Thank you again for taking part in the discussion.

I agree completely that integrating some special needs students into the mainstream system is misguided, even if done with the best of intentions. Of course it depends what the special need in question is. For example, a child in a wheelchair would in most cases have no problem taking part in regular classes as long as the classroom is architecturally designed for the chair. On the other hand, children with severe behavioural problems are much more difficult to integrate. As you state, sometimes teachers are simply not trained to deal with them. Many behaviourally challenged students as well end up disrupting the class and the other children’s education and wasting everybody’s time. These students perhaps would be better off in small classes with teachers trained to deal with their needs.

Furthermore I don’t think there’s a “one size fits all” approach to deciding which special needs kids can be put in regular classes. Children with purely physical disabilities in most cases can. On the other hand those with intellectual and/or emotional handicaps are a more complicated issue. For instance, I have an adopted cousin with Down syndrome. Unlike a child with severe ADD, say, she would not necessarily disrupt a class, but I really don’t see the point in enrolling her an enriched physics class. However, she would probably benefit from being with the mainstream students in a phys-ed class; there she probably wouldn’t do any better or worse than they would.

Emilia Liz

Aside from that, I understand the presence of private schools or children with needs, as I stated before: I support egalitarian uses of school systems to aid people who show greater need. And now, as I’m noticing between 4 different school boards in ontario, the exact opposite is happening. Instead of taking these needs into account, they’re forcing them into regular classes, to teachers who aren’t trained to deal with severe behaviour issues.

However, using a system to try and get a child ahead of the game seems a little redundant. For 5,000$, for each student, a whole lot of good can be done for the public school. Then our public school system wouldn’t be in such a decline, and the need for schools used to “give children an edge” would be a non-issue. The last part is probably my two cents about the entire system. And it is manditory to pay taxes even if you are in private school, there was never any leeway in that regard.

Cheers,
Fiona

Thank you for the response. Perhaps I was not clear in my essay or the comments that followed, but if I chose to send my daughter to a private school of any kind, religious or non-religious (say, a Montessori school) I would fully accept the fact that I would not only pay for it out of my own pocket but continue to pay taxes to the public school system as well. I believe that public education benefits everybody in society, even if I never use the public schools for my own family.

That being said, I am not convinced that private school education is vastly superior to that offered by the public system. There was a study done some years ago (reported in the National Post) which found that yes, private school students did score higher than average on academic tests but this advantage was due not to the schools themselves but to the fact that private school students had parents who were in general better educated and more likely to be concerned about their children’s education.

So maybe I should clarify myself and say that not only should religious schools not be publicly funded but that parents who enrol their children in them should still pay tax to the public system.

Emilia Liz

Beyond personal choices of faith, the fact that faith schools go against every grain of a “secular Canada” we see ourselves as, I think a huge issues is inequality. I hear so many Canadians talk about equality, how equal we are, or when thing are unequal in our society. I think it should be made very clear:

Democracy in Canada has never been based on principles of equality. It has been based on principles of egalitarianism.

Even if anyone of any religion and any background can participate, it does not name it equal. Usually in the history of Canada when the cry goes up for equality it usually means a majority wishes to enforce its power over a minority, and sometimes the charge if inequality is brought up so minorities can override most universal rights (aka: Exceptions are made for THEM, but not others).

In school terms, lets talk equality, and I’ll cite France as an example. Everybody will learn the same thing at the same time of day and be treated the same way. Then what that would actually do would be to put immigrants at a great disadvantage. So in our schools there are classes, special programs, which deal with the needs of those immigrants. Technically speaking, it’s not equality because of specialization, but it is egalitarian. It’s giving the same opportunities.

So really, Emilia Liz, aside from the fact that religious schools of any kind (except things like Sunday school, paid for and run by JUST the church, not publically funded) are non-secular and as I mentioned in earlier posts, violating human rights ; the idea that you would be comfortable sending your daughter to a school knowing it was “vastly superior” to the education given at a public level, really depicts an un-egalitarian view.

Perhaps it is “equal” access, and the “equal” opportunity within the Christian (or Hindu or whatever) community, offering differing level of education is un-egalitarian. Instead of spending that money just on your daughter, as so many parents do, wouldn’t that money be better spent advancing public education as a WHOLE, and then letting the parents teach faith on their own time? It would clearly benefit your daughter to have better public education, but many other students too.

Just a thought, I’d like to hear what people have to say.