“It’s clear that by continuing to fund education at unequal levels in our province that this government values the education of some students more than others,” Lingenfelter said. “Students and parents are rightly concerned about the direction this is heading and the ability for the government to provide them with a quality education at a standard acceptable to all school divisions in Saskatchewan.”
Lingenfelter noted a particularly egregious example of the inequity exists within the Regina Catholic School Board where students receive $275 less per student than their public counterparts.
“School divisions have said publicly that if the inequity of funding continues past 2010, they will be faced with the possibility of program or staff cuts that will affect all students,” Lingenfelter said. “Catholic parents and students can’t wait another year or more for the Wall government to fix the inequity – this is real money that could be used to hire many more teachers and provide quality education for our children.”
Lingenfelter said making matters worse is that the Sask Party Minister of Education has appointed a committee to develop a new funding formula for school divisions that has no representation from Catholic School Boards. He questioned why supporters and parents of Catholic Schools are being left out of this process.
“In typical fashion of the Wall government, it is continuing to make decisions that affect people’s lives without properly consulting with them,” Lingenfelter said. “We don’t need more spin and empty rhetoric about funding education, we need to actually see it done properly. Wall and his government have a responsibility to correct this inequity now.”
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Norris the low-bar standard for the Sask. Party's performance...
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...when the young Sask. Party government was riding a wave of unprecedented resource revenue, it was Norris who seemed to be the low-bar standard for the government's performance. Dealing with a hostile labour movement was not easy, but Norris always managed to pour gas on the fire. His pompous, politically charged manner mostly served as an annoying distraction to anything relevant he might have had to say. -Murray Mandryk, The Leader-Post
