Public versus private schooling

JOHN R. WIENS

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.

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