Question for Cowman

[bombay_43]

In one of your previous postings, you mentioned that your local municipality or county was lobbying the province for cuts to our education taxes on farm land. Something to that effect.

Would you mind giving me a few details? Which county, what exactly are they doing? etc.

Maybe I can push our local government a wee bit up here!

[ALICIA]

I has thinking along the same lines. In Ontario we have to gross $7000. plus and pay either the OFA,NFU,CFFO $l60.50 and the register is March 1st.2004. If we do not pay we get know refund on Property Tax.
Sence I am a directer on the OFA I plan to see if I can do something about this.

[cowman]

Red Deer County in central Alberta. The council passed a resolution to ask the Province to consider scrapping the education portion of the land taxes while the BSE crisis continues to unfold. I expect it is one of those basically meaningless gestures but I guess it never hurts to ask?

[dalek]

alicia you can ask for your money back andstill get property tax rebate

[cakadu]

I don't mind paying my fair share for education tax or any other tax for that matter because I do use roads, services etc.

I've always wondered how the government could apportion it out so that it was a more equitable system. As someone who will never have children go through the system, should I be paying as much as someone who will have 3 or 4 children going through?

As I said, I don't mind paying some because I have friends with kids in school and nieces and nephews and I do want them to receive the best education that they can get.

I would much rather see the money being spent in special education classes and in the lower grades to ensure that our children have access to high quality education everywhere. I'm not convinced that more of it should be given to post-secondary education as much as it should go to laying the foundation for what comes later in life.

What do others think?

[lonewolf]

Yes cakadu but is that education truly for the best. I mean they go to school look for a job and forget all common sense and then get a grant for research then tell farmers that a cheap source of protein is in their livestock and then make a career of selling that profeesional advice to industry until one day something pops up like BSE. What is wrong with expecting our kids to do a honest days work turning wrenches?

[15444]

Lonewolf:

Absolutely right! Although society has always held those with university and college degrees with higher value then drop-outs and apprentices, it isn't right! We have such a shortage of skilled workers in the skilled trades that those who go into such areas have the opportunity to grab alot of the market and make some serious cash.

It irritates me when I see people such as the Canadian Students Federation advocating for free tuition for all post-secondary students. We need more people who are more practical and have 'common sense', not more who can crunch numbers and call themselves 'experts.'

[cakadu]

I don't have a problem at all with whatever kids choose to go into - whether it be a trade or post-secondary education. What I would like to ensure is that the funding is there when they need to learn the basics and fundamentals early on.

If a person likes what they do and can feel good about the living they are earning then I am not at all worried how they get achieve that - i.e. through swinging a hammer, digging a ditch or finding the cure for cancer. Life is too short to do something that you aren't happy with.

[cowman]

I think the idea was to just scrap the education tax on farm land not on residences. In Alberta every farmer is taxed seperately on the 3 acres where his buildings are. So if you farmed 1000 acres you would not pay the education tax on the 997 acres, just the 3 acres with your house.
The city resident only pays education tax on his residence so I suppose the whole idea makes sense?
I doubt there is anyway it will fly as education always seems to be a black whole akin to medicare? The province never has enough money for either, and I don't know where the extra money would come from?
We are fast approaching a time when we need to deal with the rising costs of education and medicare. The costs are quite frankly out of control and we need a more cost effective system?
I'm not sure what needs to be done but the present system is not sustainable. Already education and medicare consume close to half of the provincial budget. I suppose we have to realize that some where down the road we might have to go back to a user pay system! Not much sense having a top notch school and hospital system if we can't get to them because the roads and bridges are gone?

[bombay_43]

I believe there is more than enough money for our education system. If it is used right!

I also know that what I have to say, will be considered by a lot of people, to be crass. To those who are offended by my views, I apologize in advance.

When most of us here on Agri-ville were going to school, we knew there were children within our communities, that were mentally retarded, or paraplegic, or suffered from countless debilitating diseases. This limited how much they could participate in the regular school system. These terrible afflictions, have always been there. Back in those days, society chose to leave them in their homes, or lock them into institutions.

Now, these same conditions, are known as “special needs”. Schools receive a lot of extra funding for “special needs” children. In addition, each child is provided with a teachers aid who follows that child around all day. One school I know of, has 6 such cases, while the primary grades teacher, struggles to control an oversized classroom, without the help of “aids”. I know of another case where the parent insisted her “special needs” child be allowed to continue into secondary education, such as university. The teachers aid “helps” her with all her home work and exams. This child can not speak, nor move anything other than her eyes, but Mama is happy!


I think that our society, in an attempt to become less discriminating and show more tolerance, has gone overboard! We are now catering to a few, at a cost to the many.
We would hire a man in a turban, a native lady, or a disabled homosexual as an RCMP, before considering a white male, simply because we do not wish to be seen as prejudice! We cater to a minority group and as such have placed majorities in jeapardy.

Teach those who can be taught! How many of our “ordinary” children, who don’t fit nicely into the “special needs” package, will fall between the cracks, because too many tax dollars are spent on children who will never be able to learn? Many of these “ordinary” children, have special “needs” of their own.

I agree that it is important that society accept these “minority” individuals, and do what we can to be accepting of them, but not at the expense of the majority! Why not reverse these rolls, and place more teachers among those who can be taught, and less into the “special needs” classrooms where many, (not all) are simply “glorified babysitters”?

[cowman]

Now despite the fact my mother was a school teacher and three of my sisters are/were I am no expert on the education system. All I do know is we can't keep pouring money into the system! Where does it end? When all our tax dollars go to health care and education?
I do know I feel a lot of empathy for these poor little souls that are born deficient or become that way. We do need to do all we can for them, help them to be all they can be sort of thing. That is our duty as human beings!
One part of education waste as I see it is the continued desire to close down older schools and build these expensive monstrosities! Another thing could be the large amounts of money wasted on administration?
Perhaps in this day and age we could do away with a lot of the expensive infrastructure if we had a large portion of the kids learning over the internet? Whether in school or at home? Then instead of a high priced teacher, teaching 25 kids we could have one teacher teaching thousands of kids! Maybe with an $6/hr. Mexican with a club to keep discipline? lol

[cakadu]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, cowman. If we did away with a few of the bureaucratic layers in the education system i.e. anyone not in the actual classroom teaching, we might save bundles of money every year.

I agree that we have a duty to ensure that the education is there for all in the formative years - whatever that instruction may look like.

Where I also hear of waste is that schools get paid based on the diversity of the classes that they teach and the options that are available to students. That might mean that there are classes with only 10 to 12 enrolled in them. Is it worth it to keep those classes going so that the school can bring in more money that way? I don't know what the answer is because when many of us went to school the only options we had were home economics or shop and when I was in about grade 9 they brought in the "hunter training" course. I wanted to take the hunter training instead of home economics because I was getting taught all of that stuff at home by my mother, and they wouldn't let me do it because that would have meant that they would have needed female chaperones and there was no way they were going to do that. Times sure have changed.

[ALICIA]

I believe that there is money. over 1 billon was swindaled into Quebec, that would of went along way.
What makes me more sick also is that a little girl was choked to unconchness on a school bus and I'll just bet and the kid that did it will never be found. The little girl was 4 yrs old what could she have possibly do to make some one do this. The oldest kids on the bus was 11 yrs old. They all got off the bus and didn't say a word, she was found later, but it was to late.
The state of the world just scares me to death, I just can't imagine living in a world when these kids grow up and start to run the country. No common sence, No discipline, They think they know every thing, and if its not written down in a book, then its wrong. They will not believe any thing you tell them. Have we talked to much, has this left the kids with know feeling of diggnety and self respected to each other and of others.

[15444]

You have to remember that this next generation of kids has grown up on colour TV, computers and a host of drugs that the world has never seen before, i.e. crystal meth. It all amounts to one screwed up bunch coming into the woodworks.

[cowman]

Alicia: When things happen like that little girl it just leaves me sick to my stomach. I can't begin to imagine how her parents must feel.
Kids can be pretty cruel and vicious and I doubt there is any solution to that. These are dangerous times we live in.