Ontario Education Staple

This is an official STAPLE (technically, it is synonymous with PLANK), the contents will be used to create the party platform. It should match the Standardized Staple Structure. Please add any extra relevant information, to the discussion page.

Content

Current Problem

Monopoly (Lack of choice)

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Education is necessary, the Ontario Libertarian Party believes that individuals need to understand economic principles, the importance of freedom and individual rights and have the knowledge to be critical of what is provided to them from "official channels".  There are few people in this province who will argue that all education needs to be paid for by every individual.  The political climate is very clear: public spending on education will be with us for quite some time to come.

Given that, the shocking lack of choice to parents is completely unnecessary, and it has worked as an impediment to the level of Quality that all this public funding could provide in education. --Gjhagenaars 01:45, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Short-Term Goals

Voucher System Defund chatholic schools

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An introduction of a voucher system. This means that (public) money follows the student. Parents will be able to pick a school (public or private) and the voucher can be used by the school to use as the necessary funding to provide a quality education.

Private schools will (likely) 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. --Gjhagenaars 01:51, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Long-Term Goals

Privatization

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The long-term "pure libertarian position" is that everyone pays for their own education.  We're a long, long, long way off from that.  I think we should ignore the long-term position and just go for what is going to be quite the uphill battle already.  Let the voucher system be the official "long-term goal".  Once we're there, we can talk about how to improve the situation further.  --Gjhagenaars 01:54, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Hard Questions

If you have a kid, you get a voucher

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1. A voucher system will kill all the public schools! Do you hate the poor? --Gjhagenaars 02:06, 12 June 2012 (EDT) [On the contrary. Evidence shows that public schools become more results focused and match the quality of the private schools. The poor (who cannot afford to pay a "top-up" for a private school) get a better education system for their children just because there is competition. The poor are better off with this system]
2. This does nothing for home schooling! Are you a real libertarian? --Gjhagenaars 02:06, 12 June 2012 (EDT) [Home schooling costs significantly less than public (or private) schooling, and the quality of home schooling is fairly high most of the time. Successful home schooling could qualify for a reduction in taxes for the parents of those who home school. This would be closer to the libertarian ideal and still make sure that children end up with an understanding of individual rights, property rights, freedoms, economic understanding, reading, writing, etc. If the voucher system is in place longer, it should be easy to reduce the taxes of those who have ever home-schooled to be free from contributing to a system they don't believe in.]
3. I still have to pay for public education funding? Are you a real libertarian? --Gjhagenaars 02:06, 12 June 2012 (EDT) [It has taken over 100 years to get to this point, we're not going to go anywhere by arguing for a return to an 18th century education system. We can improve the current situation. Once we are there, we can see how we improve the situation further.]

Policy Impacts

The Department of Education would still have a large budget, and would still dole out significant amounts of money. The way that money is handled will be significantly different. Parents end up with a lot more say in how education works, but there will be a registration of children against schools they attend (and for how long). Schools will have to compete with each other for students, and they will be free to do so.

There are several ways in which the overall budget can be calculated. As long as public funding of education is in place, it is reasonable to see an increase in costs per pupil per year (because of the wage factor and items / equipment / real estate / furniture / etc getting more expensive because of inflation). The Ontario Libertarian Party could take a simple approach of counting the number of children that attend school (right now), and how much is spent per pupil, and to take that amount as the baseline. Increase the baseline every year by the inflation rate, and let the schools figure out for themselves how they make their budgets work out.

This will (already) be difficult enough to sell, given the other parties' tendency to just throw more billions at the education problem (which doesn't work).

If we start from this position, nobody can argue that (a) people who are in the education field will end up earning less (because it's not true) and (b) quality will go down (because it's not true). --Gjhagenaars 02:16, 12 June 2012 (EDT)

Summarizing Language

TWO adjectives, ONE noun

(Eg. Better, faster, healthcare.)

ONE Catchy Slogan

Eg. Wait any longer, and you'll be waiting longer.)

ONE One-sentence quote

from a “candidate” (Eg. "My liver failed, and it took 9 years for the surgery"...)

ONE Three-sentence quote

from a “candidate”. (Eg. "I want freedom. I want choice. People don’t realize they are slaves.")

TWO Charts/Graphs/InfoGraphics

(Eg. "Healthcare spending per capita trend")

High level bullet Summary

Short-term

• ...
• ...
• ...

Long-term

• ...
• ...
• ...

ONE economic concept

(Eg. “Laffer Curve”, "Supply the demand dead-weight loss")

THREE photos

define "what", Eg. "Durham Region Hospital", "Old People smiling", “Tree”, or a specific school that was in the center of recent controversy”)

Guidance For Candidates

Writing to be used in training, and support of candidates. Not for publishing.

References

...citations are necessary

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