It’s pay-back time for our school system
Quebec families can soon expect a $100 cheque in the mail for every school-age child in their household.
The money is intended to help defray the cost of school supplies. And in the coming months, Quebecers can expect two cheques per student: one to cover the costs from this past September; and another for the coming school year. Many families will no doubt welcome this windfall, which comes as part of a much larger tax relief Finance Minister Carlos Leitão announced this week, after two years of belt tightening in public finances and an economic renaissance that has helped fill government coffers to brimming.
Who doesn’t want a hundred bucks? But when it comes to educating our children, is handing out $100 the best use of public money for this crucial collective priority? And will cutting cheques to parents maximize the potential of Quebec’s public school system at a time when the government is investing again?
The education system in Quebec — and in Montreal, in particular — is facing severe challenges: from crumbling schools to not enough schools in certain areas; from integrating a high number of special needs students to a sudden influx of unexpected refugees over the summer; from a shortage of support workers and specialists to assist teachers in the classroom to competition from subsidized private schools.
The needs are great. But in recent years, difficult conditions were exacerbated by the squeeze the government put on the education system to achieve cost-savings. Limiting cost increases year after year, in spite of inflationary pressures, might not meet the classic definition of austerity measures. But this effort took a terrible toll on public schools.
The government did the same to health care in clamping down on the pace of rising costs. But it also imposed structural reforms — for better or for worse — to eliminate certain expenditures within the system. In education, there has been no accompanying structural reform. The costs just had to be absorbed, which resulted in tough choices like classroom support workers being let go, schools unable to replenish their libraries with new books and cuts to after-class programs like help with homework.
Now that the government is reinvesting in the system again, the result has been whiplash. From cuts to speech pathologists and support workers for special needs students one year, to a hiring spree that pitted schools and boards against each other to recruit new staff the next, the system was destabilized.
Some 70 classes in the Commission scolaire de Montréal had no permanent teacher in place in September because of the swiftness of the hiring drive and the a lack of professionals to fill it. On top of this, the province is rolling out more pre-kindergarten classes for four-year-olds, which also requires more teachers.
The Liberals announced this week that besides the $100 cheques, they will also fund the hiring of 500 more specialists in schools for the 2018 school year. Hopefully this much notice will allow time to properly recruit. After all, a positive learning experience starts with teachers who are motivated and supported in their work.
Besides personnel, the education system — in Montreal especially — is in dire need of funding for infrastructure. Old buildings, many of them with heritage value, are filled with asbestos or mould. Many require urgent repairs, but there is often nowhere decent to send the children during the years of renovations. On top of that, new schools have to be built, especially for hundreds of children downtown Montreal who are bused out of their neighbourhood.
Tackling all the issues facing the future education is a complex and daunting task. It’s much easier to hand cash back to parents to cover the costs of schools supplies.
It’s good overall that the Liberals have realized (even belatedly) the importance of education in a modern, progressive and economically competitive society. Their previous reductions were short-sighted.
But in a Quebec flush with cash, it would be nice to think we could do more now than simply put out fires and solve crises. We have the means to transform education to better serve our youth and meet the challenges of tomorrow.
Quebecers pay among the highest taxes in North America and people often grumble about the cut of their pay that never makes it in to their wallets. It’s not that we’re not grateful for a rebate. But we also value the public services our tax dollars fund — especially education and health care. And the money we get back cannot buy the quality programs that got sacrificed.
When it comes to the schooling of our children, and that of future generations, we know that a dollar invested collectively will go much further than $100 back in our pockets, nice though a tax break may be.