School supplies : the solution is the choice

Archival Photo Sébastien St-Jean

Patrick Déry

Friday, October 6, 2017 15:27

UPDATE
Friday, October 6, 2017 15:34

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Should everything be free in school? The issue arises when beginning of each school year, while the price of supplies that parents have to pay for the education of their offspring made headlines.

A class action is even being compared to 68 school boards in the name of some 900 000 relatives, for expenditure incurred since 2008. The use has been maintained in the spring and could result in the payment of tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

The parent to the origin of the action was particularly outraged to have to pay for the purchase of a grammar, a recorder, a protractor and the costs of reproduction of documents $ 40. The Act on public education provides that the books and the ” learning material “, with the exception of paper and pencils, must be provided free of charge.

I can understand that it is considered that there is abuse when we ask students to bring their own soap and their own toilet paper (see the end of this article). However, I’m really not sure that I would like that my daughter uses a recorder who has tasted the germs of dozens of children before her. Moreover, it is not as if it was terribly expensive.

And I have a little more difficulty indignant if asked to pay for a protractor, or even a grammar, a book that a student should keep in hand throughout his school career.

All the same

The minister of Education, himself, has expressed his determination to” standardize practices in the network “. It appears to me to be an excellent way of undermining local initiatives, which come from the base, and could then serve as an example.

This is the case for example of this school in the Quebec city region, which has decided to use the tablet as a teaching tool after consulted with hundreds of parents, providing even different terms of payment and the help to the few families for whom this was an issue.

The ministry of Education, with the blessing of the minister, has finally decided that the obligation to pay for the tablet was illegal, despite a reduction in the cost of other supplies, and the efforts of the school to accommodate everyone.

In the end, the program was able to continue on its course, the direction of the school has been able to solve the last irritants, rather than having to cancel an initiative which was appreciated by almost all parents and students. Which was a shame, since the measure appears to have had beneficial effects on the motivation of students and on the academic results.

A matter of choice

All of this returns us to two things. First, one can ask why the school boards have as much to barely make ends meet since the expenditures in education have increased considerably in the past decade, while the number of students decreased : as there is more money per student, the additional needs could be covered, no? Part of the problem is precisely that the whole of the additional money spent in education does not necessarily mean the students.

Second, the choice. If schools want to offer teaching tools and activities, why not? Is it that all schools must be absolutely and perfectly symmetrical, as seems to be the wish of the minister? And is this all the school materials must be free, where can you interpret the law in a way that is more flexible, leaving a certain latitude to schools?

I can already hear the following objection : this is not fair. Nevertheless, the fairness, or rather equality, as some conceive it, exists only in theory. Everything that is imposed as a straitjacket in the public system so that people are trying to get out, hence the popularity of special programs, whether offered by public or private.

This same reasoning can be applied to school supplies. If a school has specific requirements that are more costly, this is not a problem as long as the parents can vote with their feet. Thus, a parent will prefer a school that offers the educational materials free of charge or at a lower cost.

If healthy competition existed between the schools, that parents could truly choose where they send their children, the schools are good and popular, were called to grow, that the poor were losing students or could disappear, all this would not be a problem : the cost of school supplies would only be one criterion, among others, and there was no doubt that the schools would have strong incentives to keep the lowest possible and that they would be creative to get there. And I have no doubt that, as in the case of tablets, as mentioned above, it would not penalise students from less-privileged backgrounds.

Unfortunately, this is not what is happening. Instead of ensuring that schools have better incentives to be responsive to the needs of their customer, the department gives orders and is still trying to pass the steamroller for all levels and leave no rough edges protrude. This will not address the problem that on the surface, while making more difficult the implementation of initiatives varied and interesting. In the end, these are the services to students and the quality of education would suffer. The standardization has not worked for the health system and the education system, and it will not work more now.