Public versus private schooling

A Recent Maggie Macintosh piece (Enrolment up at alternative schools, Sept. 7) and several letters to the editor touted the benefits and values of private schooling. The executive director of the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools, Andrew Micklefield, emphasized schools of choice and governmental cost-saving. A private, formerly public, schoolteacher emphasized finances, academics and parental support.

None are wrong in their arguments, but they are missing the main reasons for the existence of public schools, which has less to do with money and academics than with inclusion and equality. Nor do they adequately acknowledge the downsides of exclusion and elitism fostered by some aspects of choice and inequality. The increase in numbers of private schools and their attendees is a cause for some public concern.

Micklefield’s assertion is that private schools save the government money. Letter-writer Paulo Borges intimates he saves the province $52,500 ($15,000 each for three home-schooled children and $7500 for one private-school tuition), further suggesting that the savings are not used wisely by governments in supporting public schools.

In the front-page article, Micklefield and others go further to suggest that the main reason parents choose private schools is to receive an education in a Christian setting. That is a very limited rationale and certainly does not include the much larger variety of reasons why people choose private schooling or an even more restricted version of schools of choice, home schooling.

Other religious groups also support private schooling, and private schools also promote their success in team sports, while others claim their academic superiority. The latter is particularly true of the most elite and most expensive private schools in Manitoba.

Some immigrant groups arrive in Canada with an aversion to public schools, which in their origin countries were hobbled by underfunding, low academic standards and poor reputations, leading them to favour private school.

However, I would suggest that, in many instances, there are less noble reasons for schools of choice in general and certain private schools in particular. Churches, synagogues and mosques support private schools in the hope that they will generate new leadership and maintain memberships. Families, and groups of families, fear that public schools will challenge and undermine some of their values, beliefs and mores (including their bigotry, sexism, and xenophobia) through inclusion and comprehensive curricula. Some simply don’t want their children to mix with, or be exposed to, those who think differently. All emphasize private, personal good over public good.

That is not to suggest that the people who choose the private option have evil intentions, nor that their choices necessarily harm others generally. No one could argue that the children schooled in these systems will turn out to be bad. The harm lies more in the underlying private and personal perspectives and values overriding and denigrating public engagement and well-being.

Private choice helps legitimize some of the most disturbing and detrimental aspects of the current political scene, and private schooling can serve to strengthen those sentiments. I would suggest that we can attribute some of the growing levels of entitlement, self-righteousness, intolerance and civil disobedience to an attitude that prioritizes personal choice over public empathy and human solidarity.

The U.S. is the origin of Canadian so-called freedom of choice, taking root in Reaganism. Recently, the right to refuse vaccinations has led to a resurgence of diseases that had virtually been wiped out and, in the case of COVID in the U.S., resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths. The persecution of minorities, immigrants and the gender diverse in the name of religious rights is running rampant in the U.S., as is the attack on women’s freedoms.

On a collective level, a variation of personal choice, as selfishness, entitlement and arrogance known as MAGA has promoted insurrection, cut international aid causing widespread hunger and growing numbers of refugees, weakened international co-operation while re-awakening old grievances, and started never-ending wars.

Considering these developments, freedom of choice undermines democracy and the main reason public schools were created in the first place.

Ancient Greeks recognized that democracies were the one form of government that required common education of the young so as to create a sense that we are all in this together, that everyone needs to have a meaningful place and role and to be valued equally. Since people are not born democratic, they need to learn in the presence of, and along with others, the aptitudes, skills and attitudes required to live together respectfully.

Food for serious thought?

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.