EXCLUSIVE: Petition challenges Alberta’s school choice funding model
Elections Alberta has approved a citizen initiative petition calling for the province to end public funding for accredited independent schools.
Elections Alberta has approved a citizen initiative petition calling for the province to end public funding for accredited independent schools that could upend Alberta’s decades-old “funding follows the child” education model.
The initiative asks: “Should the Government of Alberta end its current practice of allocating public funds to accredited independent (private) schools?”
Organizers must collect 177,731 signatures, 10 per cent of votes cast in the last provincial election.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides told True North the government respects the process but remains committed to protecting school choice.
“The Citizen Initiative Act is the purest form of democracy we have,” said Nicolaides, adding that Alberta’s school-choice model “allows parents to select the type of education that best meets their child’s unique needs and learning style and will help them reach their full potential.”
“Withdrawing funding from independent schools would seriously jeopardize educational options for thousands of children with disabilities. We should aim to help all Albertans and not pit one set of students as more deserving than others,” he said.
The province’s system, in place in some form since the 1970s, allows up to 70 per cent of per-student operational funding to follow children to independent schools. Similar models exist in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec.
Paige MacPherson, associate director of education policy at the Fraser Institute, said Alberta’s approach gives middle-income families access to options previously available only to the wealthy.
“Wealthy families will always have school choice,” said MacPherson. “Policies like this enable families from a wider cross-section of the income spectrum to access independent schools.”
She called the timing “a cruel irony,” given that classroom complexity and overcrowding have been central to the ongoing teachers’ strike.
“Doing anything at this time to reduce diversity in the education system in Alberta is a cruel irony for those children who are only able to access independent schools because of the system of school choice Alberta currently has,” said MacPherson. “When the issue is that you have complex classrooms, a wide swath of needs in a classroom, then the solution cannot be mandating that more students attend one-size-fits-all government public schools.”
MacPherson said Alberta is a case study that shows higher education spending doesn’t automatically yield better results. She said the province outperforms almost every other in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) scores.
She added that compensation increases are not a silver bullet for improving education and would not necessarily address classroom complexity.
“School choice also allows parents and families to escape the chaos of these labour strikes,” she said.
John Jagersma, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools and Colleges in Alberta, said the proposal would devastate his sector.
“I don’t think I’m being dramatic if I say it’d be catastrophic,” said Jagersma.
He explained that roughly 80 per cent of his schools — encompassing 55,000 students — show the average income of independent school students’ families is at or below the provincial average.
Jagersma said many of his fastest-growing schools serve new Canadian families and students with special learning needs.
Jagersma added that forcing children who didn’t find success in public schools to return would be counterproductive, costing taxpayers around $300 million.
He noted that the government’s last settlement offer to teachers was for less than that amount.
“I don’t want to say we’re a rounding error, because that’s dramatic. But we are not the problem. Taking (the funding) away from us would solve nothing. It would be punitive, unproductive,” he said. “You might look at this question and think, oh, that’s great. We get some more funding for our schools. I’m in favour of that question without actually knowing that that’s not accurate, and it’s hugely harmful.”
He explained his schools have grown faster than the public system in recent years. Refuting arguments that independent schools received more funding, Jagersma explained private schools get 70% of the funding allocated to public school students, so any discrepancy is linked to independent school growth.
“The two biggest misconceptions: one would be those schools are for-profit… And the other one would be those are for the rich. Both of those aren’t accurate,” he said.
Jagersma explained the petition takes a month to apply for, adding that its proponent, Alicia Taylor, is a Calgary district representative on the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s governing council.
“I can’t help but feel like this is a bit more of an orchestrated attack on independent schools than it is a gut reaction to frustration,” he said.
With the teachers’ strike ongoing and classrooms facing rising enrolment, observers say the petition has reignited a long-standing debate over parental choice — and whether Alberta’s education funding model will face its strongest test yet.