On the Abolition of Separate Schools in Ontario

In an article published in my hometown newspaper, Michelle Zimic authored a piece which called for the abolition of the Separate School System in Ontario.  She gave various arguments, one of which was remarkable for the counterintuitive conclusion she reached.  Another was that the Catholic Church in Ontario would actually benefit from the loss of Separate Schools.  Others were rehearsals of old complaints.  The gist of her arguments can be discovered below.

Zimic was described as 'living in Hamilton.'  However, a search revealed that a Michelle Zimic was employed as a teacher of language in Barton Secondary School of the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board.  I strongly suspect the writer of the article is this teacher.  The obvious conflict of interest of a teacher from the public board calling for the abolition of the other system went unmentioned in the newspaper piece as published.  What Zimic the writer seeks to remedy is the poor performance of the public system, and thinks this can be achieve by putting money presently spent on Separate Schools into the public system.  Zimic the writer, in short, is criticizing the poor management of the public board and is offering a possible remedy.  That the public school trustees should be replaced at the next election does not occur to the writer as a possible remedy.



Vincent J. Curtis

10 Dec 2013 

In her article, Michelle Zimic rehearses the usual arguments for the deprivation of a religious minority in Ontario of rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Canada since 1867.  One would have thought that in this day and age of cultural sensitivity, when new rights are discovered such as gay rights and the right to gay marriage, the right not to not be bullied, and when even dubious treaty rights of natives are scrupulously respected, that a long standing black letter right of a minority would not be attacked.  However, it happened here.

 

What is remarkable in her piece is that Zimic posits the superior education afforded by the Separate School system as a reason for it to be abolished.  If true, then the majority are put at a disadvantage and this should not be permitted, or so she argues.

 

Actually, that is an argument that Ontario’s public school system should be placed in the care of the Catholic Church.  The bishops, by Zimic’s posit, produce superior results!

 

The more commonplace arguments for abolishing the Separate School system include that a government monopoly is better than a government duopoly, that it would be beneficial to the Catholic Church for Separate Schools to be abolished, and that the poorly managed public system would benefit from the extra money and that taxpayers would be relieved of the burden of carrying two school systems.

 

Whenever I hear the argument that one is better than two, I am reminded of the political slogan of Germany of the 1930’s: “ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!”   The advantage of two over one in this case is that Ms. Zimic would not even be aware of the allegedly poor performance of the public system but for something quite similar to compare it to.

 

To suggest that the Catholic Church would benefit by the abolition of Separate Schools is to betray complete ignorance not only of the Catholic Church’s history in education but also its mission in the world.  If Ontario were to abolish the Separate School system, tents would be set up on the grounds of Catholic Churches as schools to educate Catholic youth, and the bricks and mortar schools which presently house Catholic students would lie empty.  So much for the economic advantage of abolishing Separate Schools and the system by which they are managed.

 

If, as Ms Zimic proposes, the public system is badly managed then she should be working assiduously to replace the School Trustees that manage the public system, which in Hamilton is the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.  A fish rots from the head down, and the leadership of the public system is where she should be looking for solutions to mismanagement.

 

The advantage that the Separate Schools enjoy over the Public system is that the trustees of the Separate system are forever conscious that they, to some extent, live upon charity.  They do not presume that they have a proprietary right to the contents of the public purse.  If public trustees were held to greater account, then the mismanagement which Ms. Zimic sees in the public system might be abated.

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