It’s high time for Alberta’s charter school revolution to come to the rest of Canada.
Parents in every province deserve choice and value for their money when it comes to educating the next generation.
It’s simply not fair to try to force parents to keep their kids in failing government-run schools.
It’s also unfair to ask taxpayers to continue to dump billions of additional taxpayer dollars into a system that is broken.
Charter schools, to be clear, are not private schools. They exist within the public school system, but they offer parents more specialization, have a proven track record of better test scores, and keep unions out of the classroom.
Just take a quick look at the sorry state of education in the province of Ontario to understand why it’s time to shake up the system.
Over the past 20 years, Ontario teenagers’ test scores have fallen by 35 points in math and 12 points in reading.
What does that mean? Experts consider a 20-point drop in performance to be equivalent to a whole year’s worth of learning. In other words, today’s 15-year-olds are nearly two years behind their 2003 counterparts in math and more than half a year behind in reading.
Is this decline due to a lack of government investment in education? Hardly. Back in 2022, the year before the study period began, Ontario spent $14.3 billion on education. Last year, that number climbed to $37.6 billion.
That’s a 163% increase — more than double the rate of inflation. And during that time, enrolment remained largely flat, with an unprecedented number of parents choosing to remove their kids from the government-run school system.
Union leaders keep saying that falling test scores are due to a shortfall in funding. But that’s complete nonsense.
If all it took to fix the state of government-run education in Canada today was more government spending, the issue would have been addressed a long time ago.
It’s time for provincial governments to think big. Parents don’t want their kids to be trapped in failing government-run schools. That’s why, for example, student enrolment in independent schools in Canada’s largest province has soared by 40% over the past 20 years, despite no government assistance toward paying tuition.
It’s time for the rest of Canada to adopt the Alberta model.
Back in the late 1990s, the Ralph Klein government saw that Alberta’s government-run schools were falling short and decided to shake up the system.
The government decided to establish the first charter schools in Canada.
Alberta’s charter schools exist within the public system. They don’t charge tuition because they get funding from the provincial government. But, crucially, these schools have far more autonomy when it comes to how they approach teaching. And teachers don’t have to belong to unions.
Charter schools are a huge innovation in another way. They cater to the unique needs of students. Many specialize in areas like educating kids with special needs or offer additional focus and motivation for kids who excel in the arts or sports.
What do the results from Alberta look like?
Students at Alberta’s charter schools outperform those in government-run schools by a full letter grade on standardized testing.
And, as a cherry on top, charter schools in Alberta cost 32% less per enrolled child.
That means better results and savings for taxpayers.
The success of Alberta’s charter schools can be assessed in another way: What does enrolment demand look like? Do parents want to send their kids there?
The answer is that parents are looking to send their kids to charter schools in droves. For every Alberta student in a charter school, two are on the waiting list.
Charter schools have been a smashing success in Alberta — demand is high, test scores are strong, costs are down and parents are happy.
Introducing charter schools in other provinces, like Ontario, should be a no-brainer.
If there was ever a time for more choices in education, it’s now. It’s high time Canada’s provincial politicians make it happen.
Jay Goldberg is the Canadian affairs manager at the Consumer Choice Center