There they go again. The feminist supporters of universal day care are determined to get their way, which is to establish an all day child care program in Canada. These lobby groups never give up.
They have bended and adjusted their terminology and strategy over the years in order to influence governments and the public in this regard.
In the 1980’s, the child care lobbyists realized that the link between day care and feminism was hurting them. They had been pushing for a national day care program, arguing that women had the right to work outside the home to obtain economic independence and that they must be released from the obligations of home and children by way of institutionalized day care facilities. This position was based on the book, The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan (1964), who called the home a concentration camp to which women should not be bound. However, this argument was not a winning one with the general public. As a result, the lobbyists changed the expression “day care” to “child care”, in order to change the emphasis to the care of a child, rather than freeing the mother from home responsibilities.
In the mid 1990s, the lobbyists changed their focus again to highlight scientific studies, which showed that the first six years of life are crucial to a child’s brain development. “Child care” was then re-named “early childhood education”, which required a trained worker, with two years education in early child development, in order to stimulate and educate the child. It was argued that this care was superior to that provided by parents. It is this argument that is currently prevailing and has most recently been successfully applied in the provinces of Ontario and BC. These two provinces have agreed to establish all day kindergartens, with the state serving as the nanny. That is, although child care activists will not publicly admit it, these kindergartens are actually universal, government funded day care centres which are for the convenience of working parents rather than for the benefit of children.
Day Care Strategists Pressure Provincial Governments
The reason why these day care lobbyists have hit on the provinces to establish day care programs is due to the fact that the federal Conservative government has made it clear it is not interested in a universal day care program. Instead, the Conservatives established a $100 per month direct payment to the parents for each child under six years of age. This way the parents decide themselves which kind of child care to choose.
Unfortunately, the Liberal governments in B.C. and Ontario have succumbed to the arguments of the day care lobbyists that an all day kindergarten, open from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., will provide children with what the lobbyists call a “seamless education system”.
The real effect of all day kindergarten is to:
allow the state to raise the children and control the children’s values in accordance with socialist/Marxist principles;
help fill the rapidly emptying classrooms due to the low birth rate in Canada (1.5 per woman of child bearing age);
increase class size from approximately 20 students to 26 students each;
provide more employment, power and influence to teachers and their unions;
expand employment for Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers, with increased salaries. By transferring their employment to a school board and a unionized wage scale, their salaries will increase from $30,000 to $47,000 per year; and
enable more women to enter the paid work force, which increases the tax base.
Supporters of All Day Kindergarten Deny the Truth
The implications of all day kindergarten, however, are never acknowledged by those pushing for it. Instead, they claim that their concerns are only for the children. They argue that an all day kindergarten is the right thing to do because children need intellectual stimulation in the disciplined environment provided by trained teachers. This, they argue will increase children’s social/emotional development and intellectual skills and will lead, in due course, to higher employment and earnings, a more skilled work force, higher productivity and a drop in domestic violence and crime. (Don’t ask!)
What is so odd about the supposed advantages for children of early education, is that there is no solid evidence of it having any long lasting, beneficial effect. For example, massive, six year research at the UK’s Durham University found that in a comparison of almost 35,000 children, some who were home and some who were in outside care, there was no difference in the children’s development levels. This study was substantiated by a study of primary education by Cambridge University, in a 608 page document called, “Cambridge Primary Review”, which found that there was no evidence suggesting that a formal teaching environment benefited young children and in fact, could even be harmful, creating negative social and emotional development, aggression, and brain chemistry damage. At best, the evidence on the supposed benefits of early childhood education is highly inconclusive.
What do Children Really Need?
Anyone who has had anything to do with young children knows that children need an informal play-based education, which is easily provided in the home. Young children do not need or should not be required to fit into the structure and discipline of a classroom.
It is noteworthy that in Finland and Germany, children do not begin school until they turn seven years of age. Finland is regarded as having Europe’s best education system, with that country’s students regularly achieving top marks in reading, literacy and science in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Incidentally, parents in Finland have a choice to raise the children themselves in the home with payment by the State of $500 per month per child, or to place them in state operated child care. Not surprisingly, most parents in Finland chose to remain in the home to raise their own children until they enter school at age seven. That is, no doubt, one explanation for the high academic achievement of Finnish children.
Ontario
Even though the province of Ontario has a $24.7 billion deficit so far this year, Provincial Premier Dalton McGuinty announced, in July 2009, that he plans an expensive, new program of all-day kindergarten. This new policy is based on the recommendation of Charles Pascal, a former Deputy Minister of Education and Social Service in Ontario, who released a report in June 2009 recommending all day kindergarten. His report was based on an often-cited report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which calls for an integrated education agenda. The OECD plan is to move away from the “ideology” of the family and to “transition” to a new order, which will require “deep changes in societies in general and in the family structure in particular.” A popular text book for day care staff describes OECD’s program as “the vanguard in promoting” new values about family. OECD promotes a large flexible workforce by encouraging women to enter paid employment so as to create a full employment economy. According to OECD, early childhood education should be “part of national human capital development”. But most Canadians believe that pushing mothers into the paid work force in order to broaden and strengthen the tax base should not be an objective of any child care plan.
Ontario Premier McGuinty, however, has proposed that the full time kindergarten program be launched, starting with 3-5 year olds in Ontario schools, in 2010 and 2011. He stated that the cost to the taxpayers would be $500 million for the first two years of this program. When fully implemented, the project will cost $1.5 billion annually.
A recent study, released in November 2009, by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada reveals that full day kindergarten in Ontario will cost about double the initial estimate: eventually, the full program will cost the province $6 billion annually, which is half the current Ontario Ministry of Education budget.
When Mr. McGuinty made his announcement, his intention was to employ only early childhood education teachers in the 3-5 year old classrooms. The Ontario teachers union would have none of this. It claimed jurisdiction for the whole school day for its members. Mr. McGuinty, afraid of angering the union, which has supported him politically, came up with a brilliant solution: that teachers (at $60,000 plus annual salary) would work full days in the classroom to deliver the kindergarten (day care program) curriculum and oversee the program planning. The early childhood educator will also be present in the classroom ($47,000 annually) at the same time. It is unclear whether the latter will only be responsible for the before and after school programs for which parents will pay “a reasonable fee” i.e. the fee will be subsidized. Thus, this full day learning program in Ontario will provide the world’s most expensive day care.
British Columbia
The situation in B.C. is just as peculiar. Although B.C. has less of a deficit this year ($2.8 billion) than Ontario, which is now a “have not” province, B.C. is still not “rolling” in money in these economic hard times. In order to keep the deficit at its current level, health authorities, school boards, colleges, arts groups, and Special Olympic programs have been hit by funding cuts.
Notwithstanding this, B.C. Premier Campbell announced, in August 2009, that the province would fund all day kindergarten for 40,000 five year olds, starting in September 2010. He has stated that it will cost the province $130 million a year (he hopes!). Opposition NDP leader, Carole James, greeted the news of an all day kindergarten with delight.
This program was launched without any input from parents. Those groups that were consulted by the government will all materially benefit from an all day kindergarten through jobs, research contracts/grants, finances and union member fees, etc. For example, the consultation paper, of course, included references to OECD, the World Bank and the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) at UBC which is funded by the provincial government and which will gain even further influence with this new program.
The announcement for an all day kindergarten in BC was not met with universal approval, as the B.C. Teachers Federation and the B.C. School Trustees Association are upset by it. They state that although they support the concept of an all day kindergarten, they believe it will take funds away from the present educational system and will be adding another level of service to an already inadequately funded system. The teachers’ federation is especially concerned about the increase in class size, frozen funding and lack of funding for structural maintenance, which will be undermined by money going to the all day kindergarten.
The B.C. School Trustees complained at their meeting in October, that there are not enough dollars in the education system to run even the current programs, let alone the new and expanded initiative of all-day kindergarten. According to BC NDP education critic Diane Thorne, “there is no money in this year’s budget to implement all day kindergarten, despite the amount of prep work that needs to be done”.
Both provincial leaders of BC and Ontario are presently treading in difficult political waters with their opposition parties rapidly gaining on them in the polls. These premiers seem to think that the all day kindergarten legislation, if passed, will serve as their legacy, as these programs will undoubtedly prove difficult to undo in subsequent years, as the public will begin to regard them as an “entitlement”.
The only problem is that all day kindergarten will be to the detriment of young children and the taxpayer, who will have to pay for the programs through increased taxation. Apparently, however, in these two provinces at least, neither the public, nor the parents and their children, have been respected enough to be consulted.
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