Citizens' Forum on Public Policy

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)--Education Project

BC should increase spending on education even if greater spending leads to a deficit or postpones tax reductions. Education is too good an investment to pass up. It is only sound business to borrow money at 5% in order to realize a profit of 10%, 15%, or even 25%.
 
 

• Social rates of return are extremely high for finishing high school or acquiring a trade certificate, for college career programs, and for university degrees. The profitability of completing high school with either a diploma or trade certification is in excess of 25% in most cases, while the profitability of a college career diploma or undergraduate degree is generally a further 10-15%. Undergraduate degrees in all fields of study are highly profitable for women, and most fields are also profitable for men. Since these rates of return exceed the cost of government borrowing (5%), it is profitable for the province to borrow money to make these investments. Page i
• Post-secondary participation rates (at both the vocational/career and university levels) are near the Canadian average when participation is measured with enrolment. When program completions are the measure, BCÊ does badly at the university level, since this province awards fewer bachelor degrees relative to its population than does any other province. The number of degrees awarded is far below the growth in demand for university graduates, so there is a strong case for expanding the universities and university colleges at the third and fourth year levels. Page i
• BCÊ should increase spending on education even if greater spending leads to a deficit or postpones tax reductions. Education is too good an investment to pass up. It is only sound business to borrow money at 5% in order to realize a profit of 10%, 15%, or even 25%. Page i
• Natural resources become depleted; capital runs into diminishing returns. Only knowledge can be indefinitely enlarged, and only economic development based on knowledge can proceed without limit. Page 1
• Specific skills can be the source of short-term wealth, but a change in technol-ogy renders them obsolete and valueless. in the 1990s, but much remains to be done, even if it raises Page 1
• Further in-vestment in the educational sector is necessary. Page 1
• …raising tuition is intrinsically an inefficient approach for meeting the educational needs of the next century. Rather, the federal and provincial governments must increase their spending on education. Moreover, spending must be increased even if it raises the provincial government deficit or postpones tax reductions. Page 1
• [T]he evidence of the mid-1990s suggests that the economy is demanding more highly trained workers than the educational system is producing; in particular, university graduates and the completers of two-year college programs are in high demand. Page 3
• The federal government has cut transfers to the provinces, effectively reducing its spending on post-secondary education.  Page 10
• The appropriate response to a high demand for education is not to ration a limited capacity to teach by raising its price, but rather to increase the capacity and maintain a low price so that many students will attend. Such a course of action obviously requires that governments spend more money on education. certification, college Page 10

Part IX: Conclusion

The demand for educated workers is rising in British Columbia, and the increase is expected to continue into the next millennium. Knowledge-based industries provide the opportunity to diversify the BC economy away from the extraction and export of primary resource commodities. The profitability of investing in education at all levels is very high, and so there is both economic need and popular demand for more spending in this area. It is only prudent business management for the province to borrow at 5% in order to realize a profit of 10% or more on educational programs.
Social rates of return and comparisons with other jurisdictions suggest the following areas require attention:
1. The BC pupil-teacher ratio in elementary and secondary schools exceeds the national average. An additional 1,550 teachers would be required to bring the ratio down to the Canadian average (based on 1996/ 7 figures).
2. A significant proportion of students in British Columbia fail to complete high school. Programs to increase graduate rates warrant further support.
3. BC’s universities and university colleges should be expanded to increase the number of bachelor degrees by about 70%, or 8,000 per year. This would bring the rate of university completion up to the Ontario level, which is appropriate since BCÊ (like Ontario) is a growth centre of the knowledge based economy. Most of the expansion should be at the third and fourth year undergraduate level.
4. The colleges and universities need more full-time faculty to reverse the increases in university class sizes that have occurred in the last decade, as well as to teach the additional undergraduates that the provincial economy requires. To erase the damage of funding restraint and return the student-to full-time-teacher ratio to its 1980 value
would require another 1,800 full-time teachers in the universities and university colleges.
In addition, the following conclusions regarding educational funding were implied by the analysis.
5. The long--run success of the BCÊ economy means that the province’s population has been growing—and will continue to grow—faster than that of the rest of Canada. BC not only must provide the resources for its existing population— which all jurisdictions must do—but in addition must build and operate schools to accommodate the new immigrants. The latter expenditure implies that BC must invest at a higher rate than most other provinces. BC now spends a smaller fraction of its GDP on education than all provinces except Ontario and Alberta. BCÊ should increase its investment rate in education to be the highest in Canada if it expects to continue to be a growth centre in the knowledge-based economy of the twenty-first century.
6. Most funding for BC’s colleges and universities has come from the provincial government (including federal transfers to the province for post-secondary education). Government funding has one great advantages over tuition fees as a source of revenue: namely, that the provincial government can borrow at lower cost than private individuals. Hence, if the province finances education, it will be profitable to expand the system beyond the point where private individuals would find it profitable. A larger system would be good for growth and good for equality in the province. To secure these favourable outcomes, however, the provincial government must expand funding for post-secondary education. College and university graduates, in fact, pay for more than the cost of their education through the higher taxes they pay over their lifetimes. These taxes, in effect, are compulsory contributions to their alma maters. The federal and provincial Treasuries should pass these contributions on to the colleges and universities and not use them to retire debt or reduce taxes.
7. BCÊ should increase spending on education whether or not the extra spending increases the deficit. Education is an investment. It is only good business to borrow money at 5% in order to earn a 10% rate of return.

We may not be keeping a close eye on big business, but they are watching us. Some marketing companies make it their business to find out how to ensure "gatekeepers" don't intercept messages intended for kids, and how to use "school-based programs" to support "kid-marketing activities."

Corporate aims, gains, and gross profits

1. Loyalty branding through credibility
The main goal of multinational corporations in education is "branding" or lifelong loyalty, similar to branding cattle.
2. Captive audience
The advertised messages are more likely to stand out without any competition. Listening to a corporate-developed lesson, students have to ask permission to be excused. They can't change the channel.
3. Immediate profit
While gaining long-term loyalty, students are often paying for their own education by buying the product.
4. Monopoly & Exclusivity contracts block competition
By price fixing, they can prevent other companies or anyone else in the school from selling their product more cheaply, thereby forcing students to pay more.
5. Corporate-developed and controlled curriculum
Corporate sponsorship under the guise of curriculum provides business with the opportunity to develop programs that will ultimately yield future generations of employees, suppliers and consumers, and at the same time reinforce corporate goals.
6. Corporate image
Not only do businesses gain profits and loyalties but, just as important, they are able to promote themselves as benevolent, caring, and giving back to the community.

Net loss to the public system

7. Public trust
When the education system endorses a corporation, it violates the public trust. Demographic information, collected and sold through corporate-sponsored contests, also violates the public trust.
8. Equality
Accepting corporate donations at the school level increases the disparities between the "have and have-not schools" as corporations are more likely to sponsor schools that can afford to buy their product.
9. Quality
Commercialism adversely affects the quality of education because of the difficulty to assess or review the quality of materials being donated.
10. Tax dollars

Partnerships usually represent a financial loss to taxpayers. Firstly, the donation is always tax-deductible, which means less tax revenue for education. Secondly, the corporate partner frequently has access to the internal mail and purchasing department of the district. Paid for by the taxpayer, the donations of these services represent a loss. Thirdly, taxpayers pay for educational time being diverted to activities to promote the corporation.
11. Public funding
As we accept these donations (losses), we can expect an exponential loss through a reduction in the funds we receive from the ministry.
12. Ownership of the education system
While all of these factors represent a significant loss, we should be paying close attention to the educational management companies (EMOs) that own schools and whole districts in the United States. They are poised and well-prepared to take over our schools in Canada with current technology.

Taken from the CCPA Education Monitor, Spring 2000. For the full article click HERE
http://www.policyalternatives.ca
 
 

Canadian governments have undermined the abilities of citizens to exercise it by shifting more and more of the costs of education onto students and their families.

 For the poor increased fees for services may prove to be prohibitive and thus undermine the achievement of even a secondary education. One might reasonably conclude, therefore, that those without extensive financial resources are being excluded from participating in the economy by educational policies that discriminate between rich and poor.

With the coming of the 20th century, however, there came a shift in values promoted by public educational institutions. Usefulness, rather than intrinsic worth or the good life, became the dominant principle of educational value. And with this change, the schools have indeed become tools of the marketplace and governed by rules more apropos to capitalism at large than to education in particular--governed more by talk of benefit, for example, than by talk of what should count as a good way to live.

One principle that has guided education from ancient times is a concern for the good life. What counts as a commendable way to live? This is a controversial and difficult notion. To engage in conversation about how one ought to live requires a depth and breadth of understanding that includes--yet goes beyond--the traditional academic curriculum. For example, it requires wisdom, understanding the values of diverse cultural groups, and a knowledge of history that avoids the centrisms that contaminate so much of modern talk about the past.

The ruling elites, the wealthy classes, those who govern, or who have power are ill-served by the present educational systems of Canada because these systems all promote an impoverished notion of education: a notion based almost exclusively on instrumental values, not on the ends that one ought to achieve. In effect, those who will assume power are taught how to exercise it, but not what to achieve or how to determine worthwhile ends. The value of such an education is problematic for all who would attain its ideals. Consequently, ensuring that all citizens can exercise their right to education within current educational institutions may not be desirable, even if the quality of instruction within these schools is improved to some maximal level. For rich and poor alike, the education that these institutions offer may be a pale reflection of the type of education we ought to promote.

The improvement of education in Canada requires an examination of the goals and intended outcomes of our educational institutions. In short, the central problems with post-secondary education are not limited to tuition fees, loan defaults, job security of the faculty, or the impacts of restructuring on equity-seeking groups. Neither are they confined to corporate presence on campus, contracting-out of services, the impact of technology, and student poverty. Rather, the key to resolving controversies in education is to determine the form of education our institutions ought to offer. That is, we ought to ask of an institution: "Is this an education that is worth having?" Once this question is answered, resolution of the other problems will follow as a matter of course, because one cannot achieve education through means inconsistent with its ends. The answer also provides criteria to assess the educational institution itself.

Taken from The CCPA Education Monitor, Winter 2000.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca

Reliance on outside sources of financing for education--whether from parents, communities or corporations--can only lead to the ultimate dismantling of public education through the entrenchment and reinforcement of existing and deepening social inequities.

The goal of the school becomes aligned with that of keeping the sponsor happy, often to the detriment of staff and students, in order to ensure the longevity of the relationship and the assurance that the handouts will continue.

It is also important to note that the actual financial value of these handouts, when divided by the number of school children intended to be serviced, in fact amounts to only a couple of dollars. We need to be fully aware of how cheaply we are selling the rights to our children's minds and wallets, the school environment, and the education system itself. And, ultimately, because many of these corporate donations are a tax write-off, the public once again pays for this bogus "philanthropy." How can this arrangement be considered a "partnership"?

The simple fact is that school fund-raising, or private donations, lets governments shirk their duty of providing adequate education funding, and allows the public to be complicit in this irresponsible negligence.

When public funding for education is increasingly curtailed, forcing schools to make up the shortfall through fund-raising activities, the quality of education is decided by the extent of corporate and community subsidies, not on the principles of equity, accessibility, quality and justice.

As the conservative business lobby's attacks on publicly-funded education intensify, coupled with demands from local Chambers of Commerce that schools become more "practical" and "job-oriented," it is well to remind ourselves of public education's three essential principles.

First, public education is publicly funded from progressive taxation at the central provincial level and from a local property tax. All citizens must pay, in order to contribute to the education of society's children.

Second, public education is universally available as an automatic right of citizenship. No child can be deprived of access to public education, and the education system must make every reasonable effort to accommodate the needs of individual children.

Third, public education is subject to democratic control. Until recently in Canada there was, in each province, a double layer of democracy in education. The members of provincial legislatures, who set the provincial budget for education, and local school boards, which set the local mill rate, were elected by universal adult suffrage. (Local taxing powers have been under attack, however, and have now been stripped from local school boards in most provinces.)

Public education remains one of the greatest democratic reforms won against the autocratic bastions of economic and political power and privilege. The emphasis is on the word won, because the right to a universal, publicly-funded, and freely accessible system of education had to be won, step by step, battle by battle, in what was often a bitter struggle. Like democracy itself, this right was not granted freely through the benign wisdom of the powerful and the privileged of former days. It was wrested from them by the people.

The beneficial effects of public education have been well-documented. The right to an education ensures that all, from lowest to highest, have the opportunity to discover and develop talents and abilities that would otherwise not have flourished. It ensured that citizens became more informed, more critical, less easily manipulated and dominated.

Public education opened doors to social, economic and geographical mobility, allowing individuals without property and wealth to dream of possibilities and opportunities that formerly were forever closed to them.

The coming of public education stressed the importance of human capital--the only capital that most people have--allowing them to develop their full potential in aspiring to a better life.

Thus, to advance in life, one could invest in one's own human capital through hard work and the acquisition of knowledge in a system of free public education.

Having said that, there are two things about public education that the public and educators must always keep in the forefront of their consciousness.

First, the system of public education remains imperfect and disturbingly incomplete.

Post-secondary education, though significantly subsidized by public funds and theoretically open to all with the will and talent, presents serious economic and geographical barriers to many students; and these barriers still have largely to do with the income levels of their parents.

Within the publicly-funded K-to-12 system, there are still serious unaddressed issues of equity, access, and the unfair distribution of available resources. This inequity exists between systems, when some are more generously financed than others, and within each system, when some schools are endowed with more resources than others.

Inevitably, therefore, debates about--and struggles for--equity in the distribution of both educational resources and access to educational opportunities will be with us forever. This is what democracy is all about: who gets what and why do they get it? and how can we make the distribution more equitable?

Second, the system of publicly-funded, democratically controlled public education will always be under attack, and so requires constant and diligent defence by its supporters against its enemies.

The same bastions of power and privilege from which public education had to be won continue to try to curtail this popular achievement. Cuts in funding, attacks on quality, the imposition of a business model, the pressure to contract out its work, the demand that public education be put at the service of business and industry--all of these attacks are parts of a relentless campaign that may ebb and flow over time, but will always be pursued.

This has to do with the ideological conviction of most business leaders that it is best to replace public enterprise with private; that control over the content and outcomes of education should be heavily influenced--if not completely dominated--by the business lobby and its neoconservative allies; that there is something dangerously subversive about a model of public education that encourages critical thinking and a skeptical citizenry.

Public educators and their allies must therefore take the time and mobilize the resources needed to counter this ongoing propaganda effort to undermine the public's confidence in public education.

The battle for control of public education in a democracy is still fought on the terrain of public opinion, and that is where the battle will be won or lost.

Taken from The CCPA Education Monitor, Winter 2000.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca