Caylan Ford, co-founder of Alberta Classical Academy, which opened in Calgary in August 2022, says yes
In 1994 Alberta became the only province in the country to allow charter schools. Despite steady growth in popularity—today over 11,000 Alberta students attend charter schools, and twice that number are on waitlists—these schools remain beset by controversy and misunderstanding.
I can dispatch some common misconceptions. First, charter schools aren’t “private” schools, except under the most tortured definition of the term. They cannot charge tuition, and they receive the same per-pupil funding from the Ministry of Education as other public schools. Rather than being governed by large, union-dominated bureaucracies, charters are overseen by volunteer, non-profit boards, which are typically elected by their parent communities. Charter schools are accountable in ways that other public schools are not: if they’re mismanaged, or if educational targets aren’t met, families simply won’t enrol and the school’s charter will be revoked. Teachers are subject to the same certification requirements as in other schools, but—and this is key to understanding the opposition to these programs—they aren’t unionized. Charters are prohibited from having any religious affiliation, and they serve special-needs students at a rate comparable to other public school boards.
Each charter school has a unique philosophy or approach—for example, a focus on music, Indigenous culture, all-girls education, STEM, or traditional pedagogy. At the smartphone-free classical charter school I helped establish, students wear uniforms, learn ancient languages, study the traditional liberal arts and seek to orient themselves towards truth, wisdom and beauty. Inspired by Jacques-Louis David’s neo-classical painting The Death of Socrates, Grade 6 pupils made a play re-enacting Plato’s Phaedo dialogue. The Grade 1 students, meanwhile, were making faux papyrus and comparing the writing technologies of Egypt’s old and middle kingdoms, China and Mesopotamia.
Charters are not “elite” institutions. When we opened the Calgary Classical Academy we enrolled everyone who applied, until we ran out of space. Over 900 students have requested enrollment for next year, but our building can hold fewer than 300. Our experience is not unusual in the charter school world.
Some students are drawn to charter schools because they better suit their unique aptitudes and interests. A 10-year-old told me she enrolled at Calgary Classical Academy because she wanted to perform Shakespeare and learn Latin. She recited her favourite poems from memory and described the differences in metre. Other families are drawn to us because their local schools teach ideological content that undermines their values. But the largest share of families enrolled because they felt that the neighbourhood public schools were failing their kids: more than a few had made it to upper elementary without learning to decode words, perform simple arithmetic or hold a pencil. For families who can’t afford private schools, charters are the best hope to escape the tyranny of mediocrity and low expectations.
Michael Mindzak, assistant professor for the Faculty of Education at Brock University, says no
Charter schools are back in the news as Alberta expands a model brought into the province in 1994. Back then the experiment was defended for offering “competition,” “choice” and “innovation.” Since then, however, charters haven’t lived up to the hype, yet they continue to exist in a quasi-public/private state. Despite the UCP government’s renewed support, charter schools remain both unimpressive and fundamentally problematic for public education.
First, look at the money. Every day in education we see the challenges of limited funding and resources. But charters are given fewer public resources to spend on students than traditional schools are, in part because they’re exempt from the requirement to provide special needs education and are generally expected to cover their own capital costs. This in itself should give anyone pause: Why would we want to support a system of schooling that has fewer resources? Charters struggle to make up for this deficit, including by entering into corporate partnerships (as one Alberta charter did with Enbridge) or by charging parents for higher transportation costs. But the government’s reason for promoting these schools is clear: to make education more “efficient” and to “do more with less.”
Now simply look at US’s more expansive charter experiment. Several states enacted charters in the 1990s, with Alberta riding this wave. But since then, many of these jurisdictions have encountered a plethora of issues, from for-profit mandates and mismanagement of funds, to mid-year school closures, limited transparency and accountability, exclusionary admissions practices and segregation. Many of these issues are due to the loose laws and policies that allow charter schools to run as private entities. Again, we might pause: Why would we support a system of “public” education that’s geared towards supporting private interests? Charter proponents will say these are public schools, but in reality they act as private organizations.
Meanwhile every province in Canada has moved toward furthering teacher professionalization as well as unionization. These groups (here both roles are covered by the Alberta Teachers’ Association) advocate for teachers’ working conditions as well as students’ learning conditions. But charter schools in Alberta and elsewhere aren’t required to hire unionized teachers. Non-union teachers typically have less job security, lower wages and fewer opportunities for professional development. How do we want our teachers to be treated? In the US, teacher attrition and shortages are the norm, especially in states where anti-union laws and charter schools abound.
In short, Alberta is an aberration, not an innovator. Charter schools were a neoliberal experiment in the early 1990s, and now, almost 30 years later, little if any evidence demonstrates their success in any meaningful way. They should be considered a failed policy, solely a means of pushing public education further into private hands.
Caylan Ford responds to Michael Mindzak
Professor Mindzak offers several arguments for why Alberta should not have charter schools, which I’ll summarize as follows: 1) charter schools are less well funded than other public schools; 2) they are unimpressive; 3) some American states have adopted for-profit models; and 4) charter school teachers are not unionized, and may therefore have poor job security and fewer opportunities for professional development.
It’s true that charter schools have often had to make do with less. Until very recently in Alberta, charter students were entitled to a small fraction of the Specialized Learning Support (SLS) grants that their peers in regular public schools received. Charters also lacked access to funds for capital maintenance and repairs, and many are housed in small, outdated buildings vacated by larger school boards. Transportation challenges are also substantial: unlike neighbourhood public schools, charters accept students from across their geographic areas, and some students spend over two hours on a bus each day.
I’ll happily concede that these conditions are suboptimal. But that’s not an argument for dismantling charter schools; it’s an argument for funding them more equitably, which is exactly what Alberta’s UCP government has sought to do. Over the last four years, the UCP has worked to level the playing field for charter schools by funding new capital projects, increasing transportation funding and equalizing SLS grants.
Charters aren’t governed by large bureaucracies or subjected to the demands of teachers unions.
Despite historical funding disadvantages, charter schools have done more with less. The largest charter in Alberta, Foundations for the Future Charter Academy (FFCA), disproportionately serves lower-income and new Canadians. It topped the Fraser Institute school rankings while occupying a building that was literally crumbling (no exaggeration—the roof collapsed). Some 14,000 students are on the waitlist. To compete with FFCA’s success, the Calgary Board of Education has launched several schools emulating its pedagogical approach, and now those schools too have lengthy wait lists. If that’s not “impressive,” then the word has no meaning.
Charter schools are of course not monolithic. They have different philosophies, and some are more successful than others. US states also have widely varying statutory requirements for charter schools, with a few allowing for-profit models (this is not the case in Alberta). But charter schools generally have achieved better academic results than traditional public schools serving comparable student populations. Some, like KIPP programs in New York or the Michaela School in the UK, are world-leading examples of innovation, and they contribute enormously to the social mobility of disadvantaged students.
Part of the charter advantage derives from the fact that they’re not governed by large, immovable bureaucracies. Nor are they subject to the demands of teachers unions, which invariably privilege the interests of their members over the best interest of students and families.
Charter schools in Alberta pay teachers at a rate comparable to other public schools, but they do not have to hire or retain underperforming teachers. Charters have more freedom and flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and adapt to new research on educational best practices. And rather than being run by a quadrennially elected group of school board trustees you couldn’t pick out of a crowd, charter schools are governed by their own non-profit boards comprised of parents and community members. The advantages may be obvious, but just to drive the point home: when our Calgary Classical Academy charter school was struggling to find enough bus drivers, one of our volunteer directors became a bus driver. It’s little wonder that parents of children enrolled in US charter schools report much higher satisfaction than those in public or private schools.
On the question of teacher satisfaction and professional development, I’ll offer an anecdotal response: at Calgary Classical Academy teacher retention is 100 per cent. One of our teachers reported that they learned more about effective pedagogy in their first two weeks on the job than in all their previous teaching assignments. Each has an ambitious professional development plan, and the faculty book club is currently making their way through Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Monopolies are great for system insiders who are insulated from choice or competition, but they don’t provide good services. They are ponderous and inflexible, and because their users and consumers have no alternative options, there is little incentive to improve. This was true of Soviet automobile manufacturers, and it’s true in education too. If you believe education should prioritize the interests of children, families and the common good above the interests of union bosses and bureaucrats, then you should support Alberta’s charter schools.
Michael Mindzak responds to Caylan Ford
It’s a pleasure to respond to Caylan Ford, as it gives me an opportunity to further highlight and critique the key issues that demonstrate the limitations—if not overt problems—of charter schools and the movement towards further educational privatization.
I have no reason to doubt that charter schools in Alberta, including Calgary Classical Academy, are doing great work with their students. But as Ford’s argument highlights at length, charter schools must engage in significant amounts of marketing in order to attract and retain students. This then leads to questions surrounding charters’ use of limited resources for marketing activities rather than, say, for supporting students and teachers in the classroom. Driven by market competition, charters must act like businesses and focus energy on marketing their schools accordingly. And while we can understand why parents want to send their children to schools that purportedly offer strong opportunities for learning and growth, and why these schools have waiting lists, we might also reflect on how marketing itself partly explains higher demand for charter schools.
This also raises the key question of how exactly charter schools select students for admission. On what grounds does Calgary Classical Academy, for example, decide which students to include and which to exclude? Is it possible that charter schools hold some biases in their selection process—for example, declining students with special learning needs or exceptionalities? Public school systems aren’t afforded this luxury, and thereby accept the inherent challenges that come with educating large, diverse and heterogeneous student populations. Any system of education based on selection and exclusion should be subjected to careful scrutiny, as the promise of “cream skimming” (selecting only the “best” students) fundamentally represents the values of elitism.
The purpose of charter schools is to foster privatization under the guise of public education.
Ford says some families are drawn to charters due to the “ideological content” of public schools. But every charter school has a particular ideology. An inherent feature of the charter model is a move towards “balkanization,” whereby students from different social backgrounds or groups are increasingly separated from one another. Under the auspices of “parental choice,” charters encourage educational segregation. No school is completely value-free, but while public schools, broadly speaking, hold certain ideals (such as the value of multiculturalism), they’re far from homogeneous or hegemonic. In a period of growing political polarization and extremism, charter schools create further divisions. Overall, inclusive public schools foster more understanding and a greater sense of cohesion in our democratic society.
Ford implies that unionized teachers are a problem. But teachers, in Alberta and beyond, weren’t forced to collectively organize. They did so though years of effort and advocacy—seeking to professionalize and diversify the workforce. Yet charter proponents are quick to argue that unions are the problem with education, and non-unionized teachers are the solution. But the solution to what…? Canada’s hundreds of thousands of unionized teachers, in classrooms every day, have proposed many ways to improve outcomes for all students, such as smaller class sizes and more preparation time for teachers. Private and charter school proponents’ opposition to such reforms reflects a political rather than pedagogical position.
Charter advocates are also quick to say public schools are failing—or, in Ford’s words, falling prey to the “tyranny of mediocrity.” But Canada’s public schools do exceptionally well on international rankings, including quantitative and qualitative assessments. Alberta—where 92 per cent of students are in a public school—consistently performs among the top jurisdictions in the world, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). If you look past the rhetoric, our public education systems, while imperfect, are impressive.
One of Ford’s first assertions is that charter schools aren’t private schools, yet in her final words she effectively equates charter schools with private schools. This confusion isn’t uncommon—the purpose of charter schools is to foster privatization under the guise of public education. My main issue with charters isn’t at the individual level—every charter school cares about its own students, families and community—but rather their purpose as a whole. Fundamentally, charter schools were created with the intention of furthering private education and subverting the public sphere. Alberta’s government in 2019 demanded the removal of the word “public” from all school boards, continuing a decades-long drift toward normalizing private models of education. This subversion continues today through the expansion of Alberta’s charter school model, and, notably, continues to run counter to what the rest of Canada is doing.
