LOGAN'S PONY CLUB
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TAX CREDIT GIVES SPECIAL-ED STUDENTS A LEG UP
June 17, 2003 - TORONTO STAR
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Tory touts equity but guts education
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Letter, June 16.
As a father with a less able son in the Ontario public school system - who has cerebral palsy due to no fault of his own - I take exception to reader Tony Spears' notion that the governing Conservatives' Equity in Education Tax Credit policy will somehow decimate the public school system.
In the two years that my son has been enrolled in public school, he has suffered under two labour disruptions instigated by militant labour unions, which are the root cause of the problems in the public education system.
Walking off your job in the private sector would get you fired in a New York minute.
Why is it that special-education children are always the first to suffer the ill effects of strikes and work-to-rule campaigns, while their able-bodied classmates are not?
Allowing parents a choice in where their children are educated will afford children the uninterrupted education they deserve while still fully funding the failing public system most hard-working parents are forced to accept.
Without choices, we are held hostage to the institutional arrogance fostered by militant unions - which always put their needs above those of my son and the other special education kids who deserve an education like the rest.
In my view, militant labour unions and their adherents have dumbed down public education and intimidated their membership to the point where drastic measures need to be taken to rescue Ontario's faltering public education system from complete destruction.
Until then, the choices that this tax credit affords parents will allow our children to be educated to be the best they can be.
-- Mark-Alan Whittle, Hamilton.