Monday, July 14, 2014

Well To Be Honest, Math Was Never One Of My Best Subjects In School ...


I get VERY tired about hearing how much independent schools are hurting the public school system, because they take financial resource away.
 
For those who have refused to believe this is untrue, or are being brainwashed by partisan comments from the BCTF and its partners, here are the FACTS:
Grants To Independent Schools:
The district operating grant consists of the per-pupil base allocation plus supplementary amounts added to produce the per-student district operating grant amount. Supplementary amounts are included for unique student needs (including learning disabilities, learning assistance, speech and language services, mild intellectual disabilities, English Language Learning, aboriginal education, and adult education programs), enrolment decline (greater than one percent per year), salary differentials, transportation and housing, and unique geographic factors. The supplementary factors account for the difference in school district operating grant amounts.

The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) eligible students enrolled in an independent school is a key component to calculating school grants. A full grant is paid for each full-time student who is enrolled for a minimum of 600 hours from July 1 to May 15 of the school year. Partial grants are paid for eligible partial students who receive less than 600 hours of instruction.

The designated percentages are as follows:

Group 1 = 50 percent of the local district's per-student grant amountGroup 2 = 35 percent of the local district's per-student grant amount


SEE MORE AT: http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/topic.page?id=699A7E1C76EF494D9918D067921A86F1&title=Grants+to+Independent+Schools

In others words, each student in private education, provides an additional 50% of their grants TOO the public school system. Parents of students in private schools, are in fact SUBSIDIZING students in public education.

And before anyone jumps all over private schools for being elitist, the vast majority have demographics as mixed as any public school, and parents that are, by and large, everyday hard working people that live in the same neighbourhoods as everyone else.
 
Well I did have a discussion about this with some folks on Twitter, and of course I got responses not favourable to what had to say. Here are just a few of the responses I received:
 
@AlanForseth I am also curious about why you assert private school receipt of $$ from public purse isn't a subsidy? 
 
Private education, despite govt contribution , is not available to all regardless of income
 
access to benefit of my tax contribution should be progressively weighted to those with less than me
 
my opinion on my own tax dollars. Should only be spent on that which benefits all, to which all have access
 
If you choose private nobody's forcing you. Pay full shot. Anything else to me is a subsidy
 
It's unfair for public $ to subsidize classrooms of 18-20 in private system when govt won't bargain CSC in public schools
 
Here are just a few of the responses I posted back (with apologies for the misspells but Twitter only gives you 140 characters including spaces):
 
How is getting only 50% of /student funding a subsidy. Students in private schools support public system to tune of Millions of $s 
 
Approx $8,100 / student in public education, while +/- $4,000 per student in private education. I CAN do the math & its clear 2 me
 
Paid same taxs yet when my kids asked 2B in private skool, how was receiving 50% LESS of the / student funding a subsidy
 
Bull Crap! Everyday working parents with students in privat schools have 50% of student grant handed over 2 support public schools
 
Parents pay same taxes, but they get 50%. Rest of taxes paid goes to SUBSIDIZE public education.
 
And one of mine final thoughts was:
We all have opinions on where taxes $ shud be spent, & think we'd agree lots wasted. Can't agree on this tho - thnx 4 exchange :)
 
What's my final thoughts on this? Well to be honest, Math was never one of my best subjects in school, but I have had to learn math for business, I in my opinion, I am pretty good at what I need to calculate.
 
No matter how others want to spin it, the Per Student payment for children in private
education is 50% of what it is for students in public schools (approximately $4,000 vs. $8,000). And, adding the roughly 76,000 students currently in private schools to the public school system would cost the government an additional Three Hundred and Four Million dollars per year (76,000 students times $4,000 each)!
 
AND ... most families with children in private school ARE NOT rich elitist people. They are everyday working families that chose to allocate the money the earn to have their children in private schools. They come from the ever shrinking lower and middle middle-class.
 
Enough!!! Leave these poor people alone. And ... let them continue to subsidize those who are in the public school system.
 
I'm Alan Forseth in Kamloops, with the thoughts of one conservative.