A recent article in the Jewish Star making its way around the blogsphere has aroused the ire and scorn of the anti-religious crowd. The article tries to make the point that secular colleges/universities are dangerous places for frum kids and that parents should think very carefully before sending their children to one because doing so means gambling with the strong possibility that said children will leave the derech:
What about kashrut? Shabbat? Sure, it might be challenging for him to deal with religious observance over the summer. But that’s what real life is about, isn’t it? But then your rabbi confronts you with a troubling statistic: 25 percent of all Orthodox attendees to the summer program drop their Orthodoxy. Despite your skepticism, the rabbi shows you the surveys and it’s true: one-quarter of all Orthodox camp participants abandon Orthodox practice.
Would you encourage your son to go? It’s my article so I can say it: I wouldn’t. After spending so much time, effort, blood, sweat, tears and money on conveying the importance of Jewish life to my children, how could I risk it all on one summer — no matter how enriching it may be?
If you haven’t realized it by now, I’m not writing about a summer program. No, I’m writing about attending secular college.
In a fascinating symposium published in a special education issue of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah’s Meorot Journal, Rabbi Todd Berman writes about preparing students to thrive in non-Orthodox environments, specifically secular colleges. His essay focuses on important ways to mitigate the effects of the pressures to abandon religious life on campus, like sending educators from high schools to visit kids on campus; helping students form critical social bonds within the Orthodox groups on campus; and offering valuable courses both in high school and in Israel to help prepare them for college life
All of these represent good ways to help our kids retain their connection to Orthodoxy on the college campus. And yet, I wonder. Rabbi Berman himself states the numbing numbers: “one-quarter of the students who come to college as Orthodox Jews…changed their denominational identity while at college.” (Avi Chai Foundation, “Particularism in the University: Realities and Opportunities for Jewish Life on Campus,” Report, Jan. 2006)
That’s right. One quarter. If twenty students graduated this past June from your local yeshiva high school and headed off to campus, five of them won’t consider themselves Orthodox in four years — after a full twelve years of intensive Orthodox education. What causes this drop off? It’s not the intellectual pressures, by and large. No, it’s the social environment.
The campus culture, while ostensibly “celebrating pluralism,” often lacks tolerance for what is seen as xenophobic tribalism. Orthodox students are sometimes made to feel odd for maintaining religious observance at the expense of partaking fully in the smorgasbord of offered cultural delicacies.
Now for a clarification. Being up in Canada, the words "university" and "college" have different meanings than they do state side. Up here, university is what Americans call university and college. These are the liberal arts schools with the big campuses, tons of degrees and professional degree programs. What we call college is what are called trade schools or technical colleges in America. I will be using the Canadian defitions so I hope no one gets too confused.
Having attended two major Canadian universities, including one world-renowned for its parties and the physical qualities of its female students, I have had a great deal of opportunity to observe and participate in university life. After thinking long and hard, it is my conclusion that university is dangerous for frum kids. However, I think it's also dangerous for almost every other kind of kid out there.
Remember that historically universities in Europe were for the children of the rich. These were the students who could afford to spend years learning the arts, English literature, basket weaving, etc. without having to worry about every getting a job because their parents were either nobility, successful merchants or landowers. They would be inheriting the family estate without a need to do anything for themselves.
In North America the democratization of university has meant that a "higher" education is available to a large number of people. No longer do only the bluebloods of society get a chance to learn Shakespeare in the original Klingon. As a result, a liberal arts education is an achievable goal for many. There's only one real problem with this. A liberal arts education is useless.
Think about it. You send your child to university. You pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, residency, food and beer fees. Three years later your child comes home (hopefully) with a baccalaureate in English or some other soft subject. Very nice. Now the next day you start asking the hard questions. Have you found a job? Tens of thousands of dollars later, what exactly are you qualified to do? Other than a politically correct, leftist attitude, what do you really have to show for the last three years? The answers, in order, are: No, nothing, a piece of paper in a frame.
Am I dismissing the importance of a liberal arts education? Not at all, although again I must ask about how thirteen years in the general school system failed to provide one. What am I pointing out is that, other than those who choose "welfare recipient" as their career path, at some point the average post-high school person must consider what they are going to do for the rest of their lives. Contemplation of one's navel, an appreciation of the finer points of abstract art and knowing the difference between a trombone and a clarinet all make one far more interesting but they do not pay the bills. This former university student is statistically likely to get married/common lawed and eventually produce 1.9 children. How exactly does he expect to pay for the expenses these life events incur? For the average graduate of a liberal arts university, the degree is of no use at all.
In fact, about the only students who benefit from university are those with higher ambitions like engineering, medical or dental school. For them university is means to an end. The degree is what gets them to their next level which is what gets them into a career. These students are in the minority in two places. The first is on campus because, like I've noted, most people are there just to be there without a clue as to what they are going to do for the rest of their lives. The other place is at the parties.
See, the big difference between the average student and the goal-directed one is what each does with their free time. I clearly remember the difference from my undergrad time. The kids who had no goals other than walking up and breathing on a daily basis were endlessly partying. The goal-directed group, of which I was an active member, were in the library studying because our marks actually mattered.
(My favourite memory of this was when I compared exam mark goals with a friend. We both had "the magic minimum", the grade on the final that would get us the mark in the course we needed. His magic minimum would get him a 61% in the course. Mine was for 90%)
Thus many of the concerned mentioned in the linked article failed to materialize for me while I was on campus. I didn't participate in campus protests, mixers or parties. I didn't have the time! And, in retrospect, I missed little. Those who partied the hardest in first year generally didn't survive the fall mid-terms and most of the rest disappeared after first year. They'll always savour those graet memories as they ask you if you want fries with your order.
What this means is simple: if you're going to invest the money and time into an undergraduate education, make sure it's leading somewhere. Otherwise you're throwing your money into a sinkhole. This is the same no matter one's level of religion.
But that's all a digression from the main point of the linked article, that the social environment is inimacal to the religious Jew:
That’s right. One quarter. If twenty students graduated this past June from your local yeshiva high school and headed off to campus, five of them won’t consider themselves Orthodox in four years — after a full twelve years of intensive Orthodox education. What causes this drop off? It’s not the intellectual pressures, by and large. No, it’s the social environment.
The campus culture, while ostensibly “celebrating pluralism,” often lacks tolerance for what is seen as xenophobic tribalism. Orthodox students are sometimes made to feel odd for maintaining religious observance at the expense of partaking fully in the smorgasbord of offered cultural delicacies.
However, both of these issues, while not insignificant, pale in comparison to the social pressures and realities of campus life. As one junior put it, “it is hard to be ‘shomer negi`ah’ when a girl sits down on your lap during orientation.” From the promiscuous parties sponsored by the university to the open support of binge drinking, to the small things like the experience of living in an openly coed dormitory, students are made to feel, as one student told me, odd for not being sexually and socially active. A former student once remarked that just as the State of Israel lowered the red line on the Kinneret Sea, pretending that the water level had not yet declined to the danger zone, so do students redraw their own red lines, or even worse, forget why they were there in the first place. It is quite difficult to describe the tsunami of social-sexual pressure crashing down on the religiously oriented student. These social pressures, and not the academic or even the cultural, are the most difficult to withstand.
I would agree that these are definite concerns. After hours life in most campuses is a cesspool of casual sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Only the most idiotic would see such a lifestyle as having any redeeming qualities but the author of the article is correct that there is tremendous social pressure to participate. No one wants to be a wet blanket, the guy who stayed in his room to study while everyone else was getting lathered up. Yes, a frum student would be under tremendous pressure to conform.
But this is where another factor comes into play. What kind of home did the student come from? Generally frum kids are raised in one of two fashions. The first kind lives in a home where everyone is "doing Jewish". The second comes from a background where "being Jewish" matters.
What's the difference? In homes where people "do" Jewish, there is a greater fear that the children would lose connection to Torah and mitzvos when off at university. After all, one tends to do whatever is normal in one's domicile. At home therefore the children did Jewish things because that's what you do at home. In residence the children might instead easily be swayed into doing hedonistic things because that's what one does in residence.
however, the homes where people "are" Jewish are in a far different position. If a child has a positive sense of his Torah observance, if he is doing what he does not simply because that's what he's always done but because his actions are a positive choice based on a proper acceptance of Ol Malchus Shamayim then the danger of university is much less.
If one has a sense of dignity, a place in the unbroken tradition from Har Sinai on down, why would such a person agree to debase themselves for a momentary thrill? If one was raised to make valid moral choices, how could the drunken screaming of literary white trash affect that? These children are far less of a dangerous position because they have a preceding commitment to any lifestyle university might want to offer them.
Perhaps this is one reason the Chareidi community is generally so afraid of university settings. Having raised their children in a spiritual ghetto, having avoided confrontation with the outside world for fear of not being able to master its challenges, their children are in no position to do so when placed in a secular environment. But where has this lead to? Poverty, dependency and a sense of futility for hundreds of thousands of their members.
Despite the futile gesticulations of the skeptics, Judaism has answers to all challenges the modern world throws at it. A proper Jewish child is one who is educated to be prepared for those challenges and how feels self-confident in their Judaism as a positive choice, not something they simply grew up with. It is in this way we should be educating our children so they can achieve their dreams without compromising on their observance.
Navonim - The Ramblings of Garnel Ironheart
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Showing posts with label Politics Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics Education. Show all posts
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Whither the North American Day School
One of the most frequent complaints one hears from religious parents (and a non-insignificant number of non-religious ones) is about the high cost of tuition for Jewish day schools.
Admittedly, Jewish day schools are, like non-Jewish ones, expensive. But the difference is that in the non-Jewish population it is usually only the upper levels with the income to support it that use the private school system. Within the Jewish community, the desire for a Jewish day school education is not affected by one's place in the economic strata. As a result, the financial burden on many Jewish families is incredible, especially the ones with many children in the system all at the same time.
Is it any wonder, then, that people are talking about how the system is starting to collapse? This article from The Jewish Week openly questions whether the current model is sustainable:
It’s time to recognize that, with the collapse of the economy, the American Jewish day school model is breaking, if not already broken.
We have to deal with a new reality, and that calls for revisiting and reassessing the sacred cows surrounding how we approach the education of our children — from pedagogical, social and financial points of view.
In future columns, I hope to deal with the range of efforts being undertaken in our community to deal with this crisis. For now, let’s focus on a few central facts:
- An American Jewish community obsessed with its survival has determined through numerous studies that the most successful means of maintaining Jewish identity and affiliation among young people is through a sustained Jewish day school education.
- The increasingly prohibitive costs of such an education, the lingering perception that day schools are primarily for the Orthodox, and the strongly held belief that the separation of church and state would be harmed if government provided tuition relief for parochial school families, has kept the issue from becoming a priority on our national agenda.
- In the traditional community, the belief that public schools and Hebrew schools are to be avoided at all costs has kept us from using our imagination and inventiveness in responding to a new, perhaps permanent, landscape of limited financial resources.
We need to think on a communal level which values and lifestyles we are willing to sacrifice and which are most important to keep.
Loyal day school families, long faced with financial hardships in meeting rising tuition costs, cannot assume that God, the schools or grandparents will provide somehow.
While I agree with most of Mr. Rosenblatt's points, I do not agree that the current model is unaffordable. First of all, the economic collapse is not expected to be prolonged. Many major economists are now predicting that the recessesion ended 2 months ago. Anyone who started investing in the stock market in March is now 30% richer. Industry is starting to recover and banks are lending again. Within a couple of years, people will be talking about the big, bad recession of 2008/9 even as they praise the good times that will "never end". Therefore, any desire to reshape the day school system based on the current economic situation is not reasonable.
But more importantly, even if this collapse were to have been prolonged, I can cynically note that I don't think it has to affect the Jewish school system in a critical way. The money is there, only it's being spent in the wrong places.
Don't believe me? How many $100 000 weddings took place in large, affluent Jewish communities last year? How many $50 000 bar mitzvos? How many "monster homes" are being built? How many fancy cars get parked in the shul parking lot on Friday afternoon? How many $2000 sheitls get sold each year?
Someone is paying out all this money. The question is: Why are they buying materialistic goods they don't actually need and not dedicating it to saving the Jewish educational system? After all, for Jews education is the number one priority when it comes to guaranteeing our future.
Perhaps what is needed isn't so much a rethink of the system but a rethink of where we place our disposable dollers.
Admittedly, Jewish day schools are, like non-Jewish ones, expensive. But the difference is that in the non-Jewish population it is usually only the upper levels with the income to support it that use the private school system. Within the Jewish community, the desire for a Jewish day school education is not affected by one's place in the economic strata. As a result, the financial burden on many Jewish families is incredible, especially the ones with many children in the system all at the same time.
Is it any wonder, then, that people are talking about how the system is starting to collapse? This article from The Jewish Week openly questions whether the current model is sustainable:
It’s time to recognize that, with the collapse of the economy, the American Jewish day school model is breaking, if not already broken.
We have to deal with a new reality, and that calls for revisiting and reassessing the sacred cows surrounding how we approach the education of our children — from pedagogical, social and financial points of view.
In future columns, I hope to deal with the range of efforts being undertaken in our community to deal with this crisis. For now, let’s focus on a few central facts:
- An American Jewish community obsessed with its survival has determined through numerous studies that the most successful means of maintaining Jewish identity and affiliation among young people is through a sustained Jewish day school education.
- The increasingly prohibitive costs of such an education, the lingering perception that day schools are primarily for the Orthodox, and the strongly held belief that the separation of church and state would be harmed if government provided tuition relief for parochial school families, has kept the issue from becoming a priority on our national agenda.
- In the traditional community, the belief that public schools and Hebrew schools are to be avoided at all costs has kept us from using our imagination and inventiveness in responding to a new, perhaps permanent, landscape of limited financial resources.
We need to think on a communal level which values and lifestyles we are willing to sacrifice and which are most important to keep.
Loyal day school families, long faced with financial hardships in meeting rising tuition costs, cannot assume that God, the schools or grandparents will provide somehow.
While I agree with most of Mr. Rosenblatt's points, I do not agree that the current model is unaffordable. First of all, the economic collapse is not expected to be prolonged. Many major economists are now predicting that the recessesion ended 2 months ago. Anyone who started investing in the stock market in March is now 30% richer. Industry is starting to recover and banks are lending again. Within a couple of years, people will be talking about the big, bad recession of 2008/9 even as they praise the good times that will "never end". Therefore, any desire to reshape the day school system based on the current economic situation is not reasonable.
But more importantly, even if this collapse were to have been prolonged, I can cynically note that I don't think it has to affect the Jewish school system in a critical way. The money is there, only it's being spent in the wrong places.
Don't believe me? How many $100 000 weddings took place in large, affluent Jewish communities last year? How many $50 000 bar mitzvos? How many "monster homes" are being built? How many fancy cars get parked in the shul parking lot on Friday afternoon? How many $2000 sheitls get sold each year?
Someone is paying out all this money. The question is: Why are they buying materialistic goods they don't actually need and not dedicating it to saving the Jewish educational system? After all, for Jews education is the number one priority when it comes to guaranteeing our future.
Perhaps what is needed isn't so much a rethink of the system but a rethink of where we place our disposable dollers.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Principled Ignorance
I've never been a big fan of Shakespeare. I realize that most of my lack of appreciation is due to ignorance of the value of classical English literature and its contribution to world society. But I still don't understand why his stuff couldn't be translated into English I can understand, without all the "fardles" and "bodkins" thrown in.
Having learned The Merchant of Venice back in grade 9 (my school project that year was a full length parody in which Shylock wins his trial and runs off with Portia at the end), I have also never understood the claim that the play is anti-Semitic.
For one thing, if ol' Bill Shakespeare hated Jews, it couldn't have been from personal knowledge of them. Jews had been expelled from England centuries before and wouldn't be allowed back in until long after his death. To him, a Jew was a character from history or literature, not a real, living person and if he thought derogatory thoughts about Judaism, it would be fair to wonder if he'd ever had the opportunity to hear positive ones.
Despite this, The Merchant of Venice in the original (anyone can twist the text on-stage for personal ideological reasons) does not come off as anti-Semitic. Shylock is a venal character, to be sure, but if one examines how he is treated by the title characters, Antonio and Bassanio, it is hard to blame him for carrying a grudge and wishing to make their lives difficult. Yes, his request for a pound of Antonio's flesh is unreasonable but when the matter comes to trial at the end of the play, one cannot help but be disgusted with the tactics used to frustrate his desire. A fake judge, a loose interpretation of what justice is when it helps Antonio and a strict interpretation of the law when it results in thwarting Shylock, all these point at something far deeper. I am not a scholar of Shakespeare's works (I can't understand what they're saying half the damn time!) but is it possible that he had developed some sympathy for this people he did not know? Was he portraying Shylock as the bullied victim who tried to get back at his tormentors only to be frustrated by them?
I thought of all this when I read this post from Cross-Currents tonight:
Some pupils at the Yesodey Hatorah girls’ high school not too far from where I live have attracted UK and international news coverage (see, for example, here, here, here and here) over their refusal to answer examination questions about Shakespeare. Apparently, the pupils declined even to write their names on the papers, in protest at Shakespeare’s ‘anti-Semitism’, despite the fact that they had not even been studying ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and that by doing so they would forfeit the entire examination. As a result, the school has fallen drastically in the performance tables (it was, quite remarkably, first in the entire country last year and is now 274th albeit out of over 3000).
The article goes on to analyze the results of the girl's decision but in my opinion, the actual issue is skirted around. For me this is not a case of whether or not the school should honour its obligation to teach matters required by the national curriculum or not, or whether children should have a right to protest material they find offensive. For me, the defining line is:
they had not even been studying The Merchant of Venice.
Uh huh. So, based on heresay or assumption, these girls took a principled stand on something they clearly know nothing about, and as a result damaged their grades and their school's reputation.
It's one thing to take an active stand on a researched position. It's quite another to decide to avoid material based on assumptions or guesses. It does not speak of principles but impetuous ignorance. Is this state of education in the Jewish system today? And when these girls go out into the real world and are confronted by jewish points of view different to their own, will they react just as dismissively?
Having learned The Merchant of Venice back in grade 9 (my school project that year was a full length parody in which Shylock wins his trial and runs off with Portia at the end), I have also never understood the claim that the play is anti-Semitic.
For one thing, if ol' Bill Shakespeare hated Jews, it couldn't have been from personal knowledge of them. Jews had been expelled from England centuries before and wouldn't be allowed back in until long after his death. To him, a Jew was a character from history or literature, not a real, living person and if he thought derogatory thoughts about Judaism, it would be fair to wonder if he'd ever had the opportunity to hear positive ones.
Despite this, The Merchant of Venice in the original (anyone can twist the text on-stage for personal ideological reasons) does not come off as anti-Semitic. Shylock is a venal character, to be sure, but if one examines how he is treated by the title characters, Antonio and Bassanio, it is hard to blame him for carrying a grudge and wishing to make their lives difficult. Yes, his request for a pound of Antonio's flesh is unreasonable but when the matter comes to trial at the end of the play, one cannot help but be disgusted with the tactics used to frustrate his desire. A fake judge, a loose interpretation of what justice is when it helps Antonio and a strict interpretation of the law when it results in thwarting Shylock, all these point at something far deeper. I am not a scholar of Shakespeare's works (I can't understand what they're saying half the damn time!) but is it possible that he had developed some sympathy for this people he did not know? Was he portraying Shylock as the bullied victim who tried to get back at his tormentors only to be frustrated by them?
I thought of all this when I read this post from Cross-Currents tonight:
Some pupils at the Yesodey Hatorah girls’ high school not too far from where I live have attracted UK and international news coverage (see, for example, here, here, here and here) over their refusal to answer examination questions about Shakespeare. Apparently, the pupils declined even to write their names on the papers, in protest at Shakespeare’s ‘anti-Semitism’, despite the fact that they had not even been studying ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and that by doing so they would forfeit the entire examination. As a result, the school has fallen drastically in the performance tables (it was, quite remarkably, first in the entire country last year and is now 274th albeit out of over 3000).
The article goes on to analyze the results of the girl's decision but in my opinion, the actual issue is skirted around. For me this is not a case of whether or not the school should honour its obligation to teach matters required by the national curriculum or not, or whether children should have a right to protest material they find offensive. For me, the defining line is:
they had not even been studying The Merchant of Venice.
Uh huh. So, based on heresay or assumption, these girls took a principled stand on something they clearly know nothing about, and as a result damaged their grades and their school's reputation.
It's one thing to take an active stand on a researched position. It's quite another to decide to avoid material based on assumptions or guesses. It does not speak of principles but impetuous ignorance. Is this state of education in the Jewish system today? And when these girls go out into the real world and are confronted by jewish points of view different to their own, will they react just as dismissively?
Thursday, 3 January 2008
Not Knowing When You're Not Capable
For a long time, Israel has coasted on the myth that it has a good educational system. Well shouldn't it? It's schools are run by Jews, it's teachers are Jews and the students are Jews. Everywhere else in the world such a phenomenon would be a recipe for success. But not in Israel. As recent statistics depressingly point out, the secular education system in Israel is in bad shape. It trails almost every European school system in results and leads in violence and teacher intimidation.
Therefore it was with great amusement that I read this latest gem from Ehud Olmert, criticizing the Chareidi community's demand for more control over their own school system, one which may not teach most basic subject but is also far freer of violence and drugs than the secular system:
Addressing MK Yakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism, Olmert stated:” I will tell you what I had told your colleagues before…. If you (haredim) were allowed to run the haredi education system you would destroy it, because you would only hurt one another.”
Olmert furthermore noted: “The haredi children in Jerusalem had always thanked me for managing their education and said that they were lucky that I was not haredi. Only a secular Jew can manage Haredi education with any semblance of integrity.”
Uh huh. So having driven their own system into the ground, the secular Israelis now want to take credit for the success of the Chareidi one? The worst the Chareidim could do is to have their schools do as poorly as the Chiloni ones. Maybe it's that inspiring example that leads them to want to control their own affairs more,
Therefore it was with great amusement that I read this latest gem from Ehud Olmert, criticizing the Chareidi community's demand for more control over their own school system, one which may not teach most basic subject but is also far freer of violence and drugs than the secular system:
Addressing MK Yakov Litzman of United Torah Judaism, Olmert stated:” I will tell you what I had told your colleagues before…. If you (haredim) were allowed to run the haredi education system you would destroy it, because you would only hurt one another.”
Olmert furthermore noted: “The haredi children in Jerusalem had always thanked me for managing their education and said that they were lucky that I was not haredi. Only a secular Jew can manage Haredi education with any semblance of integrity.”
Uh huh. So having driven their own system into the ground, the secular Israelis now want to take credit for the success of the Chareidi one? The worst the Chareidim could do is to have their schools do as poorly as the Chiloni ones. Maybe it's that inspiring example that leads them to want to control their own affairs more,
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
Education the government shouldn't pay for
Here in Ontario we have an election coming up that really shouldn't be a big deal. After all, the leading two contenders, Liberal Dalton McGuinty and Conservative John Tory, are running on pretty much identical platforms - more government, more spending, more taxes, more waste of public resources.
In fact, there's only one thing that sets the two of them apart. John Tory, in his wisdom (?) has made the funding of faith-based schooling a major issue in this campaign. Under a Tory gvoernment, religious schools would receive some funding from the Ministry of Education, at least in terms of their secular studies. Dalton McGuinty opposes this, despite having attended a Catholic separate school (oh, and his kids go to one too). He's worried that faith-based schooling will result in a fragmentation of Ontario society. He may be a proven liar and a hypocrite but at least he's consistent. After all, he's the premier who shut down the parallel Jewish and Christian legal systems when the Muslim community wanted to impose shariah on its members.
This has always been a relevant issue for the Ontario Jewish community. As is the case elsewhere, schools are expensive institutions to run well. What Jewish school administrator wouldn't want help from the government to be able to hire a full set of qualified teachers and divert the money he already has into the Judaic studies department?
By the way, don't use the argument that with government support, tuitions will go down. They won't drop one shekel. Instead we'll be told how great it is that our money can now go entirely to funding the religious department (and the new park next to the school).
There's also the perceived issue of fairness. When Ontario became part of Canada, there were essentially two public systems - Protestant and Catholic. While the Protestant system evolved into the public one, the Catholics have managed to maintain a modicum of disinctiveness. However, one has to ask what the relevance of an arrangement made in 1867 has on the far more diverse society of today?
Here's the problem - John Tory is playing to our worst instinct. He's offering to help us pay for our children's education while leaving them in Hebrew school. He's appealing directly to what Jewish leadership in this province has been whining about for decades. McGuinty, on the other hand, is against faith-based schools, unless the faith happens to be Catholicism.
I wonder though: Has anyone thought about the consequences of government funding? Think about this. The government of Canada already has a policy forbidding Canadian citizens born in Jerusalem from listing Israel as their country of birth. Do we want the government to have a say about what goes on in our schools? And given the track record Western society has towards different ethnic groups and tolerating their cute ethnic foibles, do we want the government paying for another school down the street to teach its kids about jihad?
Finally, as a taxpayer, I have to ask: How much is Tory's idea going to cost? We already spend billions on education and turn out an unacceptably high number of functional illiterates. How much more will this cost me in April?
In there end, the government should pay for one educational system alone: the public one. If Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Jedi want to educate their kids differently, let them pay for it. This issue is a red herring distracting us from the fact that we have no real choice to vote for in October (Howard Hampton? Please, pass me the Gravol). If McGuinty and Tory are the best this province can do for potential leaders, that's pathetic.
In fact, there's only one thing that sets the two of them apart. John Tory, in his wisdom (?) has made the funding of faith-based schooling a major issue in this campaign. Under a Tory gvoernment, religious schools would receive some funding from the Ministry of Education, at least in terms of their secular studies. Dalton McGuinty opposes this, despite having attended a Catholic separate school (oh, and his kids go to one too). He's worried that faith-based schooling will result in a fragmentation of Ontario society. He may be a proven liar and a hypocrite but at least he's consistent. After all, he's the premier who shut down the parallel Jewish and Christian legal systems when the Muslim community wanted to impose shariah on its members.
This has always been a relevant issue for the Ontario Jewish community. As is the case elsewhere, schools are expensive institutions to run well. What Jewish school administrator wouldn't want help from the government to be able to hire a full set of qualified teachers and divert the money he already has into the Judaic studies department?
By the way, don't use the argument that with government support, tuitions will go down. They won't drop one shekel. Instead we'll be told how great it is that our money can now go entirely to funding the religious department (and the new park next to the school).
There's also the perceived issue of fairness. When Ontario became part of Canada, there were essentially two public systems - Protestant and Catholic. While the Protestant system evolved into the public one, the Catholics have managed to maintain a modicum of disinctiveness. However, one has to ask what the relevance of an arrangement made in 1867 has on the far more diverse society of today?
Here's the problem - John Tory is playing to our worst instinct. He's offering to help us pay for our children's education while leaving them in Hebrew school. He's appealing directly to what Jewish leadership in this province has been whining about for decades. McGuinty, on the other hand, is against faith-based schools, unless the faith happens to be Catholicism.
I wonder though: Has anyone thought about the consequences of government funding? Think about this. The government of Canada already has a policy forbidding Canadian citizens born in Jerusalem from listing Israel as their country of birth. Do we want the government to have a say about what goes on in our schools? And given the track record Western society has towards different ethnic groups and tolerating their cute ethnic foibles, do we want the government paying for another school down the street to teach its kids about jihad?
Finally, as a taxpayer, I have to ask: How much is Tory's idea going to cost? We already spend billions on education and turn out an unacceptably high number of functional illiterates. How much more will this cost me in April?
In there end, the government should pay for one educational system alone: the public one. If Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus or Jedi want to educate their kids differently, let them pay for it. This issue is a red herring distracting us from the fact that we have no real choice to vote for in October (Howard Hampton? Please, pass me the Gravol). If McGuinty and Tory are the best this province can do for potential leaders, that's pathetic.
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