Media Release for August 17, 2007

Stairs says rural schools and communities need a fair deal

RENFREW: As parents get ready to send children back to school and the schools continue to cope with cuts, NDP candidate Felicite Stairs says that only the NDP will deliver a fair deal for rural schools and communities.

Stairs says she wants voters in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke to know the NDP’s vision for Ontario’s public education system begins with fixing the education funding formula. She pledges the NDP would provide resources for special education and for education supports for autistic children, and adequate funding for more music, art and physical education.

“For four years Dalton McGuinty has promised time and again to take action to fix the education funding formula, to provide adequate funding to ensure that our public education system is second to none. Rather than a strengthened public education system we have seen an increased reliance on parent fundraising and school boards being taken over because they can’t make ends meet,” Stairs says.

“New Democrats will deliver a fair deal for rural families. We will stand up for an education system where all children have equal opportunities, regardless of whether they live in the city or the country, where teachers have the tools and supports they need and where parents don’t have to fundraise for teachers’ salaries and school textbooks.”

Under the McGuinty Liberals school board fundraising for 2005-06 now amounts to more than half a billion dollars for things like occasional teachers’ salaries and office supplies. Not only are parents having to raise funds just to keep schools operating, inequalities are increasing in the public system. The top 10 per cent of fundraising schools raised more than the bottom 80 per cent put together. Many of the poorest schools are located in rural areas like Renfrew County.

“Parents and teachers are extremely worried about the creation of a two-tiered system, where some schools are able to provide considerably more for their students than others,” says Stairs. “The McGuinty Liberals have done little to remedy this situation. It’s high time someone stood up for public education in province.”

She said Dalton McGuinty’s broken promise to fix the funding formula introduced by Harris Conservatives has had a particularly harsh impact on rural schools. “Many schools have been forced to close, and important things like libraries, special education, music, art, physical education are a faint hope for a lot of kids in rural schools like ours. It’s no wonder people are demanding a fair deal. Why should our kids be at a disadvantage?” asks Stairs.

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