Human Rights, Fair Treatment, and Funding of Private Schools in Canada
Keywords:
human rights, private schools, school funding, equality, Canadian education policyAbstract
Private schools and their supporters still receive differential treatment in Canada. The disadvantage they suffer differs from province to province although, as a whole, the region west of Ontario treats them more favourably than does any other. Such disadvantage is accompanied by the dominant viewpoint that parents sending or wishing to send their children to private schools do not deserve government assistance. The need for public education has been perceived to be so compelling that nothing is seen to be wrong in penalizing parents, financially or otherwise, for choosing private schools for their children. Examination of entitlement to human rights can contribute to developing a more sympathetic view of the funding of private schools. Equality or justice, a fundamental human rights principle, requires that everyone be treated fairly or in a non-discriminating way and that any institution or person practising differential treatment prove relevant and over-riding grounds. This leads to the conclusion that acceptance of human rights principles in Canada imposes a prima facie obligation on government to support private-school parents no less than it does their public-school counterparts. This does not mean that the right to equal support may not be over-ridden. It does imply, however, that discriminatory presumptions underlying governmental policy on funding of private schools must now be reversed unless compelling reasons are demonstrated.
References
Alberta Department of Education. (1983, June 30). The school grants regulation (Alberta Education Grants Order, 1983). Edmonton: Department of Education.
Arons, S. (1983). Compelling belief. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.
Beales, A. C. F. (1963). Education under penalty. London: The Athlone Press.
Berlin, I. (1955-1956). Equality. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 56.
Blum, V. (1958). Freedom of choice in education. New York: Macmillan.
Brophy and the Attorney-General of Manitoba. (1895). A. C. 202.
Buetow, H. A. (1970). Of singular benefit: The story of Catholic education in the United States. New York: Macmillan.
City of Winnipeg v. Barrett. (1892). A. C. 445
Clark, L. (Ed.). (1968). The Manitoba school question: Majority rule or minority rights? Toronto: Copp Clark.
Coleman, J., Hoffer, T., & Kilgore, S. (1982). High school achievement: Public, Catholic and private schools compared. New York: Basic Books.
Coons, J. E., & Sugarman, S. D. (1978). Education by choice: The case for family control. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Committee for Public Education and Religous Liberty v. Regan. (1980). 48 U. S. L. W. 4168.
Erickson, D. (Ed.). (1969). Public controls for nonpublic schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Erickson, D., MacDonald, L., & Manley-Casimir, M. (1979). Characteristics and relationships in public and independent schools. San Francisco: Center for Research on Private Education, University of San Francisco.
Ex parte Renaud. (1873). 14 N.B.R. 273.
Golding, M. P. (1968, October). Towards a theory of human rights. Monist, 52(4), 521-549.
Hook, S. (1975). Revolution, reform and social justice. New York: New York University Press.
Institute for Contemporary Studies. (1977). Parents, teachers and children. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies.
Kraushaar, O. F. (1972). American nonpublic schools: Patterns of diversity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lakoff, S. (1964). Equality in political philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Lawr, D., & Gidney, R. (1973). Educating Canadians: A documentary history of public education. Toronto: Van Nostrand Reinhold Limited.
Lupul, M. (1974). The Roman Catholic Church and the Northwest school question: A study of church-state relations in Western Canada, 1875-1905. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Machan, R. (1980, April). Some recent work in human rights theory. American Philosophical Quarterly, 17(2), 103-115.
Martin, R., & Nickel, J. (1980, July). Recent work on the concept of rights. American Philosophical Quarterly, 17(3), 165-180.
Ministry of Justice (Canada). (1982). The Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A guide for Canadians. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services.
Perelman, Ch. (1963). The idea of justice and problem of argument. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Phillips, C. E. (1957). The development of education in Canada. Toronto: W. J. Gage & Co.
Phillipson, J. (1978, September 27). Other education in Canada. Paper presented at the meeting of the Canadian Education Association, Quebec.
Pius XI. (1939). Christian Education of Youth. In Seven Great Encyclicals (pp. 37-60). Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press.
Rowe, F. (1964). The development of education in Newfoundland. Toronto: The Ryerson Press.
Sissons, C. B. (1959). Church and state in Canadian education. Toronto: The Ryerson Press.
Statistics Canada. (1983). Advance statistics on education. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services.
Tarnopolsky, W. S. (1983). The equality rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Bar Review, 61(1), 242-264.
Tiny Roman Catholic Separate School Trustees v. The King. (1928). A. C. 363.
Trudeau, P. E. (1968). A Canadian charter of human rights. Ottawa: Information Canada.
West, E. G. (1970). Education and the state. London: The Institute of Economic Affairs.
Whyte, J., & Lederman, W. (1975). Canadian constitutional law. Toronto: Butterworths.
Wilson, J. D., & Lazerson, M. (1982). Historical and constitutional perspectives on family choice in schooling: The Canadian case. In M. E. Manley-Casimir, (Ed.), Family choice in schooling (pp. 1-21). Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath & Co.
Wilson, J. D., Stamp, R., & Audet, L. P. (Eds.). (1970). Canadian education: A history. Scarborough, ON: Prentice-Hall.
Wolman v. Walter. (1977). 433 U.S. 229.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Canadian Journal of Education follows Creative Commons Licencing CC BY-NC-ND.
