The CJN reported last week that the government of Ontario has announced it will enable families to have access to faith-based daycares of their choice.
On June 30, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce – in the company of Solicitor General Michael Kerzner and MPPs Patrice Barnes (Ajax), Robin Martin (Eglinton-Lawrence), and Laura Smith (Thornhill) – attended the Ledbury Jewish Centre in midtown Toronto to announce that the government has decided to fund subsidies to parents for cultural or faith-based daycare programs for their children without regard to the location of the school in relation to the home address of the family.
According to The CJN Minister Lecce said: “One of the great challenges that really rose to members of our government is that often governments create systems for bureaucracies, not for clients, not for families, and certainly not for the end user, the child. (Our emphasis) We are going to allow portability in subsidies, we are going to give incentives to parents to choose the right child care for their family.”
(Our emphasis)
The Minister’s policy is sound. He affirms the essential principle cherished in our society that the highest priority of our education system is the best interests of the “end user”, i.e., the child. Moreover, Minister Lecce implies, emphatically we must add, that ensuring the best educational interest of the “end user” – the Ontario child – means enabling “parents to choose the right child care for their family.”
If we substitute the word “education” for the phrase “child care” in the minister’s announcement, we do not alter the principle that he so resolutely affirmed. Indeed, we affirm it further with deeper, truer meaning. For it is incontestable that the system of educating the child begins with appropriate daycare. Were this not the case, the announcement last week about the subsidies would have been made by another minister, perhaps the Minister for Children, Community and Social Services, or the Minister of Health. But, of course, the announcement was made by the Minister of Education.
The Solicitor General reinforced the inviolate principle concerning the best interests of the child when he added: “Faith-based child care that is accessible, that is equitable, is good for Ontario. It helps keep our families intact in the way that they practice their faith and maintain their culture.”
In enunciating this new educational policy, Minister Lecce and subsequently, the Solicitor General as well, echoed the preferred educational policy pronouncements by recognized educators and educational and social policy analysts. For example, in Funding All Students: A Comparative Economic Analysis of the Fiscal Cost to Support Students in Ontario Independent Schools, David Hunt, Anointing Momoh, and Deani Van Pelt (Cardus, September 2021) wrote the following:
“But as a morally formational good, parents have a prior and universal right to choose—and deeply personal interest in—their child’s education, and thus these public funds should follow families to their preferred school. Accordingly, funding is the norm around the world, as well as in Canada.”
To urge Ontario to follow the well-established international educational funding norm, the authors added: “Globally, 73 percent of countries at least partially fund independent schools—only one OECD country does not. In Canada outside Ontario, 75 percent of independent schools and 84 percent of independent-school students are partially publicly funded. Put differently, Ontario’s lack of funding is anomalous in both a global and Canadian context.” (Our emphasis)
Minister Lecce has unequivocally articulated the funding principle that anchors proper educational funding in advanced, modern western societies. Indeed, as Cardus has pointed out, that funding principle is the “norm around the world, as well as in Canada.”
But not in Ontario. Alas.
Minister Lecce acknowledged the importance and substantive soundness of that educational funding principle. The Solicitor General eloquently supported the core aspect of the principle. But it appears Ontario has no qualms in refusing to apply that principle to the 150,000 Ontario children who attend independent schools.
The CJN story is available at:
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We still await the decision of Judge Papageorgiou on the motion brought by the governments of Ontario and Canada to strike our application. As soon as we know her decision, we will share it with you.
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Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
July 7, 2023
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 