Thread by @According2Luke

@PennyCameron7 Yes.
Three provinces in Canada still have Catholic Separate schools. Ont, Sask & AB.
AB & Sask have them as part of the deal that brought us into Confederation in 1905. Although there are other older pieces of legislation that also have an impact on this issue (EG the BNA 1867) >

@PennyCameron7 > The idea was to protect Catholicism as Canada expanded west into more Protestant majority territory. This has clearly been achieved as the % of Catholic in AB & Sask has increased significantly to around 25%+
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@PennyCameron7 > Interestingly the reason we have Separate Catholic schools - Quebec - actually got rid of their separate schools at the end of the last century. And yet we are still stuck with ours.
The purpose of protecting Catholicism has been met. And our partner has ended their agreement >

@PennyCameron7 > For the last dozen years a court case called Theodore has been making it's way through the courts in Sask. The premise being that Catholic schools harm Public schools (& deny Charter rights) by taking public funding for non-Catholic students.
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@PennyCameron7 > First QoQB found in favor of the Public schools. Separate schools were intended to be "separate". But Con Xtian Sask premier Brad Wall invoked the NotWithStanding clause. It was just heard at Appeals - expect verdict in approx 6 mnths.
It will then likely go to SCC for 4 yrs.
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@PennyCameron7 > Here in AB lots of people think that Catholics pay for Catholic schools, especially through directed property taxes. This isn't even close to true.
Firstly, the way school get their funding changed in the 90's & directed property taxes have made single dollar difference since >

@PennyCameron7 > Simply, the money follows the child.
But Catholic districts play a special funding admin game to keep the question on everybody's property tax forms, to create the *illusion* that they are paying & it makes a difference. It doesn't. It just costs everyone EXTRA time & money >

@PennyCameron7 > REALITY is amount prop tax actually directed by Catholics in Alberta the average is less than $1500 per student per year. The av per Public student is over $4000 a year. With 170,000 students in Catholic schools thats a $425,000,000 yr shortfall that the general public pays! >

@PennyCameron7 > That's before we throw in another billion yr from general funds. And used for what? Sure, education. But also MILLIONS a year to pay for Chaplains. Hundreds of thousands for religious degrees. Hundreds of thousands for religious celebrations.
YOUR Education tax dollars - OK? >

@PennyCameron7 > In fully publicly funded schools that turn away children who's parents are wrong faith. That discriminate in hiring or promoting LGBTQ teachers. That discriminate against LGBTQ students. And teach outdated & harmful ideology in place of evidence based sexual health. >

@PennyCameron7 > It is argued that Catholic Separate schools create "choice" - which is factual correct to some degree in that most people can choose between two things. But the reality is that it actually costs everybody choice (unless Catholic education was specifically what you wanted...) >

@PennyCameron7 > In rural Alberta it means many schools don't have enough students to even create programs, because they re split between small schools. So no science, art, band - even enough players for sports teams.
LESS CHOICE.
But what it does means for many is, if you don't want religion >

@PennyCameron7 > Having to leave town for school. Leave your friends. Longer bus rides to & from schools (& rural bus rides for students are already LONG).
It means in urban enviros where neighborhoods cycle we constantly have two half full brand new schools built right NEXT DOOR to each other>

@PennyCameron7 > As someone once said, "The students of Red Deer could have had a world class engineering lab. Instead they have two average ones 50m apart." It also means new schools have smaller sportsfields. And heck -the Catholics almost always refuse to share. >

@PennyCameron7 > They won't share building, won't share libraries, gyms, labs - it's even a struggle to get them to share busses. This is the official stance of ACSTA - they refuse to share. And they still expect US to pay.
It hurts the other end of the cycle too, when neighborhoods mature. >

@PennyCameron7 > We end up with two old buildings with high maintenance costs, that are really energy inefficient, used really inefficiently left half empty - because we can't close one & have all the local kids go to the SAME school. So we close them & bus them out of their communities! >

@PennyCameron7 > I understand if you grew up in Alberta this all might seem normal. But it's actually quite bonkers. The answer to the question "How do we run our education systems?" is "Well, we run two fully publicly funded systems. One is for Catholics, and one is for everybody else." >

@PennyCameron7 > That's completely mad! We run one system to exclusively privilege one religion over & above all others with public tax dollars? That literally goes AGAINST the Canadian Chart (with the *special exemption). It even fails the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights >

@PennyCameron7 > Why? Because it is fundamentally wrong. Where else would you do this? What if we built roads & bridges that only Catholics could drive over? See how mad that is? Or hospitals? What if we built hospitals that had Catholic rules for everyone?
Ahh. Well that's awkward. Anyway >

@PennyCameron7 > The point is, why are we running a duplicate, non-cooperative education system that costs us hundreds of millions a year in inefficiencies, is used to discriminate against people & children, vulnerable groups & other religious minorities? >

@PennyCameron7 > Is used to do the Catholic churches work for them in both indoctrinating children & proselytize to & ensnare their families (Not my words, those are literally *their* mission statements.) To teach kids faith myths as literally true often over evidence based education. >

@PennyCameron7 > And what really gets me in all this is the REAL cost is yet to be borne.
Change is happening so fast right now - most people simply do not understand how fast it is coming. We have kids already in our education sys & we can't even IMAGINE what jobs they may do when they leave >

@PennyCameron7 > We don't know what micro or macro economies may look like. What the job & skills market will look like. Whether it's a future of piecemeal & contract work or long-term capitalist indentured servitude! The point is our education system needs to be ready for the future >

@PennyCameron7 > and a large part of that readiness doesn't come from being technologically ready, but being prepared to manage change. To be nimble. But it isn't. And a large part of the reason it isn't is because we are stuck in this fucking boat-anchor of a power struggle, whereby one group>

@PennyCameron7 > that has inherited an old, unfair & out-dated privilege want to hold on to it.
And so here we are. Arguing about the last hundred years, when we should be planning for the next one hundred. >

@PennyCameron7 > and that's why I think it's important that we have the conversation. If we were to reinvent Alberta's education system from the ground up today - what would that look like?
What would the absolutely best system that would enable our educators, empower our children >

@PennyCameron7 > and give those that design our communities & spend our infrastructure tax dollars the best opportunity to plan for cycles & multi-use facilities.
And if we did design absolutely the best education system to move forward with - why wouldn't we then do it? >

@PennyCameron7 Why is the future of education, the future of our children & the future of our economy here in Alberta so dependent on maintaining the privilege of one group because of the outcome of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1763?
It's completely & totally mad. >

@PennyCameron7 > and so I invite you - religious or not - to join us for a conversation about some of the challenges we face because of religion in our education system, and what would the absolutely best education system look like moving forward.
Thank You / fin
Here > facebook.com/groups/APUPIL/