Special Education and the Private/Public debate

We recently had a lively but respectful discussion on our email network on the public/private education debate as it relates to special education in particular, with a wide range of views.  Here are my thoughts. Please add  further comments covering anything I've missed, or let me know if we have permission to post your earlier comments shared via email:

Catching up on a very interesting debate...

To answer the original question about private/independent education (the distinction being really just branding because independent schools are becoming less so as they accept more govt funding and consider unionization, etc), I think we need to consider what is the whole point of having public schools in the first place.

If our forefathers thought the most important features of education were choice, flexibility and competition, they'd have chosen the competitive, elitist British model, as the US did. They didn't. They very consciously chose a different way - one that was intended to give each Canadian child an equal opportunity to achieve their unique individual potential, regardless of the circumstances of birth.

Ryerson's vision

In Upper and Lower Canada, where this started as essentially a public Protestant school system, the power of the Catholic Church assured them of control over the souls of their own parishioners' children - so Catholic boards also got government funding (and in most provinces are still the only other schools that do get tax dollars). Children with special needs were not considered capable of being educated so they were left out. Other than that, all Canadians went to school in a free, universal system that offered a level playing field - giving every child an equitable (not equal) opportunity to succeed in life.

So for generations, Canadian children have been able to get a free and inclusive education together at their local comprehensive school, assured that they were getting essentially the same access, regardless of whether their parents were wealthy or dirt poor, or what neighbourhood they lived in, and with the only choice being between Protestant or Catholic public schools, in provinces where the Catholics had enough influence to secure funding. The super wealthy were always free to pay for their own private schools if they wanted to, but very few did so.

It's a system that served Canada remarkably well for generations, creating a highly productive economy, cohesive communities and a highly stable society with very few pockets of real poverty, making us the envy of the world (except First Nations, who had the whole residential school nightmare imposed on them, and kids with invisible disabilities, who were ignored and encouraged to quit early).

Today, most children in BC can still attend some of the world's top schools for free, and receive a wider array of choices in education, all fully funded by the state, than ever before. There is no question our public education system has produced a more fair, successful and informed society than most.

Inclusion - in theory

Several decades ago, growing awareness of human rights prompted the realization that even children with profound disabilities should have the same rights, and the move to inclusion began - at least in theory.

What we face today is a move to inclusion that was never funded - just as community living was never funded - because they both occured at a point in history where Canadians, like everyone else, came to widely believe in the ideology of deregulation, smaller government and tax cuts as the way to stimulate a rising tide of prosperity that would supposedly lift us all ever higher. Today the BC government provides less than half of what it costs for schools - public or independent - to provide the additional services that children with special needs require (and that gap is one that has grown enormously in just 10 years). Public schools can't charge fees so they can't make up the shortfalls.

Most local boards have heavily subsidized special ed in the public schools to try to mitigate this shortfall. All together, they spend about $300 million more a year on special ed than the province provides in special ed grants. But with growing structural budget deficits since the late 1990s, those subsidies have been stretched increasingly thin. This year, even districts like Richmond are warning they can no longer afford inclusion.

Accountability gap

This slide has been hastened because the provincial accountability framework has an enormous (and growing) gap with respect to serving children with special needs. The Ministry no longer tracks outcomes for many children with special needs; it no longer monitors inputs either. Bill 33 selectively protects mainstream services at the expense of things like special ed. And the Ministry provides no effective appeal or complaints mechanism to allow parents to hold local boards, schools or teachers accountable. So service levels inevitably continue to slide.

And it is not just the public schools that are failing our kids. Many independent schools won't even accept them. Many religious schools are guilty of the same failures that we see in the public schools, or worse. This failure is not unique to union vs non-union, religious vs secular or public vs private. The common factor is the overlap of the funding/cost gap and the accountability gap.

Pockets of success remain in public schools and many children continue to survive or even to thrive (mine being one example). But there is no question that our public schools are increasingly failing children with special needs (and all the other vulnerable children who require extra attention). Those who can afford to are turning to private rescue schools or tutoring services. While this may be a good solution in communities like the North Shore or Vancouver, where there are lots of private options and lots of people who can afford them, it is a solution that leaves most British Columbian children with special needs out in the cold. In other words - it's a solution that directly contradicts the original mandate of public education.

Privatize private schools?

So why are people suddenly pointing fingers at independent schools? Since 2001, the BC Liberals have been quietly but gradually increasing funding levels for independent schools, even as they have failed to fully fund a series of new funding pressures on the public schools. BC's Catholic schools had complained for years because they got very little funding compared to those in Ontario, for example. They joined forces with other private schools, rebranded themselves as independent schools and lobbied very effectively based on the (largely unproven) claim that more funding for their schools would help keep down overall education costs.

Most British Columbians had no idea their tax dollars had been subsidizing private and religious schools for decades - so many have been surprised by recent news stories revealing this. Most provinces don't fund private schools like BC does, apart from the Catholic boards. And polls consistently show that most Canadians don't support public funding of private/independent or religious schools, which is why the BC government hasn't advertised this funding shift.

Private, religious and independent schools always have been and always will be there - that's not the pivotal point in question. And how much funding they should or should not receive is a difficult question that society will always wrestle with, although the prevailing societal view is clearly that the pendulum has swung too far.

Two-tiered access

But neither of these are the key question that we should be asking, IMHO. The key question is why are children with special needs being forced to pay privately to get the education to which they are entitled? Why is BC creating a 2-tier system for one "class" of students by denying them full access to a public education? I'm no lawyer, but if children with special needs as a category are disproportionately being denied access to appropriate educational services in BC's public system (and most of us would anecdotally agree that's what's happening), I think we have the makings of a massive discrimination suit against the government if families ever decided to pursue that.

This brings us to the final question of whether it's realistic to think that government can afford special education - a question that genuinely troubles many, even those who are parents of kids with special needs. I don't think we will ever afford the kind of system that will make everyone 100% happy (and as one commenter noted, a reasonable degree of challenge is a healthy part of the whole experience of growing up).

But when we look at the obscene amounts of public dollars spent on other "priorities" there is no question that special education is affordable - especially when we look at the longer terms costs of failing to do so.

Impossible dream?

And in the current context, it is fair to ask whether, instead of investing more in private solutions that will only ever benefit a few, and that will always be inherently inequitable, we are not better off focussing our energies on forcing government to invest in rebuilding the universal system and implementing a full accountability framework that will ensure that every child, regardless of need, has access to a fully-funded public education that meets their individual needs. And one with functional appeal/complaints systems that empower parents to resolve legitimate failures (bullying, denial of service, lack of appropriate expertise etc)

That is only an impossible dream if we give up and turn our backs on public education. Thankfully the original founders of Canada's public system had more vision and confidence than that (because they certainly didn't have more money or clout than we do!) and I see absolutely no reason why we should settle today for anything less.