They are now failing to provide children, their parents or taxpayers with enough value to justify their existence.While the Choice of Schools Act allows parents to send their children to any public school in the province, it does not allow them the same option for private and religious schools.
The reduction in real spending per student between 1990 and 1994 amounted to a pittance compared to the increases of the previous 30 years, less than 2½%. In other words, for each pupil Hanover required just over two-thirds of the money budgeted by Winnipeg #1, while Garden Valley and Brandon will spend less than 73% of that amount.Most school divisions will spend only 60% of their budgets on regular instruction.
The largest and most expensive division, Winnipeg #1, which has a budget of $224 million, collects very high municipal property taxes. It has also announced plans to consolidate provincial authority by directly appointing school administrators, functionaries previously hired by school boards.34 In addition, however, Alberta at the same time established another mechanism to ensure accountability, namely a wide-ranging policy of school choice.
It has often been argued, particularly by the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, that the provincial government has been neglecting education funding because it has allowed its share of education funding to decline from a high of 80% of total costs in the 1980’s to about 60% at present.
New Brunswick’s school-parent councils seem merely a gesture to retain a modicum of local input after the abolishment of school boards. The new city, one government from Etobicoke Creek to the Rouge River, Steeles Ave. to the lake, became law Jan. 1, 1998. They would also have the ability to set their own priorities and the flexibility to innovate and meet specialized needs.
Good boards also focus on teaching and learning, actively monitor student progress and regularly solicit parental participation.”16In his most recent book on school finance, Stephen Lawton observes: “Recent studies have come to question the wisdom of this century’s waves of consolidations that were based on an assumed link between program breadth and academic effectiveness.
Some wounds are only now healing, 10 years later.
. To do so would almost certainly reduce their effectiveness as measured by student achievement and increase their per-pupil costs.”19An American educator and critic of centralized educational structures put it most colourfully: “Most school boards are like mushrooms.
. Most of the remainder is made up through property taxes collected under the mandate of school boards.2 To maintain funding at a constant level, or to increase it, school boards have been forced either to raise property taxes or cut programs and staff. Until 1997, Manitoba required students to attend a school in the division in which they resided even if neighbouring divisions had schools closer to them. By 1966 the recommended school divisions had been created. The key players in the system—the trustees and administrators, the principals and the teachers—all had to keep their ears to the ground, the former to an electorate who pays for schools and the latter to the students and parents who use them. The additional outlay, about $375 million, might be offset by increased economies and performance improvements throughout Manitoba’s $6 billion budget and debt service cost reductions from asset divestures. In the spring of 1998, two urban divisions, Norwood and St. Boniface, finalized their plans to amalgamate,6 and, according to the Minister of Education’s office, discussions are in progress between some of the smaller, rural divisions which could result in further amalgamations. In Manitoba, schools have two basic sources of funding.
The DPAC’s have a significant amount of power and are able to veto the hiring of principals and teachers. A simple, per-student grant can also be adjusted to account for differences in local costs or individual circumstances.Independent schools would make their own decisions about budgets, whether for regular instruction, administration, transportation, operations and maintenance or staffing. Now 10 divisions controlled by elected boards have that authority.46Until the Manitoba government implemented the Choice of Schools Act in 1997, parents were required to send their children to the public school in the catchment area within their resident division. Mr Mario Sergio (Yorkview): For the House and for the benefit of the Premier, let me read from a letter I received from a seven-year-old student in my area, in the neighbourhood of the Venerable John Merlini Catholic School, which is one … They have a strong interest in maintaining the wage and benefit gains they have achieved over the last generation.
Under the current system, there is not much that parents can do to change these practices.Finally, parents have little influence over the financial policies of school divisions. Old Toronto is an administrative district and the retronym of the area within the original city limits of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from 1834 to 1998.It was first incorporated as a city in 1834, after being known as the town of York, and became part of York County.