Privileged Status

Reva Landau, who was denied standing to appeal to the Ontario Court to “reduce Catholic school funding to the same formula used in 1867,” has published Privileged Status: Public Funding – The Surprising History of Ontario Catholic Separate Schools. In an email, Landau says,

I wanted to make sure all the information I had gathered was not lost.  I wanted it to be available to public school trustees, teachers unable to get full-time work in the public school system, and anyone who wants Ontario to stop spending 1 to 2 billion dollars a year funding a sectarian school system. I even included charts which showed separate schools between 1864 and 1867 received only 61% to 71% of the funding per student as public schools (unlike today where they receive the same or more)!

The back cover of Privileged Status provides a concise summary:

There are two great myths about Ontario Catholic separate schools:

♦ One is that prior to Confederation Ontario Catholic separate schools had been promised equal funding and in fact were receiving per pupil funding on the same basis as public schools.

♦ The second is that Catholic separate schools are paid for by the property taxes of Catholic separate school supporters.

Neither belief is true. Prior to Confederation Ontario separate schools received about 61% to 71% of the funding per student as public schools. They never had nor were they intended to have equality with public schools.

♦ Today, Ontario separate schools receive most of their funding from Ontario provincial grants, not from the property taxes of Catholic supporters. Ontario separate schools receive in general more funding per student than public schools.

♦ Only about 6% to 10% of the funding of Ontario Catholic separate schools overall comes from the residential property taxes of Catholic separate school supporters.

This book explains how this surprising transformation happened in a multicultural province in a country with a Charter of Rights.

It also briefly summarizes steps that can be taken if people want to have only one publicly-funded school system and save one to two billion dollars a year by no longer supporting the funding of a sectarian school system.

Landau is correct, all the information she gathered in preparation for her court challenge deserves to be available.

The “Table of Contents” and pages 1 and 2 of the “Introduction” are available through the “Look inside” feature on the Amazon.com website.

Buy a copy of Privileged Status for yourself and one for a friend who doesn’t realize that publicly-funded Catholic schools in Ontario are not funded by the Catholic taxpayers who indicate Catholic school supporter on the Application for Direction of School Support.