Don’t cut funding for private schools

Re: “Province urged to stop funding private schools,” Feb. 24.

If I understand correctly, the 14 named organizations believe that private schools that only receive 70 per cent funding to educate a student are somehow hurting education.

That seems very hard to believe. The saved money gets plowed back into public education. When I look at these 14 salary-collecting, expense-account using organizations, I quickly see where this spending is going.

If these organizations really cared about education and about students, they would ask why parents are forced to turn to private schools. Children with learning disabilities get little more than an hour of extra teacher-assistant help in the public system, thus parents turn to alternatives in order to secure basic education for their kids.

These organizations clearly don’t consider the plight of these kids. Instead, they are focused on headlines aimed at supporting their own largesse. They should be asking why there is a need for private schools, instead of trying to shut them down. Darrin Hopkins, Calgary