CHARTER SCHOOL MYTHS
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!