That's a grim trend given the financial difficulties facing many of the larger public boards. Self inflicted, to some degree...but regardless, many of these problems are structural and deeply entrenched. Disembiggening their resource and real estate footprints to reflect shrinking enrolments will be a hideous process. Commence the shrieking of "won't somebody think of the children?"
That people are fleeing to alternatives (private and homeschooling) doesn't shock me at all. During my daughters' time in elementary and high school (they're now 18 and 22), it was clear the ship was beginning to list heavily. Between the hyper politicization of the curriculum and the disinterested and mediocre delivery of said curriculum (some teachers were amazing, most were not), the quality of the product left much to be desired. COVID threw gas on the fire and accelerated the rot. My 18 year-old is now a freshman at Queens, supposedly one of Canada's better post secondary institutions, and she's remarked that many of her classmates are barely literate and numerate. Many have never read entire books, or are flummoxed by basic "X+3=5" level algebra.
Just Queens? I've seen reports that Harvard now offers "relaxed requirements" due to underprepared students, along with remedial math courses for freshmen.
Good conversation to have. I would be interested to dig in to numbers more. How much is being spent on private school tuition in Canada? What is the availability of "reasonably" priced private schools? We sent our youngest to an expensive private school for grade 7 and 8 because the public school wasn't providing a good experience and it was really excellent education but no way we could afford it for more than 2 years.
Will we see more and more private school options become available to serve the demand? What is the cost in the private sector of running a good school? How does it jive with the per-student expenditure in Ontario? Would love to hear more on this topic.
Those are fascinating questions. The cost-per-student numbers will vary a lot depending on what kind of school we're talking about. Many religious schools, for example, are run as community institutions and offer subsidies. And some provinces offer tax credits that can help offset tuition expenses.
I see from Statistics Canada (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3710006601) that the total 2022-23 spending on private elementary and secondary school expenditures was around $4.3 billion. But that number doesn't tell us much, since it lumps together for-profit schools catering to international students with non-profit religious schools - and everything in between.
For schools that are registered as charities, calculating the cost-per-student isn't all that difficult - although it would be a challenge to gather data for enough schools to draw statistical conclusions. That's something I may look into a bit more when I have more time.
My guess is that, in the absence of changing government funding policies, we won't be seeing too many new affordable private schools. But, from personal experience, I can tell you that building a community-based private school is possible. Perhaps some of those micro-schools from the COVID years might contain the germ of a working model.
I write this while sitting in a car waiting for my grandson to finish school for the day. Private school. He attends because he has some learning disabilities. Next year one of my granddaughters is likely to attend this same school for the same reason.
In both cases, these cousins are very bright kids but have troubles learning certain things. This year (and last) my involvement is transportation. Next year my involvement will be transportation and financial help.
The absolute fact is that our public system is failing my grandchildren and my wife and I and our adult children are at some considerable cost and inconvenience finding alternatives to that public system.
The financial cost is a REAL burden but we will beggar ourselves to help them. We have heard that "Canada is broken" and we are living with the consequences.
I feel your pain. None of my kids or grandkids ever attended a public school, and I can assure you that those were far, far from fancy, for-profit institutions.
From what I'm hearing informally, there are still some largely functional public schools out there - and some great teachers - but, in hindsight, giving them a structural monopoly wasn't a brilliant idea.
My sense is that the public system is under the control of teachers associations(unions?) and as such is more interested in disseminating ideologies rather than educating students and providing them with the fundamentals to learn. All that means is that a disgusted user of the system who harbours hopes for their child has to seek out alternatives such as those provided by charter schools, private schools and home education. A potential solution may be in issuing vouchers to parents which can then be applied against the costs at whatever form of educational institution they choose for their child. Our public system has unfortunately become a quagmire as evidenced by many of the whacko types infesting public school boards.
Teachers have been after smaller class sizes for years.
Be careful what you wish for. It might come true.
That's a grim trend given the financial difficulties facing many of the larger public boards. Self inflicted, to some degree...but regardless, many of these problems are structural and deeply entrenched. Disembiggening their resource and real estate footprints to reflect shrinking enrolments will be a hideous process. Commence the shrieking of "won't somebody think of the children?"
That people are fleeing to alternatives (private and homeschooling) doesn't shock me at all. During my daughters' time in elementary and high school (they're now 18 and 22), it was clear the ship was beginning to list heavily. Between the hyper politicization of the curriculum and the disinterested and mediocre delivery of said curriculum (some teachers were amazing, most were not), the quality of the product left much to be desired. COVID threw gas on the fire and accelerated the rot. My 18 year-old is now a freshman at Queens, supposedly one of Canada's better post secondary institutions, and she's remarked that many of her classmates are barely literate and numerate. Many have never read entire books, or are flummoxed by basic "X+3=5" level algebra.
Just Queens? I've seen reports that Harvard now offers "relaxed requirements" due to underprepared students, along with remedial math courses for freshmen.
It's everywhere. My other daughter graduated from St FX in May and admitted that some of her peers had unquestionably never read a whole book.
Good conversation to have. I would be interested to dig in to numbers more. How much is being spent on private school tuition in Canada? What is the availability of "reasonably" priced private schools? We sent our youngest to an expensive private school for grade 7 and 8 because the public school wasn't providing a good experience and it was really excellent education but no way we could afford it for more than 2 years.
Will we see more and more private school options become available to serve the demand? What is the cost in the private sector of running a good school? How does it jive with the per-student expenditure in Ontario? Would love to hear more on this topic.
Those are fascinating questions. The cost-per-student numbers will vary a lot depending on what kind of school we're talking about. Many religious schools, for example, are run as community institutions and offer subsidies. And some provinces offer tax credits that can help offset tuition expenses.
I see from Statistics Canada (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3710006601) that the total 2022-23 spending on private elementary and secondary school expenditures was around $4.3 billion. But that number doesn't tell us much, since it lumps together for-profit schools catering to international students with non-profit religious schools - and everything in between.
For schools that are registered as charities, calculating the cost-per-student isn't all that difficult - although it would be a challenge to gather data for enough schools to draw statistical conclusions. That's something I may look into a bit more when I have more time.
It looks like there's a useful resource covering tuition costs for hundreds of Canadian private schools here: https://www.ourkids.net/private-schools-tuition-costs.php
My guess is that, in the absence of changing government funding policies, we won't be seeing too many new affordable private schools. But, from personal experience, I can tell you that building a community-based private school is possible. Perhaps some of those micro-schools from the COVID years might contain the germ of a working model.
Thanks. I like what you're doing with Substack! I love digging into data, I'll look forward to reading your posts.
I write this while sitting in a car waiting for my grandson to finish school for the day. Private school. He attends because he has some learning disabilities. Next year one of my granddaughters is likely to attend this same school for the same reason.
In both cases, these cousins are very bright kids but have troubles learning certain things. This year (and last) my involvement is transportation. Next year my involvement will be transportation and financial help.
The absolute fact is that our public system is failing my grandchildren and my wife and I and our adult children are at some considerable cost and inconvenience finding alternatives to that public system.
The financial cost is a REAL burden but we will beggar ourselves to help them. We have heard that "Canada is broken" and we are living with the consequences.
I feel your pain. None of my kids or grandkids ever attended a public school, and I can assure you that those were far, far from fancy, for-profit institutions.
From what I'm hearing informally, there are still some largely functional public schools out there - and some great teachers - but, in hindsight, giving them a structural monopoly wasn't a brilliant idea.
My sense is that the public system is under the control of teachers associations(unions?) and as such is more interested in disseminating ideologies rather than educating students and providing them with the fundamentals to learn. All that means is that a disgusted user of the system who harbours hopes for their child has to seek out alternatives such as those provided by charter schools, private schools and home education. A potential solution may be in issuing vouchers to parents which can then be applied against the costs at whatever form of educational institution they choose for their child. Our public system has unfortunately become a quagmire as evidenced by many of the whacko types infesting public school boards.