Education Plank 2013

This page needed to be archived, likely because work was completed offline. The archived pages may or may not have had their pages renamed (moved).

Archived Versions Ontario Education Staple (With Input from June 2012 Caucus Meeting)

Archived On: 11/4/2012 (after the October 2012 AGM) by Jeffrey McLarty

This page is LOCKED. Input from members is welcome on the discussion tab. (Upper Left)

Current Problem

The language below is currently proposed as official. It is an attempt at using most of the notes below, and matching the writing style of the rest of the document and ofther staples.

In today's economy, great education is critical. However, the past liberal and conservative governments have created a system where teachers cannot innovate; politicians are deciding more about education than parents. Today's Ontario Ministry of Education is producing poor results at unsustainable costs to you and your children.

The Current Problem statement should be 3 or 4 sentences. The first sentence should be a positive statment which is impossible to argue on it's own. Followed by "However, the liberal and conservative government have...", and then only use "the current system" once - max. Try to use the global "You" at least once.

author: Your Wiki/Real Name

Short-Term Goals

The language below is currently proposed as official. It is an attempt at using most of the notes below, and matching the writing style of the rest of the document and ofther staples.

More Choice Home Schooling Tax Breaks Directed-Tax Choice for All Public Schools Parents Choose School & Tax Dollars Follow : Improvements abound Treat Public Schools similar to Separate Catholic Schools Privatize Religious Public Schools Give them freedom : Teach who and what they want, without public funds No more special treatment for a single religion Reduce financial burden & risk for Ontario

The Short Term Goals should be 2 to 4, incremental, implementaiton, achievable goals. With 1 to 2 sentences describing each.

author: Your Wiki/Real Name

Long-Term Goals

The language below is currently proposed as official. It is an attempt at using most of the notes below, and matching the writing style of the rest of the document and ofther staples.

More Quality Long Term Focus: More Quality Privatize All Public Schools Give them freedom : Options, innovation, salaries & schedules. Eliminate Interference Legalize information transfer : Do not dictate curriculum, testing methods, technologies.

The Long Term Goals should be 2 to 4, principle based goals. With 1 to 2 sentences describing each.

author: Your Wiki/Real Name

Facts

The cost to send a child to public school for a year is up 79% since 2003.

In 2003, the provincial average for total spent per student was $7,790. In 2011 it was $13,996, per student. The number of teachers employed in Ontario, climbed 4.5%, between 2003 and 2006. From 122K to 127.5K. The data series stopped being tracked after 2006. - Society for Quality Education, accessed Oct 2012

School boards in Ontario had racked up $3.2B in long term debt by 2003. By 2011, long term debt stood at $7.8B.

Short term debt also more than doubled. This is unsustainable. - Society for Quality Education, accessed Oct 2012

In 2004, school boards reported fundraising initiatives of $183M. By 2011, it was $589M.

The 2004, is likely understated, because school boards were newly reporting these figures. But still. Are these school boards running schools? Or are they running charities? Something is broken. - Society for Quality Education, accessed Oct 2012

Talking Points

We think parents should have the right to choose what schools their children attend WITHOUT having to pay twice, now parents pay taxes and if they send their children to a non-government (private) school they have to pay for that in addition to their taxes – twice.

Private schools may or may not have higher fees, so that parents will need to spend more money to get their children into an expensive private school. However, in locations where (non exclusive) private schools were introduced who didn't require a parental "top-up", some interesting things have happened.

1. Private schools got incentives to prove that they were INDEED better than public schools.
2. Public schools got incentives to prove that they were able to provide a quality education that was INDEED as good as (if not better) than a local private school.

This has happened in New Zealand. Standard testing showed that public schools took only 18 months to match the test results of private schools. Something that had not happened in the decades before the voucher system was introduced. Why not direct the parent’s tax money to the school of their choice like the parents at Catholic Separate Schools already do?

Guidance

• Don’t say ‘Voucher’ System : Sounds American
• Stay away from predicting what directed-tax choices would do : ‘May or may not’ be higher priced, ‘May or may not’ be higher quality. This is the point – the system will build what parents think is best for their children.
• Limitless Potential - Students will be able to push the upper bound of their own abilities, rather than hit a ceiling associated with available resources.
• Infinite Options - Parents will be able to choose from a menu of options to suit their priorities and preferences for what they believe is best for their children.
• Responsive Education - The supply and demand associated with skills the economy needs will become more flexible and competitive internationally.
• Innovative Classrooms - New methods of teach will be explored leveraging new technology as soon as possible.
• Sustainable Costs - The operators of schools will need to compete for business, which will keep costs low for parents.
• If you get into a discussion that gets heated or if you don’t know enough about the topic:
  • Stop after the other person finishes talking.
  • “I think I might be communicating poorly” (even if you aren’t)
  • “I’m not an expert, on this particular topic – but neither are most other politicians. Politicians shouldn’t be making these decisions. Parents/Consumers/Individuals should be.”