Pay as you learn

Is it 'pay-as-you-learn'?By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD
I suspect if I added up all the cash I'd spent on tutors in the countless years I had youngsters in the public school system, I could probably have paid for one of them to go to some posh private school.
Tutors aren't cheap. But I quickly learned in navigating the public school system they are almost essential under certain circumstances, whether it's helping a good student get better marks to make it into the university of their choice, or whether it's a six year old struggling to learn to read.
That's why the issue of the York Region board of education charging for after-school tutoring touched a nerve with me. Make that several nerves. In fact, it makes me downright twitchy.
On the positive side, the school board's plan does make tutoring affordable. Extra help for students doesn't come cheap and the $190 for 16 hours of after-school tuition is a bargain basement rate.
It raises two issues, however. First, whatever happened to all those wonderful teachers who stayed behind for an extra hour to offer help for free? During the divisive battle under the Harris Tories over extra-curricular help, the teacher unions told us that a teacher's day doesn't end at 3.30. They often stay much later helping students and preparing for class. That seems to have changed. Now they're charging for the extra time.
There are some, I am sure, who will applaud this program. If it is run under the auspices of the school board, you can be sure it meets the curriculum and that the tutor is accredited by the College of Teachers.
I don't subscribe to that view. I often found the public school system captive of psycho-babble or hidebound by trendy educational ideologies. It didn't matter whether it was whole language or new math, the system was prone to the vagaries of every off-the-wall idea that whistled through. And it's a system that has left countless kids illiterate in its wake.
A tutor who is not captive to these whims is often able to use common sense and unconventional teaching skills to open up a child's mind. And if the students are struggling with these teachers from 9 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., why is an extra hour of help from the same people going to give them the push they need?
For sure, it may simply be that the student needs one-on-one help. It's tough to give attention to a struggling child when you have 25 other children demanding your attention. But this smacks of two-tier education. Not that we don't have that with private schools, of course. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Taxpayers in this province pay $13 billion for public education. For that kind of dough, parents should be able to demand that their kids learn to read and write without them having to pay a tutor.
In the York board, kids in grades 7 and 8 get help for free, while kids in the lower grades have to pay.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said the Liberal government has invested millions into additional help for schools to identify and help children who are struggling. The York program, she said, is simply a service that is available to parents if they want it.
"They are not paying for public education, they are paying for an additional service.
"The public education that is being provided is free -- it's supported by ministry dollars, by tax dollars," she said.
Children who are identified as in need of help will still get it without having to pay, she said.
"They are offering an additional service to parents who chose to put their children in that service. That is not a service that is identified as necessary by the teachers. That's the parents making a choice," Wynne said.
Fair enough. What I can't figure out is in a province that prides itself on its public education system, why it is that so many private tutors and private tutoring companies are flourishing? And fair enough, if you want a tutor to nudge your child's marks from the 80s to the 90s in order to get into the right university, it should be on your dime.
But the right of every child, regardless of their parents' financial resources, to a basic grasp of reading, writing and mathematics is surely fundamental in a civilized society. It shouldn't be pay-as-you-go.
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