Tuesday, July 15, 2014

How Much The Killing Of Public Education Saving Us...Straight From Finance Minister's Mouth.



That is all.

Well, except this...

On the Snooklandian luv-affair with private school education from Bill Tieleman:

...The BCTF calculates funding jumped 45.6% for private schools since 2005, while public school funding rose only 16.9%.

What’s the big selling point for private schools, besides no labour disputes?

Ironically, it’s smaller class sizes and simpler class composition – the two big issues BCTF members are on picket lines to improve, beyond their wages.

Public schools have to take all students and deal with multiple challenges, from special needs kids to English-as-a-second-language students to dwindling resources — all while managing large classes.

Private schools avoid all those problems by picking and choosing who can attend, then charging tuition...


Nuff said?



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OK...One more thing to say, actually....Which is how much private schools are costing us to not have them accept 'undesirables', etc.


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7 comments:

Karli said...

Sadly Tieleman is mistaken on several points.
He quotes statistics without giving us the underlying numbers - always done to obfuscate the issue.
"45.6% jump... since 2005" since funding is based on student numbers this indicates a 46.5% increase in students as parents bail out of the public system.
An independent school only receives 50% of the student fee from the government. Parents pay for the other 50% and also pay for the buildings and equipment.
Bringing all those kids into the public school would only increase class sizes, overload the schools and break the public system irreparably.

Don't know what independent schools he refers to when he says "Private schools avoid all these issues.."
I am personally familiar with several independent schools having a significant special needs program and who also welcome ESL kids. The independent schools have a commitment to education not astronomical teacher and administrator salaries.
(On a side-note, where we grew up in Manitoba, we had many immigrant children and NO ESL programs. The kids learned English much quicker and by grade 2 were fluent in reading, writing and speaking. No coddling)

Anonymous said...

t

Anonymous said...

I would say the PABsters are out in full patrol. Tieleman nailed it.

As always, love your blog and read it every day (usually twice a day!)

-otr

RossK said...

Karli--

No coddling?

I'm sure that never happens in private schools

(and/or intensive tutoring either)

______

Thanks otr.

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North Van's Grumps said...

de Jong's accounting number seems to be one-sided. Has he forgotten about the other side, the one whereby those same teachers pension funds are managed by the BC Investment Management Corporation, which is used by de Jong to run his pet-voter-getting-projects around the province.

In the old days, it was a way for the government to pump money into economically depressed small towns with one employer...

KArli said...

Ross
No coddling. In a public school.
That's the only comment?
U didn't address the substance of my response?

Ted said...

Okay Karli,

He quotes statistics without giving us the underlying numbers - always done to obfuscate the issue.
"45.6% jump... since 2005" since funding is based on student numbers this indicates a 46.5% increase in students as parents bail out of the public system.


In 2005 private schools had 64,406 students enrolled in them

In 2013 private schools had 74,051 students enrolled in them.

That is a 14.9% increase in student population. Yet somehow the money going to these entities increased by 45.6%. That seems to indicate there is an increase in funding to private schools that exceeds the student population growth.

Bringing all those kids into the public school would only increase class sizes, overload the schools and break the public system irreparably.

How? You add 74,051 students to the system the government has no choice but to provide the funding those students and districts would have to hire teachers to teach those students.

In 1998-99 the public school system had 614,458 students in it, almost exactly what the 2012-13 total enrolment is. You are simply wrong when you say that the public system couldn't handle an influx of students from private schools.