6 - Wednesday, January 21, 1987 ~ North Shore News

Col

ad turkey

SHE CANADIAN Cancer Society has named
today Cold Turkey Day.
If you are still a smoker what better day than

todgy to quit?

There is hardly a smoker in the country that truly
likes what he is doing to himself, let alone the millions
of non-smokers who do not like what smokers are do-
ing to them. Yet smoking persists.

Why do smokers smoke? Certainly smoking is no
longer considered glamorous. Smokmy may at times
taste good, but most things taste better. The smell is
awful. The feeling is good, for awhile — before the
aching chest, the scratchy throat and the fatigue set in.

Even if a smoker knows for sure why he likes smok-
ing, surely the cons outweight the pros. Smoking kills.

Even non-smokers are at risk. A large case control
study by the American Cancer Society found that
women exposed to husbands who smoked 20 or more
cigarettes a day at home had double the risk of jung
cancer compared to women married to non-smokers.
Smokers are putting their friends, family and co-

workers at the same risk.

Smoke feaves unwanted odors in hair and clothes.
Smoke irritates allergies. Smoke causes cumulative
carbon monoxide poisoning. Smoke reduces lung ef-
ficency. Smoke increases the risk of cancer.

It is time for smokers to unite and butt out. Why not
start now and quit — cold turkey — today?

utonomy is good for schoo!

stitution (which is a left of centre

ONE OF THE PRIME TARGETS for cutbacks in restraint
programs across the country has been the education system.
One reason is that it is a natural given that the number of

students has, been failing.

It should be that the government
provides less money to those
departments of government that
need it least and a department
which is; having a decline in the
number of people needing the ser-
vices is’ an obvious candidate.
Nevertheless, there has been an
outery. |

One concern is that if the
salaries of teachers fall, the result
will be teachers of inferior quality.
So the saying goes, if you pay
peanuts ‘you will get monkeys.
While the quality of teacher is
probably to some degree sensitive
to the wages paid, it does not
follow that the quality of educa-
tion received by children will rise if
the wages of teachers rise. That
this may: be true can be gathered
from a study done nearly a decade
ago comparing the public and
private school systems of B.C.

That study, done by Professor
Stephen 'Haston and Professor Kel-
ly Busche, showed that the salaries
paid to independent school teach-
ers in B.C. were almost 30 per cent
below the average for the public
school system. As against that
large differénce, the difference in

By MICHAEL WALKER
: Fraser institute, Vancouver

the qualification of the teachers
was quite ‘small. However, it is
widely acknowledged that the
education and general training
received by children in the private
schools is far superior. That result
seems to cali into question the
assertion that higher salaries for
teachers are necessary to maintain
our nation’s education system.

But, it doesn’t tell us why public
schools with all the resources they
have, don’t do as good a job as
private schools. Now, a new study
in the U.S. seems to shed some
light on the issue. John Chubb and
Terry Moe at the Brookings In-
stitution in the U.S. shows that the
qualify cf education depends fess
on the quality of the teacher than

Noel Wright

LETTER OF THE DAY

Countervailing
barriers bad for
both countries

TH AND WEST VANCO!

- WEDNES DA TF DAY
1139 Lonsdale Ave.
North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

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< putty
Second Cl

Publisher:
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
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SUubUIDAN nea gupet

Peter Speck
Noel Wright
Barrett Fisher
Linda Stewart

eT Warc reaver S,

wre rept “ doh ted thats

MCOUNp AMET fy a

§8,287 (average, Wednesday fecab.|

Friday & Sutiday)

nh PUVIGIOSS

LIESA HERDMAN is one of
ihe many smokers who will be
breaking the cigarette habit to-

day during the

Canadian

Cancer Soaciety’s Cold Turkey
Day. Friends, family and co-
workers of smokers are urged
to be supportive of soun-to-be
ex-smokers attempting to clean

up the air and their bodies.

on the conditions under which the
learning is conducted. Their exam-
ination of 11,000 teachers and 500
schools, reveals that public school
teachers often labor under bad
conditions.

‘Relative to their private schoo!
counterparts, public school teach-
ers are bound by a straightjacket
of rules, often at odds with their
principals and district
bureaucracies, uncertain of their
central purposes, alienated from
their colleagues and compromised
in their classrooms.’’ Collectively,
these problems conspire against the
development of esprit de corps, a
team-like atmosphere and a singu-
lar school mission — all of which
were found to yield school effec-
tiveness.

A central ingredient which in-
dependent schools have is
autonomy and a sense of the need
to compete for higher standards.
That, say the reseachers, and not
more funding is the key to success
in education. According to this
study, issued by the Brookings In-

on vacation

Dear Editor:
My hat’s off to you, Bill...
Canada’s excessive hidden tax

structure (or subsidies as the U.S.

calls it) is the real stumbling block

with the U.S, on trade.

We criticize the U.S. for impos-
ing a 15 per cent tariff on our
lumber -~ yet nobody criticizes the
19.7 per cent tariff we have had
for years on U.S. tumber coming
into Canada.

I must

compliment Premier

Ic

think tank) the very bureaucracies
which the public education system
has produced in the ineffectual
search for high quality education

are strangling the profession.
Educational bureaucracies, like
school boards exercise their politi-
cal muscle by subjugating individ-
ual schools. The more autonomous
schools are permitted to be, the
less will be the power and prestige
of the school boards.

The same is true of the relation-
ship between the school boards
and the government. The reason
for the struggle between the
various governmental levels, of
course, is the fact that power
means control over finances. The
very existence of the educational
bureaucracy derives from the sheer
volume of financial resources
flowing through the system.
Anything that increases the volume
of capturable funding will tend to
increase this bureaucracy and
compound the problem of central!
direction and lass of autonomy.

While it may be that more
resources could be effectively used
in the public school system, that
probably won't be true until the
schools gain the kind of autonomy
enjoyed by private schools and
there can be some assurance that
the extra funding isn’t simply ab-
sorbed by the system itself.

Vander Zalm for at least acting
quickly to get our federal gov-
ernment to realize any penalty or
duty at all that is imposed by the
U.S. on our lumber is kept in our
respective provinces. My one hope
is that none of this money sticks to
the federal government on the way
through, but is directed to the
provinces from where the lumber
came,

We tell the U.S. that tariffs im-
posed on Canadian products will

Serpe abate eed erie ae

Entire coritents
1986 Norih Shore
free Press Lid All
tights reserved

G

YEARS
AGO...

(From the North Shore News of
January 20, 1982.)

STIFF INCREASES in property
tax assessments by the provincial
assessment authority led West Van
and North Van District councils to
take the unusual step of launching
general appeals on behalf of all
municipal taxpayers. Normally,
assessments are appealed only by
individual taxpayers.

-_ * *
CAR VANDALS went on a ram-
page in West Van where, within a
48-hour period, police recovered a
stolen car with windows and lights
smashed, found another two with
smashed windows and two more
deliberately overturned.

~_—* &
SECOND ARSON attack within
two weeks extensively damaged the
main floor of a vacant North Van
medical-dental building. There
were no casualties in the blaze,
which broke out shortly before
midnight.

- * =
WELFARE CUTS of $55 a month
hit single parents on welfare with a
child over six months, following
their classification as
“employable’’.

only increase the cost of goods to
their own American consumer. It’s
only fair to say then that the
duties, taxes, or tariffs imposed on
American goods coming into
Canada are also hurting the Cana-
dian consumer.

As a lesson to us all, counter-
vailing barriers by both countries
obviously do us more harm than °
good.

Ronald K. Gamble
Vancouver