AlbertaParentsUnion

The Alberta Teachers’ Association has announced their intention to begin “job action”, otherwise known as a strike, on October 6th - just three and a half weeks from now.

Alberta has not had a full teacher strike since 2002, so many Albertans may not be aware of just how extremely disruptive they can be.

A strike would have a severe impact on students, families, and the economy - especially given such a high proportion of our population in Alberta is school-aged children, more so than any other province.

Academic 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.

So, obviously, we are all hoping a strike can be avoided.

But, we also need to tell you something important about the way Alberta’s funding model currently works in relation to this strike, which many other commentators are likely to miss.

In Alberta, September 29th is “September Count Date”.

When we talk about funding following the child to the school of their choice, this is the day that determines how much will follow them!

So, if a work stoppage would prompt you to make other arrangements for your children’s education, you should strongly consider moving your child to that arrangement by September 29th:

• Charter schools are non-union, though you probably cannot find a seat, since they all have long waiting lists already.
• All but one independent (or private) school is also non-union, but many of them are also fully subscribed.
• Reimbursements for home education expenses (and provincial transfers to the supervising school authority) also have a September Count Date of September 29th!

We encourage you to share this information with other parents and inform as many as we can.

We will continue to mention it in major media appearances, as well.

Ultimately, though, we understand that some parents won’t know about the September Count Date, and even more parents won’t want to make alternate arrangements, in hopes that a settlement is reached.

We also hope that will happen!

But if it does not, we need a backup plan.

In the past, we have advocated for a more dynamic funding model that responds to mid-year changes more seamlessly.

And, as you all know, we think funding should always follow the child.

But, during a strike, it’s even more vital that it does.

That’s why we’re calling on the Government of Alberta to introduce a temporary program that would see their child’s share of provincial education funding to follow them to whatever alternative education arrangements parents can make to continue their learning during a strike.

We have called this idea an Education Continuity Allowance.

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

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

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!

If you agree and want to tell the Government of Alberta to introduce these Education Continuity Allowances, please sign the petition to Strike-Proof Alberta Students:

SIGN THE PETITION

After you've signed, please send it to your friends, family, and every Albertan!

NEW SCHOOL YEAR, NEW CURRICULUM CONFLICTS BREWING



The school year is about to start back and some schools will be piloting a new Social Studies curriculum for Grades 7 through 9.

We were the leading voice for parents when the K-6 Social Studies curriculum was being fiercely debated.

This curriculum promises to generate every bit as much controversy.

We'll give just one section (from Grade 7) as an example.

Then we will link the entire draft curriculum for your feedback at the end of this email.

This is just one section of desired Grade 7 curriculum outcomes.

The quotes are the entirety of one section, in order, and nothing else.

We say this just to emphasize that we did not go hunting for “greatest hits” or even say this section is more important than others.

Consider this a sample to show the kind of thing we expect parents and taxpayers might be interested in from the full document.

“Analyze the impact of expansion west after Confederation on Canada’s economy.”

“Investigate the short-term and long-term consequences of Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy on Canada’s economy.”

“Research the contributions of Sir John A. Macdonald.”

Discussion of Canada’s earliest history as a self-determining state is important.

Parents have been clear that this history-rich content is what we want to see.

Still, the heavy focus on Macdonald, to the exclusion (here) of other Fathers of Confederation, is likely to court controversy.

While polls tend to find majorities in support of Macdonald’s legacy, it is increasingly under scrutiny.

In a typical classroom, it is unlikely that Macdonald’s legacy will be discussed without reference to contemporary political conflicts.

“Compare the opportunities and challenges of tariffs and free trade on the Canadian economy.”

Speaking of contemporary political conflicts, it's difficult to name one raging more fiercely than tariffs and free trade.

This curriculum, we can fervently hope, will continue to be relevant beyond this present crisis.

But, in a broader sense, tariffs and free trade have been inherently political topics - and topics that naturally bring feelings about our large neighbour nation - since Confederation and even before.

“Explain gross domestic product.”

While no economic concept can be entirely free from political controversy, this one is foundational to any further economic studies.

Parents were clear that economics is one of the core disciplines of social studies that we expect to see covered in a content-rich curriculum.

Gross domestic product is also core to comparisons between government jurisdictions in other disciplines of social studies.

“Justify the use of taxation and equalization payments.”

This is likely to be controversial, if only because many Albertans do not believe equalization payments can be justified - at least as currently structured.

Of course, justifying the use of taxation is always an ongoing matter of political controversy.

“Explain the crucial role of natural resources in Canada’s economic growth.”

The Alberta Teachers’ Association is likely to object to this clause.

As a reminder, they objected to very similar language in the Grade 3 curriculum with regard to Alberta's economic growth.

They also recommend a resource for teachers that calls on them to question private property itself to combat natural resource development.

“Analyze the reciprocal relationship between gross domestic product and banking.”

“Explain the role of the Bank of Canada in Canada’s economy.”

For both of these outcomes, there are competing economic schools of thought with different answers to these questions.

We find it unlikely that most Alberta students will be exposed to the idea that banks - and the Bank of Canada in particular - cause the “boom and bust” business cycle.

Yet this is precisely the theory that won Friedrich Hayek the Nobel Prize in economics.

And it is still championed by one of the most important think tanks in the world - the Fraser Institute - on whose board he served.

As you might imagine, this will invite significant political controversy, important as it may be as an economic concept.

But this is just one section, of one grade's proposed outcomes.

We would love to hear your feedback on the whole draft curriculum!

Elections matter, but the strongest form of accountability comes when parents can choose the best school for their children.

We obviously believe school board elections are important - that’s why we try to keep you informed about them.

They are important specifically because they provide accountability to the residentially assigned system of schools!

But the best accountability doesn’t come from voting every four years - as important as that may be.

The best accountability comes from families having the ability to opt out of their residentially assigned school and send our children elsewhere.

The research is clear that residentially assigned schools improve when faced with competition from schools of choice (rather than assignment), giving families reasons to choose them rather than defaulting to them.

There are quite a few fundamental reasons why competition can provide accountability that politics simply cannot, and today we’ll discuss two of them.

A School Division Is Not A Business

Sometimes, using the language of competition brings the retort that education cannot be run like a business.

It may surprise you that we agree, at least, that school divisions fundamentally cannot be run like a business.

Businesses, you see, run on profits (or losses) from voluntary exchanges that signal to them what lines of goods or services are most beneficial.

But your exchanges with the local school division aren’t voluntary.

For one, no one asked you how much the school division’s services would be worth to you in taxes - they just took more every year, whether services improved or not.

Neither is attendance voluntary - every child must be signed up for “education services” somewhere, by law.

Thus, they are immune to the most basic input a business receives - do people even want what they’re selling?

This can especially be seen when it comes to decisions about expenses.

A business is constrained from spending more on things that don’t increase their profits, while government schools (like other government “services”) face no such constraint.

This is especially true if government schools hold an essential monopoly without true challengers who do have to attract “customers”.

A School Division Has Interests Of Its Own

It turns out that school divisions don’t simply selflessly pursue the public interest.

Neither do school divisions resolutely focus on student, or even teacher, outcomes.

Rather, school divisions naturally, and without any of the people involved needing to be particularly evil, develop interests of their own that can run counter to the public interest.

As an example, when cuts need to be made, school divisions often cut the most necessary things they need to do, rather than the least necessary things.

This means, of course, that harm to the public is maximized … and therefore the public is more likely to demand more funding for the school division.

It’s hard not to see this in action, even now, with teachers declaring a five-alarm-fire in the classroom, even while central office administration budgets grow ever more bloated.

This makes sense, if you understand the school division central office staff as an interest of its own, advising the school trustees in direct defiance of the public interest.

Of course, then, it’s important to elect trustees who will rein in an administration run amok, but it’s also important to have other options that need to meet families’ expectations to even exist.

Again, choice in education can provide the education system with bottom-up accountability that politics simply cannot.

So, we need an organization to advocate for more true choice in election years and outside of them - when, in either case, politician and media attention tends to gravitate elsewhere.

We need an organization to not just inform people which school trustees are least likely to monopolistically resist empowering families with choices, yes.

But we also need one to remind school trustees - even far from election periods - that real accountability sometimes looks like “voting with our feet”.

The Alberta Parents’ Union is exactly such an organization!

“What do school boards even do?”

It’s a fair question.

School boards have repeatedly failed to represent the parents and communities they claim to serve.

Despite being elected to keep education responsive at the local level, too many trustees have acted more like political activists than advocates for students.

And time and again, the result has been the same - grand promises on the campaign trail, little to no follow-through in office.

While education in Alberta is ultimately the Province’s responsibility, that doesn’t mean school boards are powerless.

They still have real opportunities to influence how schools are run, if only they’d focus on doing their jobs.

Here are a few examples where school boards could have exercised local control but instead took no responsibility for what they actually could have done:

Curriculum

A stunning number of current school board trustees ran on “stopping the UCP curriculum.”

They didn't, of course, because school boards have no jurisdiction over curriculum.

Strictly speaking, “curriculum” only describes the loose standards that apply to all school divisions, and is solely provincial jurisdiction.

The school board's role is to choose whether and how to pilot the curriculum, so front-line teachers can give feedback to the Province.

If they opposed the curriculum, this was the feedback mechanism available to them to improve it.

All but four school divisions refused to pilot the proposed curriculum (before the last school board elections even occurred).

Only one school division (Fort Vermilion School Division) openly admitted that they were piloting the curriculum and seeking feedback from front-line professionals.

If this was such a priority for so many school board trustees, what did their divisions do to practically improve the curriculum?

For the vast majority of them, nothing.

Cellphones

The curriculum wasn't the only place where school divisions expressed “concerns” amounting to no action.

Unlike curriculum standards, though, student behaviour is squarely within school board responsibility.

The damage cellphones were causing to attention in classrooms was abundantly clear in 2023.

Major research was showing clear harms to learning, starting before COVID lockdowns and well separated from any other likely causes.

Several school boards even surveyed parents and teachers on the issue.

From parents, they heard, against the lazy stereotypes of parents common at the time, that families were reducing screen time at home.

Independent research seemed to back this up.

Parents especially expected screens not to be allowed when learning was supposed to be the priority.

Again, research showed the damage of even the constant alerts from other “learners'” phones.

From teachers, school boards heard that cellphone restrictions in their classroom were unenforceable without the support of the other adult school board employees in the building.

In the Spring of 2024, the Province was forced to step in.

They did their own survey, finding the same things the school boards found.

The Province, though, acted and gave principals guidelines and the authority they needed to keep cellphones out of classrooms.

Outside Materials in Classrooms

A remarkably similar story played out with parental concerns around outside materials in classrooms.

School boards could have easily required transparency with regard to the pre-existing resources teachers use in your kid's classroom.

Parents were clear in making our voices heard, through all the right channels, at the school board level.

No school board provided such transparency, and again, the Province stepped in.

School board jurisdiction is important.

In this case, the local solutions would have been vastly preferred.

But school boards are abdicating their responsibility.

Books in Libraries

Of course, inappropriate books in libraries are just the most recent school board responsibility that the province was forced to take action on.

Evidently, the Calgary Board of Education and the Edmonton Public School Board were overwhelmingly the problem areas here.

Parents had, of course, been clear about our expectations.

The Province even admitted they didn't have the authority to set policy here themselves, but they can direct school boards to do their jobs.

Importantly, they also forced the school boards to have policies allowing parents to directly provide input on age-inappropriate materials.

Potential Strike

Finally, class sizes and conditions are core school board responsibilities.

Provincial funding levels play a role, of course, and more money is easier to run schools with than less money.

But almost every school board has seen the number of central office management employees go up.

This, even while classroom employee numbers (especially education assistants, arguably the most cost-effective front-line employees) go down.

Front-line employees are crying out that class sizes and classroom conditions are the primary reason they are considering a strike.

School-division-based working groups on this topic were proposed in the rejected mediator’s recommendation, but there simply isn't much the Province can do about this at the bargaining table.

Now, Alberta students and their families face tangible harm, at least in part, because school boards didn't do their jobs.

Parents deserve better, more accountable, school trustees.

In less than three months, Albertans will head to the polls to elect new school board trustees - people who will make important decisions about how our children are educated.

These decisions affect everything from classroom content to school policies and how public funds are spent.

Some school boards have deep issues, but all could use more accountability to parents - the real experts in our own kids!

That’s why the Alberta Parents’ Union is preparing to launch three key projects aimed at empowering parents in this election:

Candidate Surveys

We want to reach out to every school board candidate across Alberta with detailed surveys.

Our goal is to find out where candidates stand on critical issues such as parental rights, educational choice, and fiscal responsibility.

Once we have their answers, we will make the information available to parents in an easy-to-understand format, so families can make informed decisions when they vote.

Door-to-Door Outreach

We are planning to connect directly with parents in communities across the province.

Our aim is to go door-to-door in key areas to talk with families, answer questions, and build lasting local networks of parents who are engaged and ready to advocate for their children’s education - not just this election, but long term.

Trustee Accountability Tracking

Too often, elected trustees’ decisions go unnoticed until the next election.

We want to create a public database tracking how incumbent trustees have voted on important issues throughout their terms.

These projects are ambitious and have the potential to make a real impact - but to get them off the ground, we need your help.

Running effective surveys, organizing door-to-door campaigns, and building accountability systems requires funding.

Without sufficient resources, we won’t be able to reach as many families or provide the tools parents deserve.

That’s why we’re asking you to consider making a donation today.

Your support will help us:

• Reach more parents with clear, unbiased information
• Build stronger connections within communities
• Create tools that hold school boards accountable in the long run

We know that when parents are informed and involved, education improves for everyone.

But this doesn’t happen by chance - it requires commitment, effort, and support from people who care deeply about the future.

Please stand with us today to help make sure parents have a voice in this crucial election.

Now would be a great time for Naheed Nenshi, the Leader of Alberta's NDP, to come clean on choice in education.

Thanks to everyone who signed our petition calling on NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi to come clean on school choice.

We launched it after he headlined a conference hosted by Public Interest Alberta at the Alberta Teachers’ Association - two groups that want charter schools abolished and independent schools defunded.

But, now that he has won a by-election and is a sitting MLA, it is the perfect time to step up the pressure on Naheed Nenshi to come clean.

We certainly didn’t see him address his views on school choice when facing voters in his by-election in Edmonton-Strathcona, nor did we see anyone in media ask him about it!

Nor was any light shed on the question when the aspiring premier's former campaign manager - Stephen Carter (a vicious opponent of school choice in his own right) - compared him admiringly to Zohran Mamdani - an avowed socialist mayoral candidate in New York City.

We thought it might have come up, as Mamdani has promised to use his powers as mayor to end the tiny amount of school choice offered in America's largest city, while Nenshi has not been clear either way.

Both Carter and Nenshi's ex-chief-of-staff said Nenshi's politics were different, but didn't elaborate on whether that extended to choice in education.

As party leader, he is also responsible for his party's fortunes more generally.

The NDP has a spotty record on education freedom.

They know it's popular, and they want to win elections, so they have been careful not to be too strongly opposed.

But they have shut down a home schooling society (reversed in court), threatened certain independent schools with defunding, and have denied new charter school applications.

And recent polling shows the NDP at risk of losing many seats they currently hold, already a minority.

Clarifying his party's full-throated support for a popular policy, like school choice, might be attractive to Nenshi just about now.

And showing that his New Democrats are more sensitive to actual democracy than labour-union-led special interest campaigns might be a good move with a teacher strike looming.

If Nenshi still refuses to come clean, the government or a back-bench MLA could always force him to take a position by tabling a bill advancing more choice in education.

That's an opportunity any MLA who is a true supporter of school choice will have - now that Nenshi actually has a seat in the Alberta Legislature - an opportunity no one had before to get him on the record.

But we're not here to offer any politician or political party our political advice.

We're here to advocate for families to get more of what they want and less of what they don't want from Alberta's education system.

That's the real reason why a bill advancing more educational freedom would be valuable!

If both parties who currently hold seats could credibly commit not to roll back choice in education, we could focus our efforts on convincing them to expand it!

And if Nenshi won't come clean and tell us where he stands on school choice, that tells us quite a lot too.

If you agree, sign our petition.

After you've signed our petition, please share it.

Let's make the most of this opportunity to say Nenshi must come clean.

SIGN THE PETITION

The more awareness we raise by each of you signing this petition, calling on your friends to do the same, sharing the petition on social media, and so on, the more likely it is that more Albertans will ask him the question directly.

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.