Re: Education dollars should be spent on public schools, Letters, Feb 21.
For all my adult years the BCTF has complained that public dollars finance independent schools, when in fact the reverse is true. The BCTF prefers to use the term ‘private school’ thus controlling the language but never mind language, let’s do math. Two students receive the same provincially approved education. One is a public school student, the other an independent school student. The public school student costs taxpayers $8,000 per year, while the independent school student costs taxpayers just $4,000 with the balance paid by parents or grandparents. If that 50 per cent rate of taxpayer funding is removed and re-directed to public schools, two things happen. We remove education choice from parents, while the public cost of an equally educated student will double.
The BCTF has always opposed educational choice and demanded control over what is arguably society’s most important institution. A one-model system would stymie innovation and competition and eliminate any ability to compare results between public and independent schools.
Who benefits by eliminating opportunity to make our own choice?
Randy O’DonnellNanaimo
