Last week, Premier Doug Ford unveiled his new cabinet to the people of Ontario.

He used weighty language in setting forth his governmental agenda. He called for Ontarians to be united and to work together. “With big challenges ahead, including an uncertain global economic climate, now is the time for unity and working together,” said Premier Ford. “Our government will be relentless in delivering on our ambitious plan to grow our economy and build infrastructure as we leave no stone unturned when it comes to solving the historic labour shortage. It’s all hands on deck.”

But the premier extended no hand of inclusion to the parents of the 150,000 children in independent schools who receive no funding whatsoever for the education of their children. The unity he urges for Ontarians obviously does not include us.

Ontario appears to have chosen to perpetuate an unconscionable policy of unequal justice in educational funding, to perpetuate what the late Keith Landy, then-chair of the Ontario region of the Canadian Jewish Congress, called some 25 years ago, a “glaring injustice” in refusing even to fund health support services for children in independent school as it does for children in public schools.

The premier wishes “to grow our economy and build infrastructure.” But he appears unaware that strengthening independent schools actually strengthens the entire educational enterprise of the province. A strengthened, thriving overall educational system, of course, is vital for a strong economy. This is not simply GAJE’s view. This is the conclusion of all of the other provinces, apart from the Atlantic provinces, who do provide some funding to independent schools. This is also the conclusion of most of the countries of Europe where the term “publicly funded schools” does include independent schools.

In addition, according to studies conducted by the Fraser Institute, extending some funding to independent schools improves overall educational outcomes and can actually lead to cost efficiencies for the overall provincial educational budget.

There are indeed significant substantive reasons to extend at least some public funding to independent schools. But the most profound reason for doing so is to remove the shame from Ontario for not rectifying the long lingering injustice and unfairness in the school funding.

How is it possible, let alone morally correct, that in the year 2022, Ontario should support and effectively prefer and help sustain one religion to the exclusion of other religions?

Ontario’s educational funding policy is not morally correct. To the contrary, it is morally flawed. It is long past time that this blatant discrimination should end. In the year 2022, Ontarians should not have to beg or plead with the government to act fairly and to end a glaring injustice.

Perhaps Stephen Lecce, renewed as the Minister of Education, will make the case to the premier?

•••

GAJE has launched an application in court to remedy the government’s unfair, unjust educational funding. If you wish to contribute to funding GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Happy Canada Day

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 1, 2022

Ending glaring injustice not on Ontario’s agenda

Last week, Premier Doug Ford unveiled his new cabinet to the people of Ontario.

He used weighty language in setting forth his governmental agenda. He called for Ontarians to be united and to work together. “With big challenges ahead, including an uncertain global economic climate, now is the time for unity and working together,” said Premier Ford. “Our government will be relentless in delivering on our ambitious plan to grow our economy and build infrastructure as we leave no stone unturned when it comes to solving the historic labour shortage. It’s all hands on deck.”

But the premier extended no hand of inclusion to the parents of the 150,000 children in independent schools who receive no funding whatsoever for the education of their children. The unity he urges for Ontarians obviously does not include us.

Ontario appears to have chosen to perpetuate an unconscionable policy of unequal justice in educational funding, to perpetuate what the late Keith Landy, then-chair of the Ontario region of the Canadian Jewish Congress, called some 25 years ago, a “glaring injustice” in refusing even to fund health support services for children in independent school as it does for children in public schools.

The premier wishes “to grow our economy and build infrastructure.” But he appears unaware that strengthening independent schools actually strengthens the entire educational enterprise of the province. A strengthened, thriving overall educational system, of course, is vital for a strong economy. This is not simply GAJE’s view. This is the conclusion of all of the other provinces, apart from the Atlantic provinces, who do provide some funding to independent schools. This is also the conclusion of most of the countries of Europe where the term “publicly funded schools” does include independent schools.

In addition, according to studies conducted by the Fraser Institute, extending some funding to independent schools improves overall educational outcomes and can actually lead to cost efficiencies for the overall provincial educational budget.

There are indeed significant substantive reasons to extend at least some public funding to independent schools. But the most profound reason for doing so is to remove the shame from Ontario for not rectifying the long lingering injustice and unfairness in the school funding.

How is it possible, let alone morally correct, that in the year 2022, Ontario should support and effectively prefer and help sustain one religion to the exclusion of other religions?

Ontario’s educational funding policy is not morally correct. To the contrary, it is morally flawed. It is long past time that this blatant discrimination should end. In the year 2022, Ontarians should not have to beg or plead with the government to act fairly and to end a glaring injustice.

Perhaps Stephen Lecce, renewed as the Minister of Education, will make the case to the premier?

•••

GAJE has launched an application in court to remedy the government’s unfair, unjust educational funding. If you wish to contribute to funding GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Happy Canada Day

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)

July 1, 2022

Final exams, graduation ceremonies, valedictory addresses, end-of-year processions, early dismissals, extended recess and playground periods, broad smiles and long sighs are much in the air these days. It is sweet, energizing time of year for most of our children. The school year 2021-2022 is drawing to a close.

Our children are to be commended and congratulated at whatever stage they are in their school careers and to whichever grade or stage of life they are advancing. Indeed, they should be celebrated.

Teachers, school administrators, volunteers, community professionals and philanthropists are to be thanked individually and collectively for enabling our children to learn and to grow within their abilities. They build, strengthen and maintain the ramparts of Jewish education on which our children – their students – climb toward their aspirations.

Parents and “participating” grandparents are to be heralded and thanked for the example and substance of their commitment to the future of their children and thus too, to that of the community. They are the day-to-day, living, giving, embracing embodiment of the hopeful notion of Jewish continuity.

Before planning for the next school year begins in full, complete earnest, our hope for everyone involved in Jewish education is that they enjoy a well-deserved, happy, healthy, restorative summertime break. It is a perfect time to reflect upon and savor this year’s graduations and other happy, end-of-school-year moments.

•••

As readers know, it is GAJE’s mission to help make Jewish education affordable to all families of the Jewish community in Ontario who wish it for their children. To that end, GAJE has launched an application in court to remedy the government’s unfair, unjust educational funding.

If you wish to contribute to funding GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

June 24, 2022

GAJE’s unyielding focus is helping achieve true affordability of Jewish education. As readers of this space know, we also occasionally share opinions and ideas regarding the unyielding significance of such education.

In this week’s update, we call attention to a recently published cri de coeur from Idan Roll, the deputy minister of foreign affairs of the State of Israel. Deputy Minister Roll wrote about the relations between the two families of the Jewish people: Israel and the Diaspora. His statement is important because it is “ex cathedra”, that is, conveyed with the authority of the Government of Israel and because it is substantively compelling.

Deputy Minister Roll wrote that “it is becoming increasingly apparent that a paradigm shift [in Israel- relations] is needed, one that emphasizes Jewish identity, partnership and mutual responsibility.”

The key nugget of the rich vein of this thoughts on the subject is that the entry to strong intra-Jewish relations is through a strong sense of Jewish identity. “A chief challenge that the Jewish Diaspora faces today is how to connect younger generations to their Jewish identity and Israel. I argue that these two are interconnected. A strong Jewish identity leads to a natural affinity toward Israel, and a deep connection to Israel creates a link to our people’s history and tradition and our current state of affairs.”

And then Deputy Minister Roll adds a thought that is a relatively new development in the thinking of official Israel. “Israel has a stake in the matter and should take a more active role in tackling this challenge.”

The success of Birthright Israel over the past decades opened many Israeli eyes to this vital Jewish symbiosis. Some years ago, Israel’s the Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told The Canadian Jewish News that the most effective, most long-lasting assistance the Diaspora could offer the State of Israel was in raising Jews, ie, youngsters who would forever see themselves and lead their lives as Jews. Deputy Minister Roll adds a further layer of understanding to this plea: Israel has a stake in the matter and should take a more active role helping foster Jewish identity in Diaspora youth.

And of course, the incontrovertible truth about fostering Jewish identity is that Jewish education is the key.

Deputy Minister Roll’s article can be found at:

It’s time for a paradigm shift in Israel-Diaspora relations

•••

As readers know, it is GAJE’s mission to help make Jewish education affordable to all families of the Jewish community in Ontario who wish it for their children. To that end, GAJE has launched an application in court to remedy the government’s unfair, unjust educational funding.

If you wish to contribute to funding GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

June 17, 2022

In the emotional wake of the mass shootings in the US during the past four weeks and the overlap of Ontario’s provincial election and then our celebration of Shavuot, we overlooked mentioning the first major public address by Deborah Lipstadt, the American government’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Lipstadt – the courageous, renowned, resolute, scholar historian – was confirmed in her position by the U.S. Senate on March 30, 2022 with the rank of Ambassador.

She spoke on May 26 to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and later on the same day she was the keynote speaker at Yeshiva University’s (YU) commencement ceremonies. At the Conference, Lipstadt discussed how anti-Zionism can serve as a mask for antisemitism. At the YU commencement she spoke of “the free-flowing nature of antisemitism and what kind of response that demands of us”.

We, in Canada, have excellent, experienced watchdog agencies and seasoned men and women who monitor and combat antisemitism. Though the anti-Jewish environments are not the same in the two countries, we know that common threads unite the haters of Jews wherever they live and have done so, alas, for millennia.

The reason we point to Ambassador Lipstadt is because of her credentials, namely as one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject and the prestige and power of her position. When she speaks it is noteworthy. The two public speeches she delivered on May 26 were masterful reflections on the current state of Jew hatred around the world, its historical roots and its interconnection to hatred of Israel.

We emphasize one key thought by Lipstadt. Indeed, we have emphasized it many times in various iterations in the past. According to the JTA report of Lipstadt’s remarks the Conference, she said: “To simply assume that if we teach young people, or even not so young people, enough about the Holocaust, that we’re going to solve the problem of antisemitism… it’s not a magic bullet.”

In other words, we must not retreat from our Judaism, from our respect for our history and from our commitment to our future. The best way to counter antisemitism is by asserting our sense of Jewish peoplehood. The best way to know how to assert that sense of peoplehood is through education. And as Lipstadt herself acknowledges, Holocaust education alone is not a panacea.

Rather, it is through excellent, intense Jewish education that young children grow and learn how to be meaningfully Jewish.

As readers know, it is GAJE’s mission to help make such education affordable to all families of the Jewish community in Ontario who wish it for their children. To that end, GAJE has launched an application in court to remedy the government’s unfair, unjust educational funding.

If you wish to contribute to funding GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Ambassador Lipstadt’s commencement address at YU can be found at: https://www.state.gov/keynote-speech-at-yeshiva-universitys-91st-commencement-ceremony-antisemitism-the-ubiquitous-hatred/

Ambassador Lipstadt’s address to the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations can be found at: https://www.state.gov/remarks-at-the-conference-of-presidents-of-major-american-jewish-organizations-antisemitism-the-interconnected-hatred/

Remarks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – Antisemitism: The Interconnected Hatred

Remarks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – Antisemitism: The Interconnected Hatred

Remarks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – Antisemitism: The Interconnected Hatred

Ambassador Lipstadt’s address to the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations can be found at: https://www.state.gov/remarks-at-the-conference-of-presidents-of-major-american-jewish-organizations-antisemitism-the-interconnected-hatred/

Remarks at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations – Antisemitism: The Interconnected Hatred

Keynote Speech at Yeshiva University’s 91st Commencement Ceremony – Antisemitism: The Ubiquitous Hatred

Ambassador Lipstadt’s address to the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations can be found at: https://www.state.gov/remarks-at-the-conference-of-presidents-of-major-american-jewish-organizations-antisemitism-the-interconnected-hatred/

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

June 10, 2022

As of this writing, it appears that Doug Ford is headed to a second majority government. Ontarians will have elected a new government by the time this update is posted.

As Shabbat ends, tomorrow night, Jews around the world in their respective time zones, will welcome the Festival of Shavuot in rising waves of syncopated celebration. Some 50 days after the Festival of Freedom, we gather in synagogues, study halls and especially around dining room tables to commemorate the Festival of Giving us our Torah (Shavuot).

The near coincidence of the two occasions this year – Ontario’s provincial election and Shavuot – brings with it a poignancy we ought not ignore. Indeed we must point it out and suggest its meaning for us.

Some 3,500 years ago, the children of Israel were still a rabble of former slaves when they assembled at the foot of the lowly desert mountain to receive the law. But, though a rabble, they were able nevertheless to burst through their emotional and psychological bonds to commit personally and for all generations to bring justice, purpose, order and God into human history. Liberty joined with law. Emancipation joined with responsibility. Men and women were no longer to be governed by strong man, slave master or tyrant. Men and women were to be governed by the true rule of law. The fair, just, wide application of commonly shared values and governing principals, was born.

Alas, successive governments of Ontario have ignored and violated this sacrosanct hallmark of  true rule of law. For more than a quarter century, through its unfair and unjust educational funding policies, Ontario has actually preferred one religion over the other religions observed by Ontarians.

As we wrote in this space last week, GAJE’s great dream is to try to help make Jewish education affordable for every family in Ontario that seeks it for their children. Our chief strategy in achieving our aim is to try to change the law that applies to educational funding in Ontario. Private and public lobbying has failed to move the respective consciences of the past many governments at Queen’s Park, even though the provincial governments British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec provide some funding to the independent schools in their provinces.

We have no alternative to achieving this fairness and justice other than resort to the courts.

As a result, GAJE has launched an application to try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. It is moral and right that we do so. Why should the law of Ontario abjure fairness? Why should it be hollow and bereft of justice? Of course it should not.

Even as we congratulate Premier Ford and the newly elected Conservative members to the legislature, we also express to them our fervent hope that they will change their funding policies if not the law to make them fair and free of preference for one religion over the others in our province.

If, at some point during Shavuot, you look heavenward, to be reminded of the event at Sinai so long ago, remember the message we heard then is always relevant and must be repeated and re-affirmed today: the foundation of all law is justice

If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

June 3, 2022

In discussing the Torah portion last week (Parashat Behar) Rabbi Marc D. Angel called upon religious leadership to help us “dream great dreams, can stay clearly focused on the long span of the future.”

“It is understood that not everyone can dream great dreams, can stay clearly focused on the long span of the future. Yet, that is exactly what religious leadership is called upon to do. I would suggest that this is what every Jew is expected to aspire to do – even if it is known in advance that most of us will fall short,” Rabbi Angel wrote. 

Rabbi Angel wrote specifically about the need to try to infuse in each of us a religious life that is “deep and strong.” To help make this so, he called for a specific religious leadership “who see the long view of Jewish history and destiny, those who are tirelessly committed to serving God and humanity with love, kindness, compassion, wisdom.”

But we can expand upon Rabbi Angel’s writing. Indeed, we must. For it falls to all of us to try to see the long view of Jewish history and destiny, to dream a great dream about our own unique roles in honouring Jewish history and in trying to shape a thriving and meaningful Jewish destiny for our children for all time.

GAJE’s “great dream” is to try to help make Jewish education affordable for every family in Ontario that seeks it for their children.

•••

To move from great dream to great reality, as readers of this update know, GAJE has launched an application to try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

May 27, 2022

The horrific slaughter last week of innocents outside Buffalo was the latest publicized violent manifestation of hatred and contempt for others. It enraged and saddened us. But alas, it surprised us little. Indeed, who knows how many “lesser” incidents of inhumane, cowardly victimization without a tally in blood, occur in communities around the world every day?

The murderer last week acted out of a sense of white supremacist righteous rage and justification. Convinced that people who do not look like he does are trying to replace him in America, he decided to kill as many of the “others” as possible.

The Replacement Theory of white supremacists is the warped outcropping of a fecund earth seeded by hatred, prejudice and resentment all of which is fortified, of course, with a sustaining layer of the manure of undiluted antisemitism.

As educators, scholars, historians, parents and grandparents through all time know and have known, the best way for society to respond to prejudice of all kind is to hold its purveyors to account and to ensure the pillars of democratic life are unassailable and strong.

Similarly, as educators, scholars, historians, parents and grandparents through all time know and have known, the best way for Jews to respond to antisemitism is to affirm their Judaism by living Jewishly. How Jews do so is a uniquely personal decision, as long as they maintain and are able to pass forward the connection and connectedness to our people’s past, present and future. 

Two weeks ago, in commemoration of Yom Hashoah V’hagvurah, we wrote that “the best – though not the only – way for us to give our children the intellectual, emotional and collective wherewithal to stand their ground and even to push back against antisemites [ie., the ability to live Jewishly] is through Jewish education.”

Jewish education is the heavy equipment, as it were, the best equipment, we must all bring to bear against the antisemitism of the white supremacists. It is for this reason, among other important ones, that GAJE’s objective is to make Jewish education affordable for every family that seeks it for their children.

•••

As readers of this update know, GAJE has launched an application out by  try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

May 20, 2022

With Pesach, the overcast skies and the cool, damp temperatures of early Spring behind us, we are inclined to broad smiles and happy sighs by the blue skies and warmer temperatures of deep, mid-Spring. The looming summer means we are in the home stretch of school year 2021-2022. Even before classes are dismissed for this year, we believe it is not too early for families to think about school for next year.

In that vein, and for that purpose we call attention to an article written last month by Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, head of school at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School of Greater Washington D.C. entitled, Sense of Belonging.

Rabbi Malkus’ aim is to explain why learning Hebrew is so important for a Jewish education. For families whose children already attend Jewish schools, the rabbi’s insights will reinforce their current educational decisions and further confirm the wisdom of those decisions. For families considering intensive Jewish education for the first time, Rabbi Malkus’ observations and conclusions may prove helpful and persuasive.

Rabbi Malkus’ describes Hebrew as “the essential connective thread to Jewish civilization, Jewish peoplehood, Israel and its people and to most Jewish literature.” His concluding statement is forceful and eloquent. “There are very compelling educational reasons for teaching Hebrew that relate to 21st century learning skills and brain research, but at the end of the day, Hebrew alone holds the potential to cement the union between Jews around the world with each other and our heritage, no matter our geography or our religious outlook. Hebrew enables students to be part of our over 4,000 year history as a Jewish people.”

Fostering feelings of peoplehood and a sense of belonging to the Jewish people is one of the key life-sustaining results of Jewish education. GAJE therefore agrees with Rabbi Markus’ opinion. We commend his article to our readers.  It can be found at:

ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-critical-role-hebrew-language-learning-plays-in-identity-development/

•••

As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE has launched an application to try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

May 13, 2022

This week we completed the remembrance and commemoration of a quartet of Springtime dates that are vital in fashioning our framework of values as individuals as a people: Pesach, Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah, Yom Hazicaron and Yom Ha’atzma’ut. Indeed, they comprise a modern anvil, of sorts, of Jewish history on which our sense of peoplehood continues to be forged.

These four compelling Jewish dates form an ironically fitting background to the recent head-shaking, enraging news that the editorial board of the storied student newspaper at Harvard University has embraced boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning (BDS) Israel as a legitimate editorial policy. At the same time, they also proclaimed their opposition to anti-Semitism.

Of course the newspaper’s two policy statements cannot co-exist side by side in a context that stands upon truth and honesty and respects morality. It is utter rubbish and nonsense to argue that it is not anti-Semitic to single out the only Jewish state on earth in so disproportionate a manner for the country’s real or imagined “sins”. Moreover, the founder of the BDS campaign, Omar Barghouti has time and again stated, reiterated and emphasized that Israel must not exist as an sovereign Jewish state.

Yet, such anti-Israel and anti-Jewish policies alas, are now the norm on campuses across North America. In the years to come, what will be the attitude of our children toward Israel? Will their attitudes to Israel be poisoned by pervasive, unabating anti-Israel prejudice, hatred and ignorance on campuses? Will negative attitudes toward Israel affect our children’s embrace of Judaism and of their place within our remarkable, infuriating, ancient, modern People? Will they have the ability – information, knowledge, resolve and sense of purpose – to be able to resist the malevolent aims of the calculating, devious haters of Israel who are succeeding in manipulating public attitudes against the Jewish state?

It falls to us – parents, grandparents and the wider community – to do our utmost to give our children the intellectual, emotional and collective wherewithal to stand their ground and even to push back against the individuals striving to bring about the demise of the Jewish state. Not to mention of course, that same wherewithal is the very pathway to belonging.

The best – though not the only – way for us to do our utmost is through Jewish education.

It is for this existentially key purpose that we pursue our objective of making Jewish education affordable for every family that seeks it for their children. When the day arrives that Jewish education is affordable in perpetuity, we will then see feelings of Jewish peoplehood and belonging will also be assured in perpetuity.

That day is not yet at hand. And the task is difficult. But, to borrow from Israel’s national anthem, we have not yet lost our hope. Nor will we.

•••

As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE has launched an application to try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

May 6, 2022

Alberta provides funding to its independent schools. It recognizes the importance to its residents and the benefit to its society in doing so. Nevertheless the discussion is still engaged there about how to refine and whether to expand such funding. (See the weekly GAJE update of April 8.)

Two weeks ago, on April 16, an op-ed appeared in the Edmonton Journal written by Jacqueline P. Leighton, a professor of educational psychology and a registered psychologist at the University of Alberta, entitled “Children should have the right to choose the school that suits their needs”.  Leighton responded to an essay by Mr. Ray Martin that appeared in the newspaper on April 13 in which he expressed his strong opposition to any expansion of the province’s inclusion of independent schools within the public purse. 

Martin portrayed the request to expand educational choice for parents as “ultra-right bias.” According to Leighton, he described the independent schools as “often [catering] to higher-income parents” and a “burden [to] our public school system.”

Leighton responded succinctly and forcefully to these statements by Martin.

“Mr. Martin provides no data to support his claims. These claims are falsehoods or to use a more recent term — misinformation unless of course he can show us the data that undergird these statements. Interestingly, a study cited by the Fraser Institute indicates that families who choose to send their children to charter schools are very similar to those who choose not to.

Because government funding in Alberta largely follows the student, families of all income levels have the gift of choice in their child’s education. And, as far as access goes, enrolment decisions for charter schools must be consistent with the Alberta Human Rights Act as explicitly written in the 2021 Charter Schools Handbook published by Alberta Education.”

Leighton puts paid to the false notion that the families whose children attend independent schools are elitist. Moreover, as Cardus research has established, these very same families tend to be at least as involved, if not more, in volunteer, civic and communal life than families of children in the “public” school system.

But then, Leighton concludes her rebuttal of Martin’s impressionistic, evidence-less opinion with an eloquent observation touching the very heart of the debate concerning the importance of governments’ offering  – within the very real limits upon governmental ability to do so – the very best education that is possible to our children.

“Why would we not want to give children the most generous and appropriate choices and stepping stones in meeting their potential and their goals? After two years of unpredictable disruptions to children’s schooling, we need to accept that some children may need different support now more than ever, and families may wish different experiences for their children.

It surprises me that some would not wish parents to have full choice in deciding what is in the best interest of their children. I do not see schooling choice as an example of ultra-right bias. In fact, I see framing schooling choice as ultra-right bias, as ill-informed about what is in the best interest of children. Choice in schooling is a basic recognition that children have rights, and may have different needs. Far from an ultra-right political bias, offering diverse experiences and support are assets to human development and wellness.”

In addition to the substantive arguments that Leighton has raised, GAJE also maintains that allowing the families of one religion only to have choice regarding the education of their children is unfair and unjust to the families of other religions. In addition, and no less important, GAJE also maintains that the perpetuation of such discrimination diminishes Ontario. How can we truthfully say that Ontario is a haven where the protective canopy of respect for human rights is applied equally to all minorities. Alas, we cannot.  

•••

Leighton’s article is available at: https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-children-should-have-the-right-to-choose-the-school-that-suits-their-needs

•••

As readers of this weekly update know, GAJE has launched an application to try to bring fairness and equity to the Government of Ontario’s education funding. If you wish to contribute to the funding of GAJE’s lawsuit to achieve fairness and justice in education funding in Ontario, please click here.

For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com

Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.

•••

Shabbat shalom

Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE),

April 29, 2022