Is the glass half full or half empty?

It’s half full because finally people in government are starting to notice that people are having less children.

It’s half empty because as usual, they don’t want to look at the real root causes of this phenomenon. They just throw their hands up in the air, and say, “What do you expect me to do about it?”

Of course our helpful socialists at the BCTF have a great idea: have the government blow our money keeping empty schools open. After all, we don’t really need our tax burden lowered… nah. What we need are ghost schools, so parents don’t cry.

B.C. Teachers Federation vice-president Susan Lambert called the closure of schools “unconscionable” during the current economic boom.

“The province has a $3.2-billion surplus,” she said. “Every time a school is closed, it is traumatic for parents.”

Frankly, I already cry every time I pay 7% extra on everything in PST. And every time my take-home pay from work is half of what I’ve actually earned. I’d like to spend more money on my kids, making their childhood more enjoyable and have to work less so I can spend more time with them, but empty schools I suppose will make it all better.

But the story in focus here is on public school enrolment, so forgive me for the aside. What I found particularly interesting was viewing the plummeting enrolment in light of such silliness as allowing two unaccountable gay men to rewrite the BC public school curriculum to give 6 year olds “gay heroes” to learn about.

Every niche group in this country doesn’t need to be catered to in a public school. I think the schools can focus on and teach inclusive heroes - what I mean by that are heroes for everyone, not just for this special interest group or that one. Believe me, there’s lots out there. People anyone can admire, for noble, universal ideals that need to be reinforced desperately, given the way kids are going today. People who respect others. People who are honest. People who sacrifice themselves for others. They have existed in the past - there are precious few of them celebrated today.

But beyond that, what also strikes me is that while this demographic collapse is going on, independent schools are growing. In fact, according to BC government statistics, since 2002 public school enrolment has been declining by 1% per year. During the same time independent schools have grown by 1.5% per year. Now, the shortfall in public schools is nowhere near made up for by the increase in independent schools. The decline is mostly demographic, and real. But the increase in independent schools? Not only are they growing faster than the the decline in public schools, but they are also adding so quickly as to make up for the demographic decline.

I argue that the public schools were already failing our children, even before the government started allowing unaccountable gay men to run their own social science experiments with 600 thousand of our children. People are increasingly aware of it, and as a result are taking money out of their own pockets in increasing numbers every year to pay for private education that actually educates our children, as opposed to the current “appease everyone, educate no-one” approach of the public system.

I wonder, if the government ever tied school funding to the student, how quickly the public school system would simply disappear as parents no longer held hostage by thousands of dollars in private school tuition, finally get the opportunity to choose who is capable of educating their children in the most effective, efficient manner possible?