Wilber

Ultimately people bear their own responsiblity for the skills they bring to the market. It is not "someone" else's respnsiblity to educate them, that responsiblity lies with the individual. How can a 6 year old take responsibility for their own education?

Of course. I've been across the country and back and gone offshore to stay employed. My point is that someone has to educate the population and you can't expect others to do it for you.

Well, that's probably not more than 150,000 people. Not nearly enough. Once you get them trained in those professions, then what? Besides, are we now expecting Newfoundland to provide the primary education for the rest of the country's work force? Newfoundland's population is declining as it is.

I'm not worried. If there are less kids, that also means that there are less need for teachers and child-care workers. Those workers can be redeployed to look after the aged. Even if the demand for people to care for the aged grows, it is still very small relative to the overall working population. That makes no sense. If your working people are ageing and there are fewer young people, where are the working people going to come from?

I don't know much about it but one of my grandfathers and an uncle were Masons. Two of the kindest, gentlest people I have known and very active in community service.

As the population ages, it will take more and more. It's not the size of the population, it's the demographic.

Who is going to maintain the society you will need to survive in your old age. We may not need to grow but if we don't replace what we have we will gradually become a nation of 80 year olds. Japan is already finding this out. Declining school enrollments and school closures while population increases is losing ground. How many fewer kids would be a benefit to society? Would none be a benefit?

Both education and medicare would benefit if there was at least some element of user pay. By your logic doesn't food benefit society? Afterall, eating nutritous food keeps the population healthy, and isn't that good for society? So perhaps, I should expect that society should pay for all nutritous food. How could increasing the cost of education to those who already have the expense of raising children help education and healthcare? Where would you earn the money to pay for that food if no one took responsibility for your education and you can't read, write and don't have basic math skills? How could an uneducated society afford to buy them for you? The population of BC is increasing but school enrollments are declining and schools are closing. We are not maintaining the supply of educated young people our society will require to function in the future, we have to import them from elsewhere. People are deciding to have fewer children or none at all, partly because the cost of living is making it increasingly difficult to do so. Increasing the cost of raising and educating a child is extremely short sighted and ignores the reason societies educate their citizens at all. It is because the standing of a country in the world and its standard of living is directly connected to the literacy of its population.

For the same reason all of our daily life necessities don't come from general revenues. Why don't we expect government to pay for our food, accomodation, transport, and everything else? What does that have to do with education? Don't you think education is at least as important as medical care. Without education you wouldn't have it. Other than the farmer and the grocery store, your pigging out at the dinner table doesn't benefit society. Your getting an education and doing something positive with it does.

It couldn't just be because it is a bad plan.

Why shouldn't it all come from general revenues? I don't have a problem with that at all. It makes no sense to make raising and educating a child even more expensive than it already is for parents. I wasn't referring to education, I was referring to life. Funding basic education is far too important to be voluntary.

What's the matter with learning something about different faiths? It's not the same as promoting them. It's a school isn't it? Are they supposed to pretend they don't exist? Schools are supposed to be about learning, not ignorance. It's the same mentality as avoiding the dreaded Ch_______s word.

If there is no school tax, who is paying for the education system except for those who are educating the children who will maintain the society that all of us require to survive? When a person pays for someone else's services, they don't do it because of their education, they do it because their need for what those people can do is greater than the amount they are prepared to pay. The greater their need, the more they are prepared to pay. If no one takes responsibility for educating these people when they are children, we won't find them at any price. Why should everyone benefit and only a few take the responsibility? My need for those educated and skilled people to keep my society functioning is far greater than anything I pay in school taxes.

I go with ignorant and stupid. I don't think they know enough to be intolerant.

You still seem to think that some people should reap the benefits that an educated society provides without contributing and it is someone elses responsibility to raise and educate that society for them. When you come up with a taxation system that is 100% fair, you will have my vote for King of the World. Until then, the rest of us will just have to keep looking for the one which is the least unfair.

I don't think it is reasonable to always assure that a per student charge would be less than school taxes. There will be large families crammed into small houses who pay relatively low school taxes, for them it would undoubtly be more. There are small families in high-value houses which would pay less. In any case the actual amount paid are just details. What I'm proposing is a principle which is reflective of use of the system. No renters would not be exempt. They pay school taxes too, the only difference is that the taxes are included in their rent. In fact apartment renters are unfairly penalized in the current system, because the taxes on MURBs are much higher than houses. So more affluent parents with the most expensive houses would get the biggest benefit and renters would not only have to pay the property owners school tax through their rent but pay up front for schooling as well. As we all benefit equally or at least have an equal opportunity to benefit from a pubic education system through our own education or from the services and wealth generated by those who do, perhaps a more appropriate thing would be a head tax for education on everyone, starting at 20 years old or whenever they complete high school, whichever comes first.

Yes this is in lieu of school taxes based upon property value. Interesting thought. As long as their school taxes were equal to or more than what it would cost to send their children to school, I don't have a problem with that for those who own their own homes. Would you exempt renters?

If we run 220V through everything large made of copper, that could help by killing two birds with one jolt so to speak.

It costs what it costs, the issue is who pays.

Is this in lieu of school taxes because as parents perform a function that is essential to the society I live in, I can think of no good reason to penalize them and some good reasons to reward them. I consider the benefit vital to my well being. I have no problem with contributing my full share to education for the rest of my life even though my children left the nest some time ago. I consider it money well spent. The compensation the individual gets is reflected in their value to society.

Because we all need to share the cost or it will be unfordable for too many people. I don't know how you do that other than with taxes. Besides, we all benefit from the result. To use the same logic, if you use a particular bridge that I don't, why should my taxes go toward building and maintaining it. Why can't I just say, buy a boat? Can't afford a boat? Can't afford boat payments? Too bad. That's true but society as we know it cannot survive without them. Not the sole beneficiary but the major one. In fact, the society we have could not exist without it. Education adds to the value each citizen can contribute to the system. A basic education adds value to all citizens and makes them less likely to be dependent on others in the future. Many will go farther at their own expense and deserve whatever added compensation comes from it. Even then, unless it is a privately run institution with no government or philanthropic support, tuition will cover only part of the cost of their education.

They do shoulder part of the cost. They pay taxes that go toward schooling like the rest of us. I'll try this one more time. You are getting a heck of a deal. Raising children is hard work, time consuming and expensive. Never mind the education bit. You get the benefit of the wealth these children will produce and the services they will provide without having to go through any of that. Our society will not survive without them. All you are asked to do is pony up a little money to see they get a basic education. As I said before, society must continually renew itself to provide the wealth and services it needs to function. You ask how much. The answer is almost everything. When you go to the store and buy a 2X4, the guy that cut the tree down, the people who made and sold his equipment, the people who ran the mill and those who made their equipment, the truck driver who transported it and those who built and sold his truck, plus the people who worked at the store, all required some sort of education. When you are 80 years old, fall off your scooter and break your hip, you will want an orthopedic surgeon to fix it for you. Where do you think he will come from if people like you don't want to invest in basic education. Every time you do, use or need something that requires the involvement of someone else, you benefit from whatever education they have, right from pre school to a PhD. It is in your best interest to support a good education system because it would be difficult to even survive let alone live a good life without the benefits it provides for everyone.

It was like the Maginot line, the Mongols went around it.

Under your system yes. Society needs to continually renew its supply of young educated people to function. Because we all benifit from the wealth those children will produce, if all of society does not contribute to their education, the people who are paying will be subsidizing the standard of living of those who do not. What is so hard to understand? Who cares, you are grasping at straws with this one. This is not about foreign aristocrats sending there children to private school, it is about the average Canadian getting an education.

I think you overestimate the profit component of private schools but let's use your 8K number. For the country to avoid negative population growth, every person who was born in this country must be replaced by another born and educated here, otherwise the society will die unless we import educated people from other countries. Under your system that means 96K in after tax dollars to give each child the 12 year education that society now provides. If you and your partner decide to have no children, some other couple must have four or we must find two well educated immigrants. You will have to find people in Canada or elsewhere who are willing and able to put out 384K in after tax dollars to educate children so that you and your partner can enjoy the society they maintain, without contributing yourself. I live in a city that is about 90km from Vancouver where the average house price is pushing 400K. I don't think there are many young couples out there who could subsidize you to that extent. Perhaps you should do away with yourself now because someone who is willing needs your job and the rest of society needs their contribution. It is true, you are the one who got the education, you are the one who benefited from it, you are the one who owes. Education is a provincial jurisdiction, paid for by provincial and municipal taxpayers. Why leave the country? Just move to the next province and make the same claim. I don't think you will get much sympathy. I have seen several and they were all publicly funded. Society (including your parents) took responsibility to see that you were educated, so that you could enjoy the benefits and share the obligations of maintaining the society which has given you so much. They did so because they had the wisdom to know there is nothing more beneficial a society can do for itself than invest in a well educated and healthy population. It's ironic that on a thread titled "Seniors and Entitlement" someone approaching geezerdom is telling you that they have a continuing obligation to the education of our children for as long as they live, not from a sense of charity but because they know it is in their own best interest. You are the one who received the education, you are the one who benefits, you are the one who has an obligation to the children of today and tomorrow.