Not surprisingly, the imminent end of summer vacation and the return to school, have elicited pundits’ pleas to the government of Ontario to re-consider and revise the delivery of education in our province.
Earlier this week, for example, Matthew Lau wrote in the Financial Post: “With a new school year approaching, it’s time to remind everyone that Ontario’s public school system is a gigantic mess.”
Lau was straightforward, his commentary salted with obvious frustration. At times, one could also sense a measure of melancholy. For, as he made clear to the reader, it does not have to be this way.
Lau states that the quality of Ontario’s public education system “seems bound to deteriorate further”. The best remedy to arrest and repair the system, he maintains, is to give families more choice in the education of their children.
“Giving families alternatives to the government-run school system provides access to better education, while increased competition forces improved quality by breaking the government/union monopoly. School choice can also deliver fiscal benefits to taxpayers as government funding for students in unionized government-run schools is higher than for students outside it.”
Giving parents more freedom to choose the educational approach for their children, Lau maintains, results in better overall educational outcomes and better fiscal management for the government. He cites two American studies to prove the case as well as a recent study by Cardus, a non-partisan, faith-oriented think tank based in Hamilton. According to its website, Cardus is dedicated “to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good.” GAJE has relied on its research in the past and cited the think tank’s work in this space.
Lau wrote: “(A) recent Cardus study on independent schools in Ontario highlighted yet more benefits of school choice. Unlike British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec, Ontario doesn’t allow a portion of families’ taxes to follow their children to a private school. Despite this, there is a clear demand for alternatives to the government-run system. The Cardus study found that more than 300 independent schools have been founded in the province in the past four years.
“Beyond improving academic outcomes, school choice gives families options other than the monolithic conformity of the government-run system.”
He concludes without nuance. “The evidence continues to show that more choice would benefit parents, students and taxpayers.”
Lau – and the studies upon which he relies, urge more parental choice in Ontario’s educational system because it is the substantively correct thing to do: educationally and fiscally. Ontario’s public education system is anachronistic, no longer adoptive of best educational practices, and dramatically out of step with most of Canada and the OECD states. Indeed, over the years, in this very space, GAJE has often called attention to that same research.
Equally as important, if not actually more, over the years, GAJE has pleaded with the province to allow more choice to parents in our educational system on the basis of undoing and repairing a longstanding injustice. To no avail. The province has refused to allow us to argue our case on its merits. The Court of Appeal has agreed with the province.
Anxiously, we await the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, whether we will be allowed to argue the legal/moral/fairness/justice/equality basis for granting parents more choice in the education of their children in Ontario, as is the case in the next five largest provinces in the country.
•••
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit to achieve fairness in educational funding, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com Thank you, in advance, for considering doing so.
•••
Shabbat shalom
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education
August 28, 2026
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 