About two and a half years ago, I spent a couple of nights at a Canadian campground in my recreational vehicle (RV) on the way to the St. Lawrence River for a boat trip through the Thousand Islands with a group of friends. It was October and definitely off-season, but teen-agers crowded the dining hall in the building where I registered for the camp-site.
I wondered why there were so many young people around, so I asked. The woman at the desk explained that they were students from the local Catholic school, and they were there for sex-education classes. It seems that the Catholic canon on how to prevent STD's and pregnancy (i.e. abstinence), is not entirely effective, and since The Church is not permitted to teach anything else on school premises, the children are bussed to another facility for a more realistic sex education.
"So there go more of our tax dollars." she said.
Being a naïve American from the lower 48, I was taken aback. "You don't mean to say that this is paid for with public funds."
"Yes, of course."
"But why do tax dollars support parochial education?"
She explained to me that both public schools and Catholic schools are supported by the government. This apparently goes back to disputes between the English (most of whom were Protestant) and French (mostly Catholic) during the era of consolidation of the Canadian National government. Consenting to public funds in support of Catholic education was one of the compromises used to mollify the French, who were becoming belligerent on the issue of education.
So this is what we, in the U.S., can look forward to if we decide to support special-interest private education with public funds!
