The time for education choice is now

To break the monopoly of teachers’ unions, parents must be allowed to allocate their education dollars

The time has come for a serious look at the structure of education in Ontario.

Today’s system continues to hold students and families hostage as the provincial government and several unions battle for position and how to spend limited dollars. There is an alternative that returns more control to parents and families and has the strong potential to enhance performance overall and actually operate for less money

Whether one considered Friday’s threatened job action by Ontario’s public elementary teachers to have been “political action” or, as the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled late Thursday, an illegal strike, is probably irrelevant. By Saturday, the government is one day closer to an election and the unions have once again had the opportunity to diminish their standing in the minds of many taxpayers by demonstrating their monopoly over much of the education system in Ontario.

What the past six months have shown is that it is always students, parents and families that have to pay the price for failed negotiations, poor government policy and union intransigence. The reason for this is the effective monopoly that teachers’ unions hold on the system in Ontario.

This need not be the case. Alternatives exist and have proven successful in many other areas.

Giving parents and families options of how the education dollars spent on their children will be allocated will remove them as hostages of the existing system.

There is already a specific and defined amount of money allocated for each student in Ontario. Why not allow parents to choose which school the funds for their children will go to?

Whether it be public, Catholic or private, allowing parents to designate their school of choice will free the entire system from the monopoly that the teachers’ unions now hold. Of course this is also the reason why unions will be the strongest opponents of any form of school choice; just watch the clamour that will emanate from this and similar writings.

In today’s environment, most parents cannot even determine which school within their own area their children can attend. Let’s start by opening up these boundaries and then take the next step of allowing parents and families to fully allocate their education dollars to the school and system of their choosing. What really stands in the way of allowing parents to choose other than the existing monopoly that is both outdated and unnecessary?

There are other issues that have to be addressed when looking at how to effectively implement school choice in whatever form it takes. What is most important is how these are approached.

Many bureaucrats, trustees and certainly the unions will make these issues appear as insurmountable obstacles. Why not take a different approach and look at these issues as simply that — issues that need to be addressed, evaluated, discussed and resolved.

If we adopt an open-minded attitude, each and every one of these issues has a solution, many simpler than one might think. Let’s not allow the rhetoric of those opposed to any form of school choice to stand in the way.

In other jurisdictions, school choice has helped to boast good and excellent schools, enhance the performance of poor schools and allocate tax dollars in a more efficient manner. That underscores the need for some form of school choice in Ontario.

This is an idea whose time has come. The time is now but is there the will and political leadership to do what would be so beneficial for Ontario taxpayers, students and families?

Will the Ontario Liberals or Conservatives have the will and fortitude to do what is necessary to remove students and families as hostages of the current system? Let’s hope that the next election will hold the answer. Bob Van de Vrande, MBA, B.Comm., B.Ed., is a former trustee and chair of the Halton Catholic District School Board. He lives in Burlington.

The government is one day closer to an election and the unions have once again had the opportunity to diminish their standing in the minds of many taxpayers.