August 1996

The
Economic Freedom
Network

Special Issue
Revitalizing Public Education in Canada: The Potential of Choice and Charter Schools

by Helen Raham

An extended essay in honour of John Scrymgeour’s 75th birthday

Contents August 1996

About the author
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
Background
Choice as a Tool for Change
Charter Schools
Implementing Charters in Canada
Conclusion
Recommendations
Appendix: An Overview of Charter Schools
The Alberta Charter School Initiative Note
Canada’s First Charter Schools (Alberta)
Bibliography

About the author

HELEN RAHAM has a B.Ed. and a Diploma of Library Sciences, both from the University of Victoria. She has taught for 30 years at the elementary school level, specializing in music, learning assistance, and offering library programs and programs for gifted students. Ms. Raham has served as President of the Central Okanagan Teacher Librarians Association (1984-86) and as both President (1989-93) and Executive Director (1994-present) of Teachers for Excellence in Education. Ms Raham has written reports entitled Schools for Tomorrow (1993) and Charter Schools: Lessons Canada Can Learn (1994).

Teachers for Excellence in Education is a professional association founded in 1989 to promote higher performance in the Canadian school system. The registered non-profit society distributes a quarterly newsletter, organizes education conferences, analyzes international education change research, and publishes policy papers related to education performance. Under a grant from the Donner Canadian Foundation, the association seeks to unite reform-minded educators and parents across Canada and welcomes new members to its mailing list. Teachers for Excellence in Education can be reached at Box 25068 Mission Park, Kelowna, B.C., V1W 3Y7, phone 1-800-338-1667.

Dedication

It has become traditional at The Fraser Institute to publish a single-topic study as the August edition of Fraser Forum. With this special issue we want to take the opportunity to honour Mr. John Scrymgeour, who on August 12 will celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday.

John Scrymgeour has played a key role in the development of The Fraser Institute. When the Institute faced the possibility of severe fiscal contraction in the depths of the 1980 recession, John Scrymgeour was swift to make an investment in its future. The Institute may not have survived without that help.

We are pleased to dedicate this special issue of Fraser Forum to John Scrymgeour and join his many friends in Canada and abroad in sending him our best wishes for many more productive years.

Preface

This essay is about choice in education. It is about empowering parents and children to have more control over the kind of school environment in which children spend their time. It is about giving parents more opportunity to be involved in the choice of curriculum and how that curriculum interconnects with other activities during the school day.

Imagine that this paper were about buying vacation trips, or selecting a ballet school, or purchasing a family home, or choosing a diet for the family, or any of the thousands of choices that a family makes in the course of a year. If this essay were about any of them, it would simply be taken for granted that the family and its members had the right to choose as it saw fit. The reader would not expect to find a consideration of the position that the family did not have the right to make these choices.

In Canada, we simply take it for granted that the family has the right to choose all of the things that it wants—except education. This essay argues that parents ought to have the right to choose the sort of school in which their children learn. It provides parents with information about how the choice in education process is working in other jurisdictions. It considers the reasons why opponents, such as teacher unions, try to thwart choice in education.

The charter school concept discussed in this essay was a provincial program co-winner in the 1993 Fraser Institute Economy in Government Competition, so it is an idea with which The Fraser Institute has had some past involvement.

Charter schools represent one of the most dynamic tools yet to emerge for systemic education reform, and Canadian schools may well benefit from the experience of other jurisdictions with charter schools. This paper examines the current state of development of charters and their potential for raising school achievement. Critical factors such as quality of legislation, governance, equity issues, and labour relations are considered along with the roles of school boards, administration, unions, parents and government.

We are pleased to publish Helen Raham's essay for several reasons: first, to discuss some of the issues that are involved in the failure of governments in Canada to allow parents the freedom to choose the sort of schools they would prefer; and second, to show how this choice can be offered within the context of the public school system. While the Institute is pleased to publish this essay, Ms. Raham has worked independently and consequently the ideas which she expresses may not conform with those of the members or the trustees of The Fraser Institute.

—Michael Walker

Introduction

When 15-year-old Anne McCready heads to class at Edmonton's Bonnie Doon High School this September, she is one of a growing number of Canadian students who are breaking with tradition.

Anne will join 80 students who attend regular classes until 2:00 p.m., then enter the world of dance on the school's third floor to take ballet training in a professionally equipped studio. Anne, who has been dancing since she was five, loves the convenience of combining school with her passion for ballet. Her 13-year-old sister, Katie is following in her footsteps.

Many serious dance students find that during their secondary education, the time commitment of up to 20 hours per week required by dance studies forces them to make choices which may damage their academic future. As one of three new alternative model public schools opened by the Edmonton Public School Board in 1995, the public professional ballet school was designed for students who want an educational environment that will support the attainment of academic excellence while permitting them to pursue dance studies leading to professional levels. During an extended day, students take a full course load of academics from certified teachers and receive dance instruction from the Edmonton School of Ballet at studios added to the school site. The combined school is part of an experiment to meet the needs of young people who might otherwise opt out of the public school system, and represents a growing trend to reinvigorate public education with more choice.

Anne and Katie's mother, Sharon McCready, credits the alternative program not only for improving school grades by stream-lining a long, demanding day for the girls and freeing up evenings for homework, but also for providing a more balanced family life. It has also reduced costs for dance classes which are prohibitive to many families when offered privately.

The experimental partnership has been successful so far on both academic and artistic fronts and begins its second year with an 18 percent increase in enrolment. Sixty percent of the students received dance marks higher than in previous years and completed more than one year of dance in the first year of the combined program. “Our students are high achievers,” offers the ballet school's business administrator, Liz Tribiger. “One of our pupils received no less than seven academic awards, and another was valedictorian for her graduating class. We believe we are pioneering where public education must be headed.”

Opportunities such as this one available to Anne and Katie McCready are still relatively rare, however, and play out very differently depending on the politics of education across Canada.

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