Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Tory Bad Ideas For Ontario

Thoughts From the Western Edge excoriates John Tory's pandering to minority voters. Fair enough. There is no doubt John Tory is vigorously pandering as fast as he can.

However, the question that needs to be asked is is there a way around provinces who jealously guard their monopoly over a mediocre education system to provide assistance to those parents who would like to have an alternative?

A common premise to the argument that the public educational systems is important to society is the assumption that public education is always good education. I don't think that is always the case.

The problem is this - how can you provide publicly funded alternatives to the current system of monolithic school board run education without compromising academic standards or, worse yet, funding radical Muslim schools ("madrassas"), for example, more concerned with teaching the practical skills of bomb making than the more abstract subjects like physics.

So if we refuse to fund religious schools, then is the public and government run system the only choice available for families who can't afford the $8-20,000 a year per child it takes to get out?

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