go on to say that here in Ontario we also have
publically
funded religious education Jacqui.... That would be our seperate
school
boards ( read Catholic School Boards for our Ameri-friends)! It's
guaranteed
constitutionally under the British North American Act as well as the
Tache
Act.

Janet in Niagara Falls, a proud Mom to 3 students in the seperate
board.
)

Yes, I think we are a bit unique that way :-) However, since the
separate
schools are now fully funded with taxpayer money, they are under the
same
sorts of obligations as the public board is. Anyone can attend whether
the
student is Catholic or not - you just have to accept the Catholic
aspects
of
the curriculum. And that's fine - it's the "exclusivity" of many of
the
private institutions that I find bothersome, as well as the lack of
public
accountability. I also think that because the separate boards are so
large
that a great deal of plurality is maintained through the diversity of
students. There isn't the narrowness of viewpoint that some faith
based
schools are prone to.

Having said that, I would still argue that we only need one public
board.
Nothing against Catholics - I'm married to one! The overlap of
services
between the two boards in our area (Hamilton Wentworth) is phenomenal.
For
example, there are 2 French immersion schools within walking distance of
my
house (one public, one separate), yet many areas of the city and
especially
rural areas have no access at all to this program. Bussing is another
overlap that costs lots of $. When money is such an issue in education
these days I hate to think of what is spent on dual administration,
maintenance, special education and other such services. It would at
least
be nice to see some cooperation between boards over shared services
(like
bussing). At any rate, that's just my point of view. My public school
teacher, Catholic husband disagrees with me and I'm sure many others do
too!
It's just nice to be able to air views on education, differing though
they
may be. It's one subject I cannot bear apathy about!

Jacqui, in Hamilton... getting ready for yet another big thunder storm.
Looks like my poor water lily is going to take another beating today.


Jacqui the whole same obligation as the public boards is only
partially
true... In the seperate boards our kids have 4 extra mandatory credits
required at the highschool level, that being religion. It's also only
partially correct about anyone attending. Technically speaking either one
or both parents must be Catholic in order to direct their school taxes to
the seperate board. Catholics are also enrolled first, if there is room
left
then non-Catholics are given the option. We have been in 3 schools in the
last several years that were over-flowing so non-Catholics were not
permitted to enroll.

As one involved extensively in education in this province, specifically
in
the special ed. arena I can tell you something... Both Hamilton boards
have
notorious reputations across this province for not working well together
as
well as being rather radical at times. There are places in this province,
Niagara being on the top of the Ministry list, where our boards work well
together. Not only do have a "joint use" school here in Niagara Falls
where
one side of the building is a public school and the other is a seperate
school and the 2 share a gym and library in the middle of the building.
Both
our boards also share busing where they can. The seperate board also
implemented a staggered start and dismiss program several years ago so
buses
are used for several schools which dramatically reduced the transportation
budget. Both our boards also are involved in a buying co-op which reduced
the overall cost of paper supplies and textbooks. The Niagara Catholic
District School Board has repeatedly been on the ministry's excellence
list
for practices like these, amoung others. Because of practices like these
and
fiscal restraint in the past my board is in great financial shape, so much
so that my oldest son just moved into his brand new, state of the art
highschool at March break with another new elementary school slated to
open
in September, and that's just here in Niagara Falls. )

As a Mom to 2 identified students I can tell you with certainty that there
is no savings to be made in the area of special education. Kids need
services no matter which board they are in. Our experience has been that
services are much more readily available here in the seperate board. So
many
of the services required by these kids are one on one services that
congregating kids in one board or one school would make no difference. It
would only be detrimental to the kids. Jacqui get on both your boards
butt's... it's time they loose their radical way of thinking and start
figuring out how to work together to make the funding formula work for
them,
not against them! )

Janet In Niagara Falls, not looking forward to these forcasted storms! O

Wow! The Niagara boards should really be held up as an example to the
others. It is very heartening to hear about such cooperation. Maybe
there's hope for us Hamiltonians yet! :-)

Jacqui

This is my red button issue. Education in our country is highly dependent
on parents being part of the process and the schools are financed for the
most part on property taxes so kids who come from poor families get double
whammied. Their parents don't have the education to aid in the children's
education and the schools don't have the money to supply the materials or
teachers for a modern education. We have schools in NYC where the children
cannot take books home because they don't have them, teachers supply paper,
pencils, etc. themselves, there is no such thing as a lab or computer class.
This is one of the reasons we are developing a larger and larger gap between
the wealthy and the poor here. There is something terribly wrong when 80% of
our population has less than 16% of the wealth (40% less than 1% of the
wealth). We are the wealthiest country in the world supposedly yet we are
unable to care for our own children either with education and health care.
Deep breath.... sorry, I swore I was never going to rant in here again but
this is something everyone should feel shame for.


wrote in message
...
yup. and some of these charter schools dont have any review system so when
suddenly
they shut their door cause they gone bankrupt ... all the kids are stuffed
back into
the public system. now. what really gets me is Wisconsin PUBLIC school
system has
1/2 of all the kids score 100% on the SATs nationwide last year.. it is
the PUBLIC
schools systems that produce the most national merit scholars. but it is
mostly the
wealthier suburban public schools that get something like twice as much
money per
student as the city kids since how much each kid gets is based on property
taxes.
rural kids suffer poorer schools too. we moved into the city cause DH
wanted to work
with city kids. but these kids need more than burb kids. a lot of them
have
learning disabilities that are inherited from parents who were themselves
untreated
and under educated. or mental illnesses, drug abuse, etc. DH comes home
with real
horror stories, kids even getting killed. children cannot do well in
school when
they live in total chaos from the day they are born.
and no private or religious school gonna take kids with these kind of
problems. for
all that private/religious schools get to take the cream of the crop the
kids dont do
any better on standardized tests than the kids from public schools. all
this really
does is take money from the only system that is mandated to provide for
all kids no
matter what language they speak, how physically or mentally handicapped,
no matter
how disruptive. pfffft.
Ingrid

EROSPAM (Ka30P) wrote:
I will dip my tippy toe into this discussion, as this issue is near and
dear to
my heart and paycheck.
In our state we passed an intiative to reduce class sizes and increase
teacher
pay. The governor suspended this action as we just don't have enough
money. (We
do have money to spend millions and millions on high stakes testing,
which is
highly suspect that this is a good thing, but that is a whole 'nother
issue.)
BUT... the legislature just passed the authorization to take state funds,
that
are apparently very dear, and establish charter schools. Now another
group of
citizens has started a petition drive to put an intiative on the ballot
to
outlaw charter schools... it is two steps forward, six steps to one side,
three
steps back, bow to your partner....


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.

we are drifting into 3rd world social status but we gotta have a first class
military. Ingrid

"dkat" wrote:
This is my red button issue.
Deep breath.... sorry, I swore I was never going to rant in here again but
this is something everyone should feel shame for.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
www.drsolo.com
Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unfortunately, I receive no money, gifts, discounts or other
compensation for all the damn work I do, nor for any of the
endorsements or recommendations I make.