AlbertaParentsUnion

The traditional school year is over, and the race for school board trustee is underway!

The October 20th election may seem plenty far away, but with the summer break followed immediately by the back-to-school rush, it will sneak up on us quickly.

Of course, the majority of students (and the majority of children of Alberta Parents' Union supporters) who attend residentially-assigned schools have their education affected by elected school board officials.

In fact, one of the major problems with the current crop of school board trustees is that they practice learned helplessness.

They don't exercise their proper authority and they allow Administration to run amok.

But as we've we’ve written about before - and will write again with more examples - school board trustees don’t only affect families in residentially assigned schools.

They also affect those who have opted for schools of choice, as well.

While education is a provincial responsibility, a preference for local control has led to the Government of Alberta delegating many responsibilities - including spending priorities and much of the social policy surrounding schools - to elected school trustees.

Many of the decisions parents most frequently come to us in anger over are made by elected school boards.

And we know that there's a shaky foundation underneath the crumbling facade we can see.

That's why we want to do more research into the management, transparency, and priorities of school boards.

We also have promised to survey trustee candidates in every ward in every school division in Alberta and present their answers publicly.

We did this with great success for the Calgary Catholic by-election, and are confident that parents all over the province will benefit from more information about trustee candidates.

Our commitment is to equip parents - as well as grandparents, taxpayers, and educators who support us - to make a difference in these school board elections.

How can we do that?

We can vote.

Turnout is much lower for municipal elections than it is for provincial and federal elections.

Even fewer people vote for school trustees, even if they're already at the polling station for mayor or council.

That means your vote - in particular, your informed vote - has a greater impact than you may think.

If you take the time to be informed about the issues and the positions of the candidates, which we hope to facilitate, then you can multiply your impact by helping friends and neighbours get informed too.

While engaging friends and neighbours in the process informally will multiply the impact of simply casting a well-researched vote yourself, you can increase your effectiveness even more by offering your time to a quality candidate's campaign.

Most candidates for school trustee don't have volunteers outside their immediate family.

With volunteers, quality candidates can connect with more voters and make sure they're engaged with the issues in time for the October 20th election.

And helping a candidate you support is easier than you might think.

We would like to offer training in grassroots advocacy that will give you the confidence to help a trustee candidate of your choice.

Of course, if you simply cannot find a trustee candidate you can support in your area, you could perhaps run yourself!

We refuse to be like far too many school boards and wallow in learned helplessness.

We can make a difference for Alberta students, together.

If we keep re-electing school board trustees who refuse to plan, prioritize, and fight for students, we're sending the message that mediocrity is acceptable.

If you, like so many of us, are not satisfied with the status quo in education, then sign up to volunteer, and we may announce a training session in your area:

VOLUNTEER

The Alberta Government asked for your feedback on books in school libraries, and 77,395 of you responded!

The results, of course, confirmed what we, here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, regularly hear from parents like you.

Parents overwhelmingly oppose sexually explicit content in school libraries, and they want a greater say in what their children are exposed to in the classroom

Among K-12 parents who responded to the survey, 42% said children, of any age, should never be able to access sexually explicit content at school.

Only 4% said such content should be available to elementary students.

The rest were divided between middle school (18%), high school (22%), and all ages (14%).

As we were quoted saying by the CBC:

"That's an overwhelming consensus from parents to keep it out of elementary schools. That's a strong basis to at least start there."

We hear about this issue from our members all the time, so we’re not surprised by how strongly parents feel.

What is concerning, however, is just how wide the gap is between parents and librarians.

Nearly 50% of K-12 parents strongly agree that "parents and guardians [should] play a role in reporting or challenging the availability of materials with sexually explicit content in school libraries".

Nearly 70% of parents agree, while less than 50% of librarians do, and only 12% agree strongly.

Based on the wording of the question, that means a majority of librarians can't see any role for parents in setting standards for school libraries.

The same pattern is shown in support for parental consent being required as an alternative to removing titles entirely.

K-12 Parents strongly agreed with this solution at a rate of 43%, while only 12% librarians felt the same way.

If consensus is going to be, frankly, impossible, the question becomes who gets to decide?

As we told rdnewsNOW:

The Alberta Parents' Union was formed around the conviction that parents - not politicians and not school librarians - are the real experts in our own kids.

If parents believe material is age-inappropriate for their child, it is.

It's also important to remember that school librarians do believe there are age-inappropriate topics, at least for curriculum standards - as does the Alberta Teachers' Association.

Unfortunately, the topics they deem inappropriate for the youngest students are the Roman Empire, the Silk Road, and Charlemagne.

So they have no issue with the idea that some material is only appropriate for some ages.

They just want to be the ones to decide, rather than leaving it to parents.

Overall, these survey results, the statements of librarians, and the positions of the associations they belong to - including the Alberta Teachers’ Association - are troubling to us.

They raise the concern that these graphic sexual images in school libraries may be an ongoing problem, not isolated incidents.

Parents are the real experts in our own kids, and that expertise needs to be trusted for the project of schooling itself to be trusted.

As our friend, Robert Pondiscio, says:

"Public schools cannot be both a core government service and a platform for personal or political expression. The tension between those roles has been allowed to fester unexamined for too long."

Parents entrust the most precious thing we can to our children's schools.

That trust is absolutely essential, but it is fragile.

As even the Library Association of Alberta admits:

"responsibility to control access to library materials by children rests with parents."

That responsibility can be delegated, but it can never be deleted.

The Alberta Parents’ Union is encouraging the provincial government to take these results seriously, to share our concern with what it reveals about the attitudes of librarians, and ensure school library policies reflect the values of families.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) has voted once again to proceed towards a teacher strike.

A neutral mediator had proposed a 3% pay increase retroactive to September 1st, 2024, another 3% increase on September 1st of this year, and another 3% increase in 2026.

She also proposed more generous sick leave, group health benefits, northern and remote allowances, and so on.

The mediator even proposed that each school division be required to establish a “Complexity and Inclusion Working Group” to address local class size and complexity concerns.

This proposal was rejected by the ATA and then they ratified their intention to strike.

Indeed, with most teachers in Alberta required by law to join and pay dues to the ATA, whether they'd like to or not, the ATA has every incentive to occasionally threaten or carry out strike actions.

Because there is no free market in teaching services, there is no way to find the correct wages for a teacher without the blunt instruments of strikes and threats of strikes, holding student learning hostage.

Not that this guarantees that teachers get what they deserve, either, since the government also has a very blunt instrument: they can legislate teachers back to work.

So, we have a system that ensures nothing like fairness, but does ensure families with kids in school, who don't get a seat at the table, are held in the balance from time to time.

And let's be clear, the cost to families and their students is substantial!

Studies of the impact of teacher strikes have found that they:

1. lower immediate test scores,
2. increase absenteeism,
3. reduce the life-long education students attempt to receive,
4. harm life-long earnings for students, and
5. hurt immediate earnings for the family of the student.

School closures during COVID-19 were, at some times and places, difficult to distinguish from teacher strikes (including even some demands to abolish charter schools before teachers returned to the classroom).

Sure enough, a flurry of research all over the world confirms the same harms applied in these recent school stoppages, as well.

The major difference in a teacher strike is that they are unlikely to offer remote schooling (for the little good that did).

If a student's school is closed, the money should follow that child to any education their family chooses to fill the gaps!

Then their school would have an incentive to cater to the needs of the families who actually pay the salaries under dispute and entrust our most precious children to their supervision.

Importantly, the government would also lack a perverse incentive to keep wages down and endure occasional strikes, in which they don't spend money educating your kid.

Instead of being caught in the crossfire of regular labour disputes they are not a party to, families and their students should have an Education Continuity Allowance.

These could be used towards a school that is open and willing to take the child, tutoring, temporary home education materials, an online course, hands-on training in a profession, or any combination of these.

With the money that would already be spent on a given child, families should decide how best to replace the education opportunity torn away from the child by squabbling adults!

We're calling on the Government of Alberta to strike-proof Alberta students by introducing an Education Continuity Allowance.

If you agree, sign our petition to Strike-Proof Alberta Students today:

SIGN THE PETITION

Putting Children at the Center of Education, Not Just the Middle of Education Disputes,

The Alberta NDP Leader, Naheed Nenshi, needs to come clean and tell Alberta parents what his position on school choice is.

During the federal election campaign, Nenshi spoke at an event held by "Public Interest Alberta" - a stridently anti-school-choice organization.

Even worse, the event was hosted by the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA), which also opposes school choice, and Nenshi didn't just speak - he gave the keynote address!

We don't know what he said at the event, but it seems unlikely he defended parents' right to choose the type of education their kids receive, doesn't it?

Public Interest Alberta, in their own words, “advocates to phase out funding for private schools and end the charter school experiment”.

We've covered the Alberta Teachers’ Association's disingenuous attacks on school choice before, but here's a quick reminder for anyone who missed those emails.

It is the official position of the ATA that charter schools should be abolished, going so far as to say:

Most seriously, the net effect of the establishment of charter schools has been to disadvantage the poorest and most vulnerable student populations, contributing to the segregation of education as parents who have the means to place their children in charter schools abandon failing public schools to those who don’t.

It's important to note that, not only is everything in this despicable quote from the ATA a lie, it is the exact opposite of the truth.

For starters, charter schools cannot and do not screen families for “means” or charge families to attend.

The ATA has also partnered with the Alberta School Councils’ Association to run advertisements calling on independent school funding to be zeroed out.

Those advertisements are, of course, paid for by the ATA, not the supposed parents’ organization.

Sadly, the ATA has completely hijacked the provincial-level advocacy of the Alberta School Councils’ Association away from the parents who serve on local school councils.

As we have discussed before, parents’ democratic voices have been silenced within the organization intended to represent us to the provincial government, in favour of the ATA's agenda.

That's one of the reasons we felt compelled to form the Alberta Parents’ Union, in the first place.

It's worth noting that charter and independent school teachers are the only teachers in Alberta who are not forced to belong to the ATA and pay $1,422 per year in dues to do their job.

The Alberta Opposition Leader, Naheed Nenshi, needs to come clean on school choice, after being hosted by the ATA and Public Interest Alberta, who want to abolish charter schools and defund independent schools.

Nenshi has never attacked school choice, but neither has he quite made his position clear.

From 2015-2019, when the NDP was government, they never went so far as to abolish charter schools, but they did deny new charter school applications.

Likewise, the NDP government threatened several independent schools directly with defunding, but didn't actually defund independent schools.

That’s because charter and independent schools are wildly popular, especially with the families that currently enroll their kids in one of these schools.

But lengthy wait-lists for almost all such schools show that they are popular with families who haven't found a seat in one too.

Further, research shows consistently that public school kids are better off in every way when their public school has to earn their enrollment.

Now, Nenshi is aligning himself with the radical agenda of the ATA and Public Interest Alberta, which raises questions about his commitment to educational freedom.

Naheed Nenshi needs to come clean on school choice.

He needs to tell parents what he believes about charter and independent school funding.

He needs to let us know whether he plans to trap families in schools that are hostile to their values.

When schools have to listen to the families they serve, everyone is better off - including the majority of us who still opt for our assigned public schools.

That's why school choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats!

Mark Carney has released his campaign platform, and it looks like it may well be opening up a gusher of funding for anti-parent initiatives.

We have mentioned before that the Trudeau government was funding Egale Canada to the tune of tens of millions of dollars to advocate against parental rights.

Specifically, Egale Canada is suing the provinces that have legislation respecting parental rights in education and praising Cuba for eliminating all such rights.

In March, we learned that we can expect even more federal funding for new anti-parent initiatives - this time from the ARC Foundation.

The ARC Foundation pioneered the outside materials strategy for working sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) content into classrooms without parental knowledge.

In their newsletter, they announced:

“We are excited to share that ARC Foundation has secured nearly one million dollars in funding from the Department of Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) to further advance SOGI 123’s intersectional approaches to creating safer, more inclusive schools for all students.”

Unfortunately, by “safer” they mean “more hidden from parents”.

Likewise, “inclusive” means its opposite - namely, the exclusion of you as a parent from involvement in discussions of your child’s identity.

The ARC Foundation plans to use these new federal funds to hire a new employee who:

“will foster intersectional community engagement to further incorporate intercultural perspectives into SOGI-inclusive education, with a focus on Muslim and South Asian communities.”

To be clear, this is work that would be plainly illegal for the Feds to do directly.

So, instead, they're just funding a separate organization to interfere in the provincial jurisdiction of education on their behalf.

But this may just be the tip of the iceberg because, in back-to-back commitments (on the last of 67 pages), Mark Carney has promised to:

1. Make permanent the “temporary” “capacity building” funding stream through which the SOGI education was funded.
2. Expand the program for groups favoured by the federal government to engage in lawsuits.

Of course, this isn't the only area where the Feds want to cut out parents.

You may remember SafeLink Alberta, from the incident in which they distributed pamphlets on “Safe Crack Smoking”, “Safer Crystal Meth Smoking”, and so on at Medicine Hat High School.

SafeLink is funded by no less than three federal government programs.

The federal government lists classroom-based funding recipients as 60% of its “Action and awareness success stories” for its “Climate Action and Awareness Fund”.

Unfortunately, we could go on and on.

This would be a problem, if only because these are all examples of the federal government using your tax dollars to usurp provincial jurisdiction.

But it’s an even bigger problem when they are using your tax dollars to advocate against or to subvert parental rights in these sensitive areas.

Whoever wins on Monday, we plan to bring pressure to end this end-run around provinces and parents.

But unless and until we succeed, you're already funding the organizations with the most vested interest to prevent us from succeeding.

Although I don't agree with everything the Alberta Parents Union writes, does or stands for, I post the emails I receive from them because I think they deserve to be heard.

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If the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) just read our emails, they could have had a 7 month head-start.

Back in August, we told you that the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) was using some fuzzy math when it comes to education funding.

The ATA were claiming, as they often do, that Alberta spends the lowest amount of money per student on education out of all the provinces.

We pointed out that they were wrong for a number of reasons, including the fact that the figures they were using were incredibly misleading.

Well, now, 7 months later, the CBC have written a fact-check of the ATA’s claims on the exact same grounds as we already did!

(We’ll forgive them for being 7 months late in reporting this - they do only have a billion dollars of taxpayer funding for their reporting, after all.)

This development is all the more surprising because, as you probably well know, the CBC usually just repeats the ATA’s claims without question.

How bad must the ATA’s claims have to have been to warrant a CBC fact-check?

Let's take a look!

“Trickier than you might expect”

The central disagreement is around the data being used to calculate the per-student funding.

In the CBC’s fact-check, reporter Robson Fletcher explains how the ATA claims they are simply using Statistics Canada (StatCan) data.

However, StatCan themselves actively went to the public broadcaster to say that the ATA was twisting StatCan’s numbers to make their argument:

“But Statistics Canada, itself, urges caution when interpreting its data in this way.

That's because precisely calculating per-student funding for public schools across every province in a consistent and comparable manner is a [sic] trickier than you might expect.”

We thought that seemed familiar, so we went back to our email titled “The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark” and here’s what we wrote in August:

“But what StatCan don't do is simply divide one set of numbers by the other, to give the 'average amount of money spent per student' in each province.

And it's important to understand that StatCan don't do this, because they know that there are many differences and variables across all the provinces.”

Indeed, as the CBC summarizes the statistical nerds’ own warnings:

“But officials with StatsCan told CBC News it's actually impossible with the available public-facing data to precisely calculate per-student funding for public schools and make truly accurate comparisons between provinces.”

We were a little more blunt, but said essentially the same thing:

“There are probably dozens more reasons why merging these two datasets makes no sense, and any 'average' resulting from doing so is complete nonsense.”

Apples to Apples

The basic reason the ATA - or anyone else - cannot simply divide one StatCan table by another, is that the result will not be comparing apples to apples.

The CBC explained the ATA’s error like this:

”StatsCan says it uses a 'consolidated spending' approach to look at a 'holistic version' of education expenditures, including those at the school board level as well as 'direct expenditures by provinces and territories.' (The ATA, by contrast, used a dataset that includes just school board expenditures.)”

We explained the same thing with more words, but less jargon, like this:

“For example, in some provinces, the government pays for more things directly, and pays for fewer things via school boards, whereas in other provinces, the school boards are left to make more of the purchases.

In other provinces, including Alberta, there are simply fewer students going to schools managed by school boards and more students going to charter schools and other alternative types of schools.

Alberta is the only province with charter schools.

Charter schools are not governed by school boards, so their funding is transferred directly to the school rather than to a school board, meaning that funding doesn't show up in one of the datasets.”

ATA “Mistakes” Are Ideological

A hint as to why the ATA can't be trusted to handle these numbers carefully lies in a quote from the CBC story:

“The [StatCan] methodology, which includes private-school spending, also aligns with international standards, and StatsCan reports its results to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.”

This is because much of the rest of the world has choice in education, so private-school spending has to be included to make them match.

The ATA is setting out to prove that public schools are underfunded, and deliberately designing calculations that will result in that answer, even if they make no sense.

Thankfully, the media are now finally paying attention, and the ATA’s claims are being at least somewhat tested on this one point.

But, imagine if we could challenge the ATA on every single one of their claims?

Imagine if we could push back on each and every misleading statement they make about Alberta’s education system.

Well - there’s no need to imagine.

That’s exactly what the Alberta Parents’ Union is trying to do.

We’re trying to build a movement of thousands of parents that can get the truth about our education system out there far and wide.

So, tell your friends to sign up for the Alberta Parents’ Union and get tomorrow’s news today!

The more members and supporters we have, the wider we can spread our message.

“Don't tell me where your priorities are.

Show me where you spend your money and I'll tell you what they are.”

Provincial budgets don't merely determine how much tax you will pay, how much will be borrowed for your children to pay, and what services those children will receive.

They are also an attempt to align those numbers to the values of Albertans.

So, how did the government do in this year's budget?

Well, we’re letting you tell us, but first we’ll give you the simple goods on what’s in the budget and what has changed.

Then we have some questions for you, and we will be sharing your answers with the government to let them know how you feel they did in reflecting your values.

Prioritizing Choice in Education

First, we evidently get to break some news we have seen nowhere else.

The Weighted Moving Average - the funding formula we opposed for undermining choice in education - is dead.

This is a giant win for our organization, as we raised this issue in early August and have seen action in less than one full budget cycle!

We told you again in October to contact the relevant decision-makers and let them know we expected to see a new model that gave preference to schools attracting families, rather than schools driving families away.

That is precisely what we have in this budget.

The funding model is being adjusted to provide funding based on a two-year enrollment average instead of three, starting this Fall.

Of the funding, 30% will be based on the current year’s enrollment and 70% will be based on projections of the following year’s enrollment.

That means the money will follow the child, much more faithfully than before, and growing schools will receive extra funding in anticipation of that growth.

Under the old Weighted Moving Average, shrinking schools received extra per student funding, instead.

We are pleased to see schools better incentivized to grow by meeting families’ needs, rather than an attempt to cushion the blow for schools rejected by families.

We are so proud of the advocacy you all did to see this day come, when Alberta returns to its stated principles of supporting choice in education.

One could be surprised that the Alberta Teachers’ Association, after complaining about the funding formula for years, hasn’t trumpeted this as a win.

But we mentioned that arguing for money to follow the child has always been an awkward and inconsistent position for them.

We anticipate that the teacher union will, eventually, attack this solution to the problems they decried for years.

We stand ready to oppose those arguments on the same, consistent ground we always have: that parents know what their kids need better than politicians, so parents should be empowered to make the decisions about their kids’ education.

In that vein, we must mention before moving on that this budget also prioritizes capital funding to provide more seats at schools where families languish on waiting lists.

Education Property Tax Increase

Homeowners will be seeing an increase on their property taxes, and, of course, renters will see that passed along as a rent increase.

The Province has estimated Calgarians will pay $239 more, on average, this year.

Edmontonians will pay an average of $93 more, and those outside the two major metros will pay less, in accordance with lower average land values.

Depending on your municipality, you are likely seeing a property tax increase already, but this is a provincial “requisition” for education funding.

Traditionally, the Province’s revenue target has been that 33% of the education budget will be paid for through property taxes.

That may already be a surprise, if you (like many taxpayers) thought property taxes paid for the entirety of the education budget.

If so, you might be particularly surprised to learn that the actual proportion of the education budget covered by property taxes has been a mere 28.5%.

This year’s property tax increase is projected to bring in 31.6% of what Alberta will spend on education.

In future years, the Province says it wants to return to the historical 33% target, but not go beyond that.

Funding Priorities

Finally, we’ll review the funding priorities which have driven this round of increases.

Alberta will spend $54 million in the next school year, and $348 million in the next two years, to attempt to catch up to enrollment growth pressures.

A whopping $1.6 billion is earmarked, just in the next school year, for students with specialized learning needs.

The Province anticipates this funding will result in 4,000 new teachers and classroom support staff over the next three years.

With rising maintenance costs, Alberta is spending another $389 million over the next three years to address those needs - they mentioned, in particular, the rising cost of insurance and utilities.

We Want to Hear from You

So, what do you think?

Does this education budget reflect your values?

Here are some questions we'd love to know your thoughts on, but also feel free to let us know anything else on your mind:

Q1: Do you support or oppose the Government of Alberta ending the old Weighted Moving Average funding model?

Q2: Alberta Education will now be spending roughly $12,000 per student per year. Does that seem too low, too high, or about right to you?

Q3: What are your thoughts on the Education Property Tax Increase? Should property taxes have covered the full amount? Are property taxes even the right way to do this? Maybe all taxes should be higher, or lower?

Q4: Given this level of funding and taxation, do you think the priorities set in Budget 2025 reflect your values?

Q5: What changes would you make to the education budget to better reflect your own values?

Read the latest newsletter, the Alberta Parents Union to get their take on the Myths of Charter Schools.

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If you’re running a grab-and-go sandwich shop, and you make all the sandwiches before the lunch rush, which one should you definitely make more of?

The one the most people ask for after you’re all out, right?

In schooling, the option the most families are asking for after all the existing seats are filled are charter schools.

Here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, we support the full range of choices in education.

We want parents to be empowered to have real choices - motivated to meet their children’s needs - between public, separate, francophone, alternative program, charter, independent, and home education.

We’re even pushing for new options to be further defined - like learning pods!

But the grab-and-go sandwich shop analogy still holds.

If you want to know what Alberta needs more of, most desperately, look at what we have the most families asking for after we have no more seats.

Clearly, it's charter schools.

Some public and separate schools might have 110%, even 130%, utilization rates, but most charter schools have two or more times the number of students waiting to get in than they have seats for.

Of course, supplying more seats in these schools would also help relieve pressure on these families’ second and third choices.

Any attempt to add more seats at charter schools, though, will be met by myths like this one from Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) Executive Staff Officer, Dr. Lisa Everitt:

Myth: “While charter schools are not as exclusive as private schools, they can refuse some students access.”

The Charter Schools Handbook - the government’s rules for charter applicants - is unequivocal that charter schools may not refuse access except for lack of capacity.

Even then, selection must be open and fair (considering such priorities as geography, keeping siblings together, and first-come-first-serve).

Any family denied a placement may request a review.

The ATA uses waiting lists as an argument that some students are refused access.

In fact, they are a powerful argument for capital funding to build and expand charter schools, which the ATA actually opposes.

The fact is that real opportunities for kids hang in the balance, and this level of chicanery coming from ATA officials is not funny - it’s offensive.

In the same paragraph, Everitt claims:

Myth: “Given that charter schools are not publicly accountable, what happens to the infrastructure if a charter school is dissolved?”

She doesn’t mean accountability to parents, who typically make up the board and always control the funding by choosing to enroll their child in the charter - a level of accountability elected school boards don’t provide.

She also doesn’t mean the multiple levels of Provincial regulation that she concedes have been tight.

She means a tiny fraction of the public has no opportunity to vote, every four years, for the charter school board.

We recently addressed at length the rather strained claim that public and separate school board elections provide meaningful accountability.

But let’s focus on that not-so-innocent question - since she immediately implies it could be a method for for-profit companies to hoover up taxpayer money.

First, Alberta law unambiguously requires charters to be non-profit.

Further, the same disposition of property regulation applies to charters as any other school.

Finally, in their application, charters must include “a description of the process by which the charter school may be dissolved, including … the disposition of real and personal property and financial, school and student records.”

So, if charters actually have extra layers of accountability in both of the areas Dr. Everitt objects to, why does the ATA consider them an existential threat?

The fact is that, unlike the government-monopoly system the ATA would prefer, the extra layers of accountability are difficult for the ATA to control.

The fact is that, for parents, having the choice between public, separate, charter, francophone, alternative, independent, and home education is a dream.

The fact is that, for a union wishing to maintain centralized control of the education system, it’s a nightmare.

The fact is that the ATA needs to get their facts straight.

And they’re not the only ones.

The President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, Gil McGowan, once charged:

Myth: “UCP paves the way for nutbar religious charter schools … that doesn’t follow the curriculum.”

The fact is that all charter schools must follow the Alberta curriculum and exceed it, with some unique emphasis that delivers more than the Alberta curriculum by itself.

Strangely, since religious, denominational schools (separate schools) are required by the Alberta Act itself, charter schools cannot be religious.

As our friend, Brett Fawcett wrote for Cardus:

“This prohibition is not founded on evidence, reason, or jurisprudence but is rooted in American charter-school laws - alien to Alberta and illogical to retain.”

Alien, illogical, and unnoticed, it would seem.

One final myth stands out:

Myth: “Charter schools defund public schools.”

Leaving for others the argument over the definition of a public school, let’s start by recognizing that taxes defund families.

Why would giving those families a choice defund public schools?

The money doesn’t belong to one institution, or even to the government.

It belongs to taxpayers.

Taxpayers are told that money is going toward the education of students.

Since charter schools outperform all other types of school on Provincial Achievement Tests, and since families have responded by choosing charter schools faster than they can be built, doesn’t accountability to the taxpayer require the money to follow the child to charter schools?

But, unfortunately, by requiring teachers to join and pay dues to the Alberta Teachers’ Association, Alberta requires taxpayers and parents to fund arguments against our own interest.

The Alberta Parents’ Union has never accepted tax money, and never will.

We also have never forced anyone to join, and never will.

But if you would like to join the side arguing for more freedom for you and Alberta families, instead of an ever-growing empire at your expense, you can do so today!

JOIN

Children are our most important resource, which is why education is such an important topic and should be of concern to all. That is why I believe the Alberta Parents Union is a voice that deserves to be heard and considered. What the Alberta Parents Union espouses is but one perspective and those with differing perspectives are welcomed and encouraged to post them on this platform.

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From time to time, we have countered some school choice myths.

Since it’s a school trustee election year, we want to counter a school choice myth related to school trustees, specifically.

Opponents of school choice often argue that public schools are more accountable than charter schools, independent schools (private schools), learning pods (as we have promoted them), or home education (funded or unfunded).

They argue elected school boards provide a level of accountability that isn’t present in these schools without elections defined by geography (since most of these other schools do hold elections for their own boards).

There’s a few problems with this idea, though.

First, non-school-board options are accountable to parents and taxpayers.

In fact, they’re even more directly accountable to parents, the real experts in what the kids need, for these reasons:

• Parents need to feel heard by the school to choose to send their kid there
• These schools are typically designed for more parental involvement
• These schools depend on parents choosing them, and are incentivized to listen and act
• If school refuses to listen and act, families can just as easily leave as they came
• Crucially, school leaders outside of school boards are keenly aware of these incentives

Second, school boards don’t exactly have a strong track record of being accountable to parents or taxpayers.

For one, provincial name and pronoun legislation was necessary because the vast majority of school boards had a policy of keeping name and pronouns changes secret from parents - against the will of taxpayers and, especially, parents.

Parents and taxpayers demanded schools have rules (that they actually enforced) around cellphones and other personal electronic devices.

School boards not only did not institute those rules, or make it easier for schools to do so, they often blamed parents and claimed we opposed such rules.

From 2020 through 2022, school boards ignored both the expertise of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and of parents in their own kids, instituting inexplicable policies.

In the early days of the Alberta Parents’ Union, we warned you that the Calgary Board of Education was sending teen moms from the sheltered programming at the Louise Dean School campus into a dangerous school.

For this, one trustee called us racist (I don’t have to tell you race never entered into our analysis), even after a stabbing had just occurred at the dangerous school.

Despite the most democratic pressure they had likely ever received, thanks to all of you, only one CBE trustee voted not to expose their most vulnerable students to danger.

The Province gave us a partial win and addressed some concerns with the Calgary Board of Education.

However, the real solution to better school board accountability - like always - rests with voters at election time.

Perhaps most directly, we have been raising the alarm about school boards not even pretending to give full representation to parents and taxpayers - namely, by not holding by-elections to fill vacancies.

A few weeks ago, we told you about how the Calgary Catholic School Division refused to hold a by-election when democratic oversight would be maximized, only to be forced by the Education Act to hold one when it would be minimized.

In fact, it’s questionable how much democratic oversight the administration of Calgary Catholic School Division allows - possibly reducing its value even further.

Many school board policies are actually exempt from oversight by the board of trustees (although, the trustees themselves could reverse those exemptions).

Calgary Catholic’s Administrative Procedure 415 (AP 415) prohibits direct communication between school division staff (including teachers) and school board trustees.

It is not simply binding on staff not to approach trustees, but also means a trustee cannot approach staff.

Obviously, many staff are also parents.

Even worse, the administration has interpreted their School Council Handbook to prohibit direct contact between any parents and trustees because it says those conversations need to flow through the chief superintendent.

The “trustee contact phone number” provided to parents is a member of the administration - the only metro school board with this practice.

Calgary Catholic is also the only metro school board not to stream their trustee meetings for the public to watch.

And the Calgary Catholic School Division certainly requires oversight.

Parents deserve an explanation for all kinds of things that have been happening at Calgary Catholic.

They deserve answers for how the superintendent could resign and then be rehired with no explanation.

And they certainly deserve an explanation for how the Division could receive a $5 million boost from the Province a year ago for increased enrollment, cut programming, and still take $21.5 million from reserves to balance their budget.

But, it’s not just Calgary Catholic that needs more oversight!

You may remember us raising the alarm about Elk Island Public Schools, where administration actually coerced a trustee into resigning with a plainly false reading of the Local Authorities Election Act (and, of course, the rest of the board into not replacing him).

Elk Island does stream their meetings, but deletes the videos after 24 hours.

They hired a consulting firm to search for their superintendent, despite ultimately promoting from within, and will not disclose the cost of the consulting firm.

Elk Island also promised parents, “There has been no discussion at either the administrative or board level about closing Andrew School.”

Just seven months later - April 20th and 25th, 2023 - the first public meetings were held to discuss the closure of the school.

On May 4th, the Andrew School closure was final.

We have already seen school divisions wield their Code of Conduct to remove trustees entirely, and some are looking to make it even easier to do so.

The Lethbridge School Division has proposed a new Trustee Code of Conduct that makes it much easier to remove school trustees for social media posts.

The new Code of Conduct also prohibits a trustee from seeking out information they need to govern from anyone but the superintendent.

Indeed, a functional relationship between board and superintendent should supply all the information the board needs to govern.

But requiring this would make a dysfunctional relationship a Code of Conduct violation on the trustee’s part - while the board’s only employee, the superintendent, can avoid accountability.

With only nine months until the next election, we expect to see this kind of Code of Conduct update from many lame-duck school boards.

So, electing trustees through geographically defined elections - when trustees allow those elections to happen - hasn’t seemed to ensure accountability.

So, what’s the solution?

Obviously, introducing more school choice is the big solution.

Choice and competition is a rising tide that lifts all boats.

Each new choice made available and chosen by a family is a lifeline from, all too often, an oppressive feeling of hopelessness for that family’s kids and their futures.

But for a great many families, electing better school boards would also be cause for rejoicing.

(And don't forget, all voters are eligible to participate in school board elections for their area, even if your family has exercised your choice of a non-school-board option.)

So, as always, the Alberta Parents’ Union is fighting for more school choice.

We hope debunking this myth has helped you answer a surprisingly ill-informed objection to choice in education.

But the Alberta Parents’ Union is also trying to provide all parents, grandparents, teachers, and taxpayers with more information about how school boards should run.

But we also think more voters would participate in school board elections, if it weren’t just labour unions surveying candidates and informing their members.

That’s why we’ve been looking for your feedback into our truly transparent, accountable, and democratic survey of candidates for school board trustee.

That’s one of the reasons we started the Alberta Parents’ Union!

Alberta Shows School Choice Helps Poor Families

The Alberta Parents’ Union brought your voice to an international audience!

We've told you before that Alberta is a world leader in school choice.

Recently, our Executive Director was able to sit on a panel at the International School Choice and Reform Conference (ISCRC) to explain why that matters.

We had the privilege of providing our local insights into Alberta’s educational landscape to support and talk about Dr. Merrifield’s research into how education policy impacts poorer families in Canada.

Dr. Merrifield is one of the founding fathers of school choice research and is also one of the founders of the ISCRC

He was the professor who inspired Corey DeAngelis (probably the most famous advocate for school choice alive today) to take up the cause.

Dr. Merrifield’s research showed that a “free” public school assigned to your family, based on where you live, simply moves the true cost back a step.

The cost of a “free” public school education is now a house in a neighbourhood assigned to a given public school.

Dr. Merrifield shows that this means richer families will buy up the housing around the best schools, while poorer families will be left in the neighbourhoods assigned to worse schools.

He demonstrates that flight to neighbourhoods with better schools (demonstrated by the flight happening disproportionately as children reach compulsory schooling age) is sufficient to explain families sorting to live in cohorts with similar family incomes.

The worse this sorting gets, particularly in large cities, the more negative outcomes other than schooling - crime, social disorder, additional poverty, and (perversely) higher prices for many goods and services - accumulate in neighbourhoods with concentrated poverty.

Conversely, as richer families (who tend to be families with greater economic and political influence) are geographically shielded from this decay in social welfare, they are less apt to work towards and advocate for improvements.

Thus, residentially assigning schools hurts poorer families the most - whether or not they have kids in school!

Dr. Merrifield shows that stronger school choice - which does not depend on geographically assigning families to schools - results in fewer neighbourhoods characterized by concentrated poverty.

Applying his model to the nine most populated Canadian metro areas, Ontario’s population centres (which have the least choice in education) jump out.

Ottawa tops the list with almost twice as much concentrated poverty as Edmonton (the highest concentration in Alberta).

Surprisingly, Vancouver actually showed the lowest overall income segregation.

British Columbia has the highest level of school choice in Canada other than Alberta, lacking only charter schools to match us.

Calgary had the second-lowest concentration of poverty among Canadian metros.

Anyone familiar with the vast array of schools in Calgary that are not assigned based on residential address would expect, then, to see Alberta’s largest city do well on this measure.

Alberta and British Columbia also benefit, of course, from making home education more accessible by reimbursing some of the costs.

Our Executive Director offered his thoughts as to how Edmonton Public School Board has been comparatively successful in keeping competition from schools of choice out of the capital city, accounting for its comparatively high levels of poverty concentration.

Two of Edmonton’s charter schools, also, are focused on serving low-income families - which, while admirable, is unlikely to attract higher-income families to their neighbourhoods.

This brings us to the last insight we will share for today from this study:

School choice only for poorer families will not alleviate the poverty concentration that hurts all poorer families!

Dr. Merrifield showed this with reference to Milwaukee, Wisconsin - which has a voucher system, but only for poorer families.

Poorer families with access to vouchers can escape the worse schools in the neighbourhoods they can afford, but not the other social ills resulting from the flight of richer families with no access to vouchers.

Without school choice for them, rich families still have to pay the premium for housing near the best schooling, leading to flight.

Thus, paradoxically, to help all poorer families - with or without kids in school - escape the effects of concentrated poverty (crime, social disorder, additional poverty, higher prices for many goods and services) you cannot concentrate your school choice efforts on poorer families alone.

Aside from participating in this cutting-edge research process, we benefited from learning from other organizations doing similar work and talking strategies to notch more policy wins.

We also loved the opportunity to let international leaders know about Alberta’s success story!

In turn, we learned in depth about successful school choice and reform policies around the world, including Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

And, of course, eleven American states now have universal eligibility (no longer limited to just poorer families or just children assigned to failing schools) school choice.

Just five years ago, no American state had a universal eligibility school choice program.

So, this is a story of, whether they realize it or not, America following Alberta, not the other way around.

What it does mean, though, is that Alberta is losing our edge over many American states in attracting and retaining families with school-aged children.

Flight to more attractive geography for your kids’ education doesn’t just happen within metro areas, of course.

Alberta has seen large numbers of families moving here from Ontario and citing K-12 education as the reason.

We don’t see families leaving Alberta for those reasons yet.

But now Florida, Arizona, Iowa, Utah, and others are attracting families citing K-12 education as the reason for their move.

Alberta must regain our edge, or the social decay from families of means taking flight to better options will afflict us all.

Even those who don’t care about education for its own sake will be made to care, at that point.

So, we know we have a lot of work to do, but we are proud of what we've built already.

Our grassroots activism was the envy of many people trying to build what we have, in all corners of the world.

We are grateful to you, our supporters, for helping build this organization that can provoke international envy.

We understand that things like this don't just happen.

It takes a mom who doesn't want to become a full-time advocate herself, but needs someone in her corner to fight for better for her kids.

It takes a grandparent who can see us losing our edge and who is desperate to stop it.

It takes a taxpayer and teacher who is tired of exclusively funding people advocating against his voice, no matter how much he cries out.

So thank you, if you have joined our merry band of reformers!

The Calgary Catholic School Division is holding a by-election to fill two trustee vacancies on January 31st.

One of the vacancies - in Wards 11/12 - was caused by the death of Cathie Williams in July 2024.

But, the earlier vacancy - in Wards 4/7 - dates back to December 14th, 2022 - more than two years ago.

How? Why?

Well, let us explain...

This Calgary Catholic School Division by-election exposes an absurdity in the Education Act that applies province-wide, and which our Alberta Parents’ Union has been working to fix through our “Parents Deserve School Trustee By-elections” campaign.

In this situation, simply put, the Education Act does not require a by-election if the school board has only one vacancy, whereas it does require a by-election if the school board has two vacancies.

Normally, school boards are allowed to hold a by-election if they want, but they don't have to.

On the surface, that seems to kind of make sense.

Why go through all the time and expense of holding a by-election if you don't have to?

But - as with many government rules - the more you think about it, and the more you consider the possible implications of the rule, the less it makes sense.

Let's go back to the Calgary Catholic School Division.

Ironically, the vacancy in December 2022 was what (at least, in part) triggered us to launch this campaign to change the rules in the first place.

The vacancy occurred only a little bit more than a year after the election and, at the time, the Calgary Catholic School Division chose not to hold a by-election, leaving parents in Wards 4 and 7 without representation for almost three years!

Yet now, with just nine months until the next general election, because the number of vacancies rose from one to two - however different in length the vacancies are - the Education Act now requires a by-election, where before it did not.

There is simply no rational way to justify not holding a by-election then, and holding one now.

If anyone objects that a vacancy of two trustees is qualitatively different than missing only one - on a board with seven trustees at a full roster - we agree!

But, that is all the more reason to require a by-election at the first vacancy, not at the second - the board with seven trustees has been missing two since July last year already!

In fact, this highlights another reason why it would have been wiser for the school board to voluntarily hold the one by-election in 2023 - if only to avoid the absurd Education Act requirement to hold two by-elections in a general election year!

This Education Act requirement is especially inexplicable since it does not match the requirements of the other municipal governments.

At a minimum, the rules for municipal and school board by-elections should be brought into alignment, so that by-elections are required if there is a substantial period of time left until the next general election, and left as optional if they arise close to the next general election.

*****

Importantly, we shouldn't hold any of this against the school trustee candidates running for the vacant seats.

Parents need serious trustees to bring real accountability to administration, and we applaud anyone who runs understanding the task before them.

This also doesn’t mean we won’t be engaging with the Calgary Catholic by-election ourselves.

We are using this by-election as a dry-run of our project to survey all trustee candidates all across the province in the general election in October.

Our email next week will reveal the survey answers of the by-election candidates (and those who have not answered, which may be, itself, revealing).

We’ll be looking for your help - whether you live in Calgary or not - in telling us if we’re on the right track with our methods in this survey and in the questions we asked, or if you have changes to suggest.

For all of us, this serves as a useful exercise to consider what we want to see from our trustee candidates.

We share news of school boards behaving badly, not because we revel in them, but because it sharpens our thinking about what good decisions from school boards would look like.

When the Province leaves it to school boards to leave parents unrepresented for years, but then requires them to pull money out of classro

As we close out our second year at the Alberta Parents’ Union, it’s remarkable to reflect on just how far we’ve come in such a short time.

We have quickly grown our small organization into a powerful movement that is driving meaningful change in the Alberta education system.

Together, we’ve challenged entrenched interests, pushed for common-sense reforms, and proven that parents can make a difference when we stand united.

The accomplishments we’re about to share with you are not just milestones - they are proof that with determination and support from people like you, even a small organization can achieve big things.

As we reflect on 2024, we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished together.

Delivering Real Change

Recognizing Parents’ Rights In Education

From the beginning, we called for measures to ensure transparency and accountability in Alberta’s education system. Thanks to your support, parents have more of a say in classrooms. We raised concerns about the use of outside resources in classrooms. The government responded with regulations, and now one of our proposed amendments to Bill 27 was adopted.

Cellphone-Free Classrooms

Less distracting and bullying-prone learning environments are now a reality in Alberta schools, ensuring students can focus on their education.

A Fairer Funding Model

With the government’s announcement that Budget 2024 will be the final one using the Weighted Moving Average, we’ve successfully advocated for a fairer and more transparent funding model for Alberta’s schools.

Accelerated School Construction

The Alberta School Construction Accelerator Program was launched this year, ensuring that charter and independent schools receive the same consideration as public schools. This achievement was made possible by land ownership reforms we supported - reforms that the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) and their allies strongly opposed.

Preserving Early Learning Assessments

Despite opposition - again - from the ATA, we successfully advocated for early learning assessments to ensure children get the support they need during their most formative years.

Amplifying Parents' Voices

Raising Awareness and Driving Action

We raised public awareness about the disconnect between the Alberta School Councils’ Association and the parents they claim to represent. We also played a crucial role in building public pressure for school trustee by-elections, resulting in several being held this year.

Empowering School Board Candidates

Through surveys and training initiatives, we’ve prepared parents to advocate for their children by running for school board positions. These efforts are laying the groundwork for long-term change.

A National Voice for Parents

Our work reached audiences far and wide, with appearances on all sorts of media, from CBC and Maclean’s Magazine to Bridge City News, and everything in between. We amplified our message and ensured parents’ perspectives were front and center in the public debate.

Standing Firm Against Harmful Policies

Opposing Harmful Ideologies

We challenged the ATA’s monopolistic influence, fought against ineffective teaching methods (like Fountas and Pinnell and Building Thinking Classrooms), and opposed the appointment of anti-parent advocates to positions of influence.

Promoting a Better Curriculum

We continued to advocate for a content-rich, history-based, and sequential social studies curriculum that equips students with the knowledge they need to succeed.

Even our critics, including the ATA, have acknowledged our effectiveness by naming us as a unique threat to their outdated approach to education.

With your continued help, we will build on this year’s successes, ensuring that Alberta’s education system remains one that respects parents, values choice, and delivers excellence for students.