This fall children as young as three- and- a-half years old will attend all-day Kindergarten in 600 schools across the province of Ontario. Many think this is a great idea. How can anybody question an early start to schooling and learning? Some educators believe, including parents, that the earlier we begin schooling the better.

            When the school year 2015-2016 opens every school in the province will have all-day Kindergarten. All children up to six years will also get all-day programming. At the start of the school year 2011, the province projects an enrollment of close to 50,000 children in about 800 schools. When its fully implemented, the total cost to tax payers for this misguided educational policy will be in the billions of dollars.

            What will the tax payer get in return for spending all this money? Well, if you haven’t heard this is all part of the McGuinty government’s Open Ontario Plan <http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/openOntario/index.php?Lang=EN#FullDayLearning> to give children a strong foundation for better future learning. Many parents are already embracing this move as progressive; it’s an educational idea for our times. Parents can go to work and the schools will “instruct” the children. And if all-day early schooling doesn’t cover all the hours while the parents go to work, parents also have before and after school day-care programs. Warning: the Open Ontario Plan is a truly regressive educational step.

Education program

            Parents should not be fooled by the educational jargon. If the government really wanted to give Ontario children an early start, why didn’t they promise to put those billions of dollars in making sure that Ontario has economically strong and healthy families? Why not give families who raise their own children a substantial tax-deduction, or pay one parent a nominal salary if they choose to stay home to educate and raise their children? After all, raising good children in good families is beneficial for all Ontarians.

            Does the government actually want a strong foundation for Ontario children? If the response is yes, then they tell Ontarians the truth. Children who are good learners are those who come to school from families who love and care for them. These children want to learn because they feel good about themselves. The Open Ontario Plan cannot teach children anything. It’s an ideology that sounds good, but in and of itself will add little of substance to early learning.

            It will serve, however, to separate children from their parents at an earlier age so the state/province can have a better start at brainwashing them and controlling what they learn.

I strongly urge parents not to give up their right to educate their children. Parents owe it to their children to be with them, to teach them values, to introduce them to the faith and to love them. Does any parent actually believe that any school board or government program can do this?

            With this early schooling policy the McGuinty government continues to lose credibility. Remember how they had to withdraw their proposed physical education and health curriculum because the majority of Ontarians did not want to see their children sexualized and verbally abused at such an early age.

            Just recently McGuinty announced that Ontario will have Internet gambling by 2012. Thank you but no thanks Mr. Premier. So, soon the province will be able to legally promote an addiction to possibly pay for all this unnecessary early schooling. One bad decision leads to another. Nobody, especially parents, should take seriously any initiative coming from this morally bankrupt government. Children will need their lives fortified by faith in order to fight against the lies and a “province-fostered” culture of death. Parents must have the moral courage to make sure children are introduced to the truth.

Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA)

            The brainwashing doesn’t end here. James Ryan, president of the English Catholic Teachers’ Association has told the media that he sees early schooling as a positive move. Children who come from economically disadvantaged homes, according to the leader of one of the biggest Catholic labour unions in the country, will now have a head start. Ryan even argues that sending four-year-olds to all-day schooling is actually a pro-life policy. Catholics, he claims, want it because it will make it easier to have and to raise children and this is a pro-life position. This is moral nonsense.

            Despite James Ryan, parents should look for the truth on the issue. Pro-life does not see children as a burden, or the idea of “being stuck” because parents want to spend time with them. Parenting is a privilege and a vocation; its also a sacrifice of self in order to make sure children learn the proper skills to live good lives. Parenting gives the adult an opportunity to create a loving environment for the children to grow. How can we trust what Mr. Ryan says when all these new all-day early education classes will give employment to hundreds of teachers who in turn pay union dues to pay his salary? And all his talk about early schooling promoting pro-life is absurd. If Ontario was, in fact, a pro-life province the government would never have considered this move to school children at earlier age and for longer hours. They would have known that parents would have strongly challenged the Ministry of Education, as well as being prepared to keep their children at home until they are older. Regrettably, this will probably not happen as the new school year opens this September.

            Parents should quickly realize that all this early schooling is a battle to win over their children’s hearts and minds. The Open Ontario Plan will do nothing to teach children what they really ought to know: how to live virtuous lives. The Open Ontario Plan has been attractively packaged: “early start”, “successful learner”, “strong foundation” and “better future learning”, but its pedagogy is morally toxic to family values and to children’s innocence. The Open Ontario Plan is more of the same at an earlier age: more secularism, more nihilism and more statism. To save children from all this we should reject free all-day Kindergarten and keep the children home until they are older. The question is, are parents willing to make the sacrifice, in terms of money, career plans and the work required, for their children’s mental, physical and spiritual well-being?

From the author’s blog:

Everyday For Life Canada: A Blog of Canadian Life, Family & Cultural Issues