Juno News - February 17, 2021


Parents need more choice in Canada’s education system, report says


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

169.27078

Word Count

2,712

Sentence Count

127

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:01.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:07.440 Among the most famous words in Canadian politics by now,
00:00:11.200 diversity is our strength.
00:00:13.800 Well, is that true in the education system across the country,
00:00:17.460 in the various provinces?
00:00:19.020 A new report from ARPA Canada,
00:00:21.180 the Association for Reform Political Action,
00:00:23.860 says it is and actually lays out some really important recommendations
00:00:26.800 on how we can get more diversity in education,
00:00:30.520 which ultimately is more choice for parents
00:00:32.660 and, by extension, a better array of options for students.
00:00:37.240 The report just came out.
00:00:39.040 It's called Educational Diversity,
00:00:40.820 right to the point about what it's about there.
00:00:43.040 Joining me from ARPA Canada is lawyer Andre Schutten.
00:00:46.660 Andre, good to talk to you.
00:00:47.600 Thanks for coming on today.
00:00:49.280 Well, it's so good to be on the show.
00:00:50.520 Thanks very much for having me.
00:00:51.940 Now, like I sort of alluded to earlier,
00:00:53.880 we hear lots of talk about diversity.
00:00:55.740 What is it in this context?
00:00:58.700 Yeah, diversity is very important.
00:01:01.080 I think in this country, we recognize it.
00:01:03.740 All kinds of different people come to the table
00:01:06.300 with different experiences and different ideas,
00:01:09.100 and that's usually going to be a strength for us.
00:01:12.380 The problem when it comes to education
00:01:14.220 is that when it comes to diversity,
00:01:16.480 we're not thinking broad enough.
00:01:19.120 We're not thinking about a diversity of cultures
00:01:22.600 or a diversity of institutions or of groups,
00:01:27.080 and that's where I think we need to see more diversity.
00:01:29.820 Right now, while there might be a diversity of people
00:01:35.220 within one big education system, a single system,
00:01:41.140 there's not a diversity in approaches to education
00:01:44.280 in different institutions providing education for our kids,
00:01:48.240 and not a diversity in recognizing that there's different philosophical
00:01:52.420 and pedagogical philosophies around education.
00:01:56.300 So we're just advocating for a lot more of that,
00:01:58.880 and the outcome will be best for all kids.
00:02:02.280 We have as available options right now homeschooling,
00:02:06.760 private schools.
00:02:08.200 Even so, the vast majority of students enrolled,
00:02:11.480 and the report mentions this, are in the public system.
00:02:14.080 And under the banner of the public system, Catholic schools,
00:02:17.580 charter schools, if you're in Alberta,
00:02:19.320 or the general public public school board,
00:02:22.180 and I think it's somewhere in the range of around 92%
00:02:25.020 or just shy of that, that are choosing to be
00:02:27.020 in a publicly funded school.
00:02:28.820 So they have the options.
00:02:30.580 What's not diverse about the system
00:02:32.180 if parents can choose to go into them
00:02:34.220 and are just in large numbers choosing
00:02:36.400 to go into the public stream?
00:02:38.920 Yeah, I think that number is actually pretty staggering
00:02:42.120 when we see that 92% of Canadian kids
00:02:45.920 are being educated by the state,
00:02:48.480 by the civil government.
00:02:50.560 We would start as our foundation,
00:02:52.860 our first step is to say,
00:02:54.080 well, who's actually first responsible?
00:02:56.240 Who's primarily responsible
00:02:57.540 for the education of our children?
00:02:59.340 And I say that responsibility lies on parents.
00:03:02.580 But when certain options are just off the table
00:03:07.500 because of, let's say, finances
00:03:09.280 or because they're not being promoted enough
00:03:12.120 or made available enough,
00:03:14.020 you know, that becomes a problem.
00:03:16.040 I think a lot of parents aren't even aware
00:03:18.320 that independent education,
00:03:20.580 education provided not by the state,
00:03:22.320 but by other actors,
00:03:23.680 that it's a good option,
00:03:25.780 that it's an option that should be embraced.
00:03:27.660 And certainly in some provinces,
00:03:28.960 like in Ontario,
00:03:29.860 there's certainly no financial support
00:03:35.420 for that kind of education.
00:03:37.720 And so that's going to speak volumes.
00:03:41.160 Some of the messaging around public education
00:03:45.080 is basically that a good citizen
00:03:47.600 ought to send their child to a state-run school.
00:03:50.600 And I think that kind of messaging
00:03:52.400 needs to change as well.
00:03:54.300 When I was raised,
00:03:55.980 and I was raised in Ontario
00:03:57.200 and I've lived here all of my life,
00:03:59.320 the private school was just for the really rich kids
00:04:03.180 and the really wealthy kids.
00:04:04.580 And that was the image in my mind
00:04:06.260 that the private school had.
00:04:08.340 And I've learned later on in life
00:04:10.980 that that isn't in fact the case,
00:04:12.420 that there are a lot of private religious schools,
00:04:14.440 I'd say are the most notable examples,
00:04:16.140 where people who have very just average
00:04:18.600 middle-class family incomes
00:04:20.260 find a way to scrape and scrounge
00:04:22.560 and put their kids in these private schools.
00:04:24.940 And you're right,
00:04:25.660 they have to do it really well
00:04:27.460 paying for two educations.
00:04:28.860 Their taxes are still going towards
00:04:30.320 the public school system
00:04:31.820 and then they're paying a tuition
00:04:32.980 in the private school system.
00:04:34.660 One of the recommendations in this report,
00:04:36.960 which I think is very important,
00:04:38.300 is allow education funding
00:04:39.780 according to a per capita formula
00:04:42.080 for all public school,
00:04:43.740 independent school and homeschooled students.
00:04:45.700 So am I understanding that correctly?
00:04:47.120 That if you're a parent
00:04:48.240 and you want to go to a private school,
00:04:50.280 you could take that tax money
00:04:51.700 that you're paying towards the public school
00:04:53.620 and reallocate it.
00:04:55.320 Yeah, exactly.
00:04:56.080 That would be one way of doing it.
00:04:57.660 Now, there's different ways of doing it,
00:04:59.380 but that's the basic thrust of it.
00:05:02.960 What are we interested in supporting
00:05:04.820 as provincial governments in this country?
00:05:07.180 Is it to support a system?
00:05:09.220 Is it to support one big system?
00:05:11.400 Or is it to support students?
00:05:12.800 And if it's to support students
00:05:14.440 and to empower parents
00:05:16.620 to make good decisions
00:05:17.660 for their own children,
00:05:18.760 then let the money follow the child.
00:05:21.500 Don't let the money just go to a system
00:05:23.260 and fund the system.
00:05:25.280 And so that kind of a model will,
00:05:27.900 it's going to have a couple of good effects.
00:05:29.740 One is going to increase,
00:05:31.580 I think, efficiencies
00:05:32.920 because those schools,
00:05:34.320 various schools,
00:05:35.000 will want to be able to
00:05:36.460 have your child come to their school
00:05:38.980 so that they can educate them
00:05:41.960 and develop their curriculum and so on.
00:05:44.880 So there's going to be better efficiency.
00:05:46.760 But importantly, from our perspective,
00:05:48.820 it's going to increase responsibility,
00:05:51.160 the ownership of the responsibility
00:05:52.620 and the decisions of parents.
00:05:54.460 Parents are going to be not saying,
00:05:56.240 well, civil government,
00:05:56.940 you take care of making sure
00:05:58.060 my kid gets a good education.
00:05:59.380 Rather, it's each parent is going to say,
00:06:01.200 now I'm invested.
00:06:02.820 I want to investigate
00:06:03.720 how things are going at that school
00:06:05.100 because if it's not going well at this school,
00:06:07.200 I'm going to pull my kid out
00:06:08.160 and put them in that other school
00:06:09.380 where they're learning better,
00:06:10.500 they're reading better,
00:06:11.360 they're doing better on their math scores,
00:06:13.300 they're understanding concepts
00:06:16.480 like biology and chemistry better.
00:06:18.700 There's no more bullying over here
00:06:20.480 compared to there
00:06:21.220 and that they can make
00:06:22.440 those kinds of decisions
00:06:23.280 and freely do so
00:06:24.440 without too much concern.
00:06:27.040 How solid is the evidence
00:06:28.260 on academic performance
00:06:30.000 that you just mentioned
00:06:31.320 in comparison between these
00:06:32.960 two public or private options?
00:06:35.020 And I'm including homeschooling in private.
00:06:36.860 Yeah, so across the board,
00:06:40.320 independent schooling
00:06:41.140 produces a better result for students.
00:06:44.440 Their marks are going to be higher
00:06:45.560 than students coming out
00:06:48.100 of the public system.
00:06:49.360 And we see that in other jurisdictions
00:06:50.940 and we see that in Canada itself.
00:06:53.440 In fact, and this is actually really important,
00:06:57.260 is that independent schooling
00:06:59.200 increases the performance,
00:07:01.380 particularly for marginalized students
00:07:04.900 and economically disadvantaged students.
00:07:07.560 So the people that we should be
00:07:08.840 most concerned about,
00:07:10.160 students from racialized communities,
00:07:12.480 for example,
00:07:13.080 or students that are very poor,
00:07:14.880 come from poor parts of cities
00:07:17.220 and parts of the country,
00:07:18.640 they're going to do better
00:07:19.620 when we have independent schools
00:07:21.120 in the area.
00:07:22.760 In fact, there's even studies
00:07:24.380 that show that where there's
00:07:25.840 an independent school
00:07:26.900 close by a public school,
00:07:28.840 that the public school students
00:07:30.240 will do better.
00:07:31.600 It'll actually increase
00:07:32.780 even their performance.
00:07:33.940 So you see that more
00:07:35.660 in jurisdictions like British Columbia,
00:07:38.120 for example,
00:07:38.480 that does support independent schools
00:07:40.300 a whole lot more than Ontario does.
00:07:43.460 Although these independent schools
00:07:45.140 don't quite get equal funding
00:07:47.840 compared to the public system.
00:07:49.820 I have to go back
00:07:51.040 to that 91.8% number
00:07:53.180 to get the precise figure
00:07:54.540 of people that are in the public stream
00:07:56.520 when they have theoretically
00:07:58.600 the choice to go elsewhere,
00:07:59.960 notwithstanding the cost issues
00:08:01.320 we've raised.
00:08:01.880 But I do have to ask,
00:08:03.560 is that, in your view,
00:08:05.160 just because of a lack of option
00:08:07.360 or feeling like they have
00:08:08.540 a lack of option?
00:08:09.320 Or is that expressing a preference?
00:08:11.360 Because if that many people
00:08:12.440 or even a large subset of that
00:08:14.240 are just choosing that system,
00:08:16.420 is this really just a small minority
00:08:18.760 of parents that you're trying
00:08:20.700 to advocate for a solution for
00:08:22.280 in this report?
00:08:23.960 Yeah, again, a fair question.
00:08:25.900 And I think that there certainly
00:08:28.340 are parents that do just prefer
00:08:31.360 the local school up the street,
00:08:33.320 you know, a big, large school
00:08:35.220 that's in their neighborhood.
00:08:37.580 And it can also be considerations
00:08:40.060 like, you know, the local school,
00:08:41.660 the local publicly funded school,
00:08:43.180 right, will have a lot more options
00:08:45.920 than a lot of independent schools
00:08:47.140 do, like, you know, larger gyms,
00:08:49.080 maybe swimming pools,
00:08:50.200 huge athletic facilities
00:08:52.900 and those sorts of things.
00:08:55.380 But again, that would come back down
00:08:57.260 to that question of funding
00:09:00.500 and having, you know,
00:09:01.940 the extra financial resources
00:09:03.200 to develop those programs.
00:09:04.760 If more resources like that
00:09:06.320 were made available,
00:09:07.140 I think when parents had
00:09:09.880 a fuller range of options there,
00:09:11.960 they would start making
00:09:13.080 better use of it.
00:09:14.960 But it's certainly not only
00:09:16.800 about the money.
00:09:17.880 I think that there is,
00:09:19.040 you know, there's been a culture
00:09:21.020 that has developed over the last,
00:09:22.500 you know, 30, 40 years
00:09:24.420 that that's very dependent
00:09:26.520 on the civil government
00:09:27.820 when it comes to education.
00:09:30.240 And it's going to lead to worrying
00:09:32.700 developments down the road.
00:09:35.400 I mean, this is more
00:09:36.100 at the philosophical level, Andrew,
00:09:38.040 but I think that where
00:09:40.240 we depend on the civil government
00:09:42.960 to not only fund,
00:09:45.800 not only regulate,
00:09:46.820 but even to provide,
00:09:48.040 you know, the moral
00:09:50.700 and pedagogical raising
00:09:52.340 of our children,
00:09:54.100 that that's a that's a problem
00:09:55.720 because it results in
00:09:57.320 in among other things,
00:09:58.380 it results in a lack
00:09:59.260 of responsibility
00:10:00.120 on the part of parents
00:10:01.380 towards their own children,
00:10:02.800 a lack of drive
00:10:04.120 and determination
00:10:04.900 to make make those kinds
00:10:07.360 of decisions for your own kids.
00:10:09.280 And I think that that could be
00:10:11.140 that could be a problem.
00:10:12.440 Then the other thing
00:10:13.020 I would know is that
00:10:14.100 that number is shifting slightly.
00:10:15.940 That 91.8% of people
00:10:18.620 in the public school system
00:10:20.260 is slowly but surely decreasing
00:10:23.080 because I think more and more people
00:10:24.700 are being a little upset
00:10:27.140 with how the quality of education
00:10:29.360 in public schools
00:10:30.480 and what's going on
00:10:31.220 in a lot of these mega schools
00:10:32.560 in particular.
00:10:33.220 And actually, this last year
00:10:34.820 with the whole COVID pandemic
00:10:37.340 and what's happened
00:10:38.940 with a lot of the schools,
00:10:40.680 I think that's actually provided us
00:10:42.220 an opportunity to really evaluate,
00:10:43.920 is this the best way
00:10:45.140 to do education for kids?
00:10:47.120 Is it to cram all kinds of kids
00:10:49.540 through a big 3,000 student school
00:10:54.000 and run them through that way?
00:10:57.780 Or is there better ways
00:10:59.120 to do schooling
00:11:00.180 still maybe with an institutional school,
00:11:02.680 but one that's much smaller
00:11:04.960 and it's culturally
00:11:06.380 or religiously connected
00:11:08.340 with the families that support it?
00:11:10.340 Going way back to 2007,
00:11:14.620 I remember when in Ontario,
00:11:16.020 the topic of faith-based schools
00:11:17.540 and funding faith-based schools
00:11:19.420 publicly became
00:11:20.480 a very toxic political issue.
00:11:22.700 Then PC leader, John Tory,
00:11:24.300 who had a great many other flaws,
00:11:25.500 this wasn't one of them though,
00:11:26.920 had raised this idea
00:11:28.120 and there was a massive backlash.
00:11:29.820 And I realize a lot's changed
00:11:30.940 in the last 14 years,
00:11:32.580 but a lot of people, I think,
00:11:34.620 and I say this as a Christian,
00:11:35.620 a lot of people get very,
00:11:37.460 I think, instinctively uncomfortable
00:11:40.180 with the idea of funding
00:11:42.300 faith-based schools,
00:11:43.260 irrespective of the Catholic school funding,
00:11:45.160 which people seem to find is okay
00:11:46.980 when other denominations aren't.
00:11:49.020 But the curriculum itself,
00:11:50.720 is your view that there would be
00:11:51.780 a core standardized curriculum
00:11:53.620 and then everyone would be able
00:11:55.240 to build on top of that?
00:11:56.320 Or do you think that, honestly,
00:11:57.380 we need to strip it back down
00:11:58.800 and let individual schools
00:12:00.660 or school boards develop a curriculum
00:12:02.960 in accordance with some sort
00:12:04.580 of baseline standard?
00:12:07.140 Yeah, I think those things
00:12:08.580 are definitely things
00:12:09.400 that would need to be explored
00:12:10.600 and so on.
00:12:11.280 But at base, I think the civil government
00:12:14.720 has an interest in well-educated citizens.
00:12:18.360 So, you know, if an independent school,
00:12:20.880 let's use a faith-based school,
00:12:22.580 let's say there's a faith-based school
00:12:23.820 that exists and says,
00:12:25.120 oh, we're educating kids,
00:12:26.220 but by the time these kids hit grade three,
00:12:28.400 they still can't read.
00:12:29.400 By the time they hit grade eight,
00:12:30.760 they can't do basic division
00:12:32.240 or multiplication.
00:12:33.940 Well, there's a major problem there.
00:12:35.320 And I think that school's not doing
00:12:37.960 what it's supposed to be doing.
00:12:39.300 And I think the civil government
00:12:40.340 has an interest in ensuring
00:12:43.760 some basic standards
00:12:45.020 when it comes to reading,
00:12:46.200 writing, arithmetic,
00:12:48.040 you know, history, science, civics,
00:12:50.780 and so on.
00:12:51.880 But I think it has to be relatively limited
00:12:54.660 because, you know,
00:12:55.460 how far do we want to go?
00:12:56.640 We want to have still
00:12:57.720 a diversity of options
00:12:58.860 when it comes to pedagogical styles,
00:13:01.100 like classical education
00:13:02.900 versus what we see today,
00:13:04.500 which is standard in public education
00:13:06.480 or Montessori schools,
00:13:08.560 or there's all kinds
00:13:10.120 of different approaches to education.
00:13:12.180 Let's let that diversity happen
00:13:14.040 because there's a diversity of kids.
00:13:16.480 I look at my own family
00:13:17.800 to make it a bit personal.
00:13:19.620 I have a son who's right now
00:13:20.940 thriving in a classical school,
00:13:23.720 which really focuses on the liberal arts.
00:13:26.480 And I have a daughter
00:13:27.600 who's not yet in school,
00:13:28.620 but I don't think she's actually
00:13:29.740 going to do all that well
00:13:30.600 in that kind of a school.
00:13:31.460 There might be another school
00:13:32.540 where she'll do much better in,
00:13:34.220 where she'll thrive in,
00:13:35.360 where she has gifts and talents
00:13:37.100 that will be better expressed
00:13:38.840 in a different kind of school
00:13:39.860 with a different pedagogical model.
00:13:41.880 So I think we need to be able
00:13:43.220 to accommodate that.
00:13:44.300 But frankly,
00:13:45.800 sending my kids
00:13:46.700 to two different independent schools
00:13:48.240 will break the bank.
00:13:49.540 So we've got to figure out
00:13:50.300 how to do that.
00:13:52.160 The limits that the civil government has
00:13:54.140 when it comes to the diversity
00:13:55.340 of educational options
00:13:56.540 makes it very, very difficult
00:13:58.060 for us to choose
00:13:58.720 what's best for our kids.
00:14:01.260 And that's a problem
00:14:02.980 in a diverse country like Canada.
00:14:05.240 And it sounds as though
00:14:06.000 being in Ontario like me,
00:14:07.320 you have the worst available option
00:14:09.680 available to you
00:14:10.360 when it comes to that.
00:14:11.860 Yeah, exactly.
00:14:12.960 Exactly.
00:14:13.440 And again,
00:14:14.260 when you look at the law,
00:14:17.620 and so I'm a lawyer
00:14:18.440 and I often will look
00:14:19.600 at this kind of thing
00:14:20.240 through the lens of the law.
00:14:21.640 I mean,
00:14:22.180 there's enough things
00:14:23.480 in our charter,
00:14:25.480 for example,
00:14:25.880 that would encourage
00:14:27.100 a diversity of institutions
00:14:28.320 when it comes to education.
00:14:29.460 I mean,
00:14:29.940 take section 23
00:14:32.140 of the charter,
00:14:34.380 which talks about
00:14:34.940 a multicultural society
00:14:36.760 and how all of our rights
00:14:38.380 and freedoms
00:14:38.720 have to flow
00:14:40.440 through that kind of a lens.
00:14:42.140 Well,
00:14:42.460 a great way
00:14:45.080 to enhance
00:14:45.820 our multicultural society
00:14:47.040 is by enhancing
00:14:48.300 a diverse spectrum
00:14:49.220 of educational choices.
00:14:50.380 That's section 27
00:14:52.140 of the charter,
00:14:52.780 sorry,
00:14:52.980 not section 23.
00:14:54.440 And actually,
00:14:55.180 when you look
00:14:55.500 at international law,
00:14:56.680 you see even stronger language
00:14:58.220 for independent education.
00:14:59.840 There's some really neat things
00:15:01.800 that have been passed
00:15:02.500 both at the European Parliament
00:15:03.760 and at the UN,
00:15:05.240 which speak about
00:15:05.960 how we have to respect
00:15:08.280 a child's parents'
00:15:11.100 religious and cultural identity
00:15:12.560 when it comes to issues
00:15:13.540 like education.
00:15:14.980 And I think that we can learn
00:15:16.300 from the international community
00:15:17.620 on this.
00:15:18.180 The report,
00:15:20.260 Educational Diversity,
00:15:21.740 published by
00:15:22.580 the Association for Reformed
00:15:24.080 Political Action,
00:15:25.120 ARPA Canada.
00:15:26.100 Joining me from ARPA Canada
00:15:27.620 is Andre Schutton,
00:15:28.920 General Legal Counsel
00:15:29.880 and Director of Law
00:15:31.340 and Public Policy.
00:15:32.340 Andre,
00:15:32.620 thanks so much
00:15:33.140 for coming on.
00:15:33.780 Really fascinating topic.
00:15:35.500 All right.
00:15:35.800 Thank you so much
00:15:36.380 for having me.
00:15:37.420 Thanks for listening
00:15:38.040 to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:15:39.580 Support the program
00:15:40.300 by donating to True North
00:15:41.520 at www.tnc.news.
00:15:44.680 the end of the programToRead.com
00:15:48.560 We'll see you soon.
00:15:49.260 Bye.
00:15:50.140 Before we begin
00:15:50.520 to watch
00:15:52.140 our final episode
00:15:53.160 of the Ontario
00:15:54.380 be advisors.
00:15:56.860 We'll see you soon
00:15:58.740 for more.
00:15:59.140 Bye.
00:15:59.320 Bye.
00:15:59.760 Bye.
00:16:00.380 Bye.
00:16:00.760 Bye.