Parents and citizens are angry and frustrated as they see their local and neighbourhood schools close. This past May we saw another round of closures in rural communities. The justification is always the same: falling enrollment, the need for economies of scale, the technological requirements of modern education, and a lack of funds. The Leader-Post proclaimed that this is “regrettable, but inevitable.” This is political nonsense.
It is true that the size of families is shrinking. In hinterland areas like the prairies, people are moving to urban and suburban areas. Many rural schools already have low enrollments. But there is little government recognition that small schools with low teacher-student ratios provide a high quality education and that kids do better in smaller schools.
Part of the problem today is that there is a low priority placed on “education,” historically described as “enlightenment,” acquiring insight and understanding, learning to think critically, and becoming free from prejudice and ignorance.
Today’s emphasis is on “learning,” which is most identified with acquiring a skill or a trade. A high priority is placed on teaching students to conform to the status quo and follow orders in an employment world which is hierarchical and authoritarian. Thus, the learning process is best instilled in large, centralized schools. The ideal - it would seem, by looking at schools in larger cities - is a school with 2,000 students. Columbine comes to mind.
Provincial government funding
The real reason for the closure of schools has been the cuts in provincial grants to municipalities and school boards. During the NDP government of Allan Blakeney (1978-82) provincial grants provided around 60% of the financing for local governments and school boards. This has been steadily reduced by the governments of Grant Devine, Roy Romanow and Lorne Calvert to only around 40% of local financing. The cuts to grants to local governments and school boards was a way that the provincial government off-loaded its own fiscal problems. The provincial government lost enormous sources of revenues when it steadily cut the royalties and taxes on the resource extraction industries. Then there were the cuts to taxes on corporations, small business and the income taxes for those in the higher brackets. Adequate funding to schools and municipalities cannot be restored without going back to a more progressive taxation system. One always expects the parties of business and the rich to advocate lower and more regressive taxes. But the change here and elsewhere has been that social democratic governments have chosen to adopted classic conservative fiscal and taxation policies.
The rise in property taxes
The cuts in provincial grants leads schools and municipalities to resort to higher property taxes and increased users fees. In 1984 Grant Devine’s Tory government appointed the Local Government Finance Commission to provide guidelines for updating Saskatchewan’s system of local government taxation and property assessment. The Commission argued that the provincial government should provide grants which amounted to 75% of the financing for local school boards and municipalities. They also argued that the province should not depend on property taxes, for they are regressive, falling heaviest on those with low income. Property taxes do not take into account the ability of the home owner to pay or the income earned from a business property. The Commission also called for the retention of a business tax and that it be uniform across the province. All these proposals make good sense. But in the political atmosphere of the province today, dominated by the NDP and the Saskatchewan Party, they seem quite radical.
John W. Warnock is a Regina political economist and political activist.
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