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What are charter schools and why is Jason Kenney so hot for them?
169 Plays2 years ago
POD: What are charter schools and why is Jason Kenney so hot for them? @wingkarli from @SOSAlberta joins us to discuss how charter school advocates in Alberta are copying a playbook developed in the US to destroy public education.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Progress Report and Harbinger Media Network
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here to say that The Progress Report is a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network. A new pod on the network that I want to highlight is the latest from Invisible Institutions, hosted by Megan Marie. This is a documentary podcast that explores the history of institutions for people labeled with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and their latest episode focuses on the Manitoba Development Center, lovingly labeled the Hell Hole.
00:00:23
Speaker
and the century-long fight to close it, which, spoiler alert, they have managed to get a promise to close it, though it is still open right now. We're also talking about a collaboration episode right now with Invisible Institutions on Alberta's long and grossed history with institutionalized eugenics. But that's all for now for other podcasts on the network. Now, onto the show.
Alberta's Education Policy: Charter Schools Focus
00:00:56
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, recording today here in Amiskwichiwa, Skigan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory on the banks of the Kasiska-Sawanissippi, or the North Saskatchewan River.
00:01:11
Speaker
And as you may have noticed, if you pay attention to education policy here in the lovely province of Alberta, Jason Kenney has decided to go all in on something called charter schools recently. He's recently found religion about this, this relatively obscure part of the
00:01:30
Speaker
the education world, he set aside some $75 million, nearly $75 million to fund them. He's throwing pressers at charter schools. He's talking about school choice. And so today, you know, the reason why we are, we brought on Wing Lee, who is the communications director with SOS Alberta Today's talk about charter schools and discuss why all of a sudden Jason Kenney has become so hot for them. So Wing, thank you for joining us here on The Progress Report. Thanks for having me today.
00:02:00
Speaker
So, yeah, so am I wrong in kind of saying out there that it just seems like it's been all charter schools all the time for the past couple of weeks with this government? Yeah, they are really going full throttle on this pet project of theirs. It dates back to when they got elected. It was in their platform how they want to do more choice and prioritize private options. But it seems like the past two weeks with the budget, the talk has really surfaced about
00:02:30
Speaker
them, the UCP, wanting to fully back charter schools and bring them into the broader conversation. Yes, it has been a very concerted public relations effort by Kenny and the UCP to pump up these charter schools, which are again, are still a very tiny proportion of overall students in this province.
00:02:56
Speaker
as we will discover, there are good, well, not good, but there are material reasons why Jason Kenney and the UCP are so invested in the success of charter schools.
Political Drive and Charter Schools
00:03:06
Speaker
And I think one of the challenges we face when we discuss this topic is really just the knowledge gap. What are we talking about when we are talking about charter schools, when we strip away all that conservative rhetoric? So what we're talking about are publicly supported, funded,
00:03:25
Speaker
schools, but they are autonomously operated. So they're not operated by locally elected boards, by the general public in the community. These are private boards, sometimes there are groups of parents that volunteer there. And there are many different interests that are represented in these sort of niche school boards, per se. So at the court, they received
00:03:52
Speaker
per 100% per student funding, right? So they look like public schools, but when you strip away the surface, you don't see that it's publicly accessible. They actually get a lot of kickbacks by being, you know, in the public system because they take over their schools, but then the school board has to pay their maintenance, right? So there's a lot of hidden
00:04:19
Speaker
gems, if you will, behind what a charter school really is. And I think they flew under the radar for decades. And now people are just realizing all of this backdoor policy that applies to them. And charter school is a bit of a misnomer too. These are really like charter school boards. Like once you get a charter, you can open up as many schools as you would like, right? Yeah. So the charter applies to an authority.
00:04:48
Speaker
And the authority can operate many campuses. So there are situations in Calgary where one chain operates, you know, seven or eight campuses. You know, they can call one a high school, call one a middle school, but that falls under one authority according to the government out of the 16 that have been approved so far.
00:05:09
Speaker
And we do have a reading series today that we're going to get into a really well done piece of investigative journalism from salon about charter schools in the United States that we're going to talk about. But I think we, there's still just a bit of basic knowledge that we need to get off the ground about charter schools in Alberta. So, so when did we get charter schools in Alberta and why? Yeah, so they were introduced in Alberta in 1994. So when,
00:05:34
Speaker
Ralph Klein was reelected in 93. This was part of his education reform platform. At the time in the 90s, the governments around the world were thinking about how to offload costs. They were bringing in free market forces to cut down their budgets, and that meant offloading to the private sector. So charter schools came into Alberta, and they only are still in Alberta in Canada. We're the only province with them.
Ideological Underpinnings of Charter Schools
00:06:01
Speaker
under the idea initially that they would be a center of choice, right? We need to improve our education system because parents are confronted with this monopoly of
00:06:16
Speaker
quote unquote state schools or government schools. And that's government, government, evil government. Yeah, exactly. Very common, common rhetoric you see from, from like the school choice, private and charter school advocates. But yeah, so 94 Ralph Klein, neoliberal hell is descended. And, and, and even though charter schools were introduced in Alberta in 1994, for the past 27 years, 28 years, every other
00:06:44
Speaker
province has looked around at charter schools and said, no, thanks. While Alberta is like, um, yummy, yummy. We love our charter schools. We love them so much. It's really made everything so much better. Uh, but as you say, in the past few decades, it has represented a small proportion and the UCP and maybe following conservative governments want to expand that because a lot of it's based in ideology. Although the guys that they presented to the public is school choice.
00:07:15
Speaker
notwithstanding that we already have tons of choice in the public system as is.
00:07:20
Speaker
Yes. And yeah, the numbers wise on percentages, like we're talking about by my math, 1.3% of total students, by the government's math, 1.5%. So that's like 10,000 total students are in charter schools in Alberta. By comparison, there's just under 40,000 students in private schools. So again, it is the smallest sliver of that between privates and charters.
00:07:47
Speaker
But still, it's the thin edge of the wedge, right? And they are an ideological project that is at its core committed to the destruction of public education as a concept. So it's worthwhile to know your enemy, know what we're talking about here. I also think it's worthwhile to point out that the sales pitch to charter schools is that they are intended to focus on or to
00:08:11
Speaker
test out a particular learning style or teaching style or philosophy or pedagogy that is not already offered by a school division. Like that is essentially how they get their, their charter, quote unquote charter is to be like, look, this school division, our, our public school boards aren't offering X program, but we will offer X program. And that's why you have to give us a charter. And that's the like, you know, that's the like public facing sales pitch, right?
00:08:36
Speaker
Right, that's the approval process that they say to the public. So what changed is that the Choice in Education Act by the UCP got rid of consultation with school boards. In the past, I think, especially in Edmonton, if a group was like, hey, you don't offer x programming, they would have to approach the local school board. And there have been instances where they created programs in the public umbrella to meet those demands. And now,
00:09:07
Speaker
anyone can start a charter and circumvent the school board. So that lack of cooperation undermines the idea that it really is about meeting special, uh, or uncertain, underserved populations. Now we're testing out new educational methods or whatever kind of malarkey they're kind of like is in their marketing. Yeah. And well, if you're going to test something out, then like folded back in, if it worked, right, they were supposed to kind of go off.
00:09:36
Speaker
test something, report back, and there's never been a process of the reporting back. They just kind of exist in perpetuity with no follow up of what's happening. Yeah, there are charter schools in Alberta that have existed since like the mid 90s, you know, 1995, 96, 97, they got their charters and it's like,
00:09:56
Speaker
Does it work? We don't know. Should their lessons be integrated into the school system? Well, it's shrug emoji, you know? And the last and kind of most obvious question we have to ask before we get to the reading series is like, why do conservatives like charter schools so much?
Charter School Strategies: Alberta vs. U.S.
00:10:16
Speaker
Conservatives are so intent on
00:10:19
Speaker
the theory that the free market will fix all our problems, right? If you gave people choice and the competition model between products will make things more efficient. You'll get better outcome when the private sector steps in because they're using their own capital. They're using their own exploited labor. We know it's exploited, but in a way,
00:10:45
Speaker
conservatives love the idea that small government, small taxes will get you better results. And it just doesn't apply in a public good like education. That's such a pillar of driving a society. Yeah, you need a strong and functioning public education system in order to have a society. And conservatives look at that and they're like, but what if we destroyed it?
00:11:10
Speaker
I mean, the other obvious reasons why public education or why charter schools are so popular with conservatives, as you mentioned, there's no accountability. There's no elected school board looking over their shoulder. There are no unions. It's a fantastic way to break the unions of teachers and educational assistants and admin workers and janitors and maintenance people. They are paying less in labor costs because they are dealing with a non-unionized workforce.
00:11:37
Speaker
They get free money, as you were saying, they're 100% funded at a per student level. And as we are seeing now, now they're getting capital from the provincial government. So that's free real estate as well. And if you're an ideological true believer and pick a project, you could start your charter school and you get to essentially get a whole bunch of captive children in order to indoctrinate into whatever it is that you believe in.
00:12:03
Speaker
And I would say it also preys on, on the generation of parents that are fearing of missing out right in the age of social media. We're like, are we doing enough for our kids? And there are some videos out there that show, you know, Weber Academy, a private school that say, you know, some parents really sacrifice to have their kids here because they want the best for their future. And it's like, well, what about parents that just can't?
00:12:29
Speaker
They don't want the best for their children, right? It's just preying on that fear of missing out, which is predatory and it's exploitative of the vulnerabilities of parenting in an age that, you know, we don't need to be competitive. We just need everyone to have equal access.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, and it's important to emphasize that if you have your kid in a charter school and you're just a regular ass person and not some ideological freak who wants to destroy the public education system, we are not judging you. We are casting judgment on the system that we have in Alberta. And it's always important to be hard on systems and gentle with people. Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
But so you forwarded this piece to me, Wing, and I think I liked it so much that I was like, oh yeah, we have to like discuss it on the pod because it really is a like the playbook for what we are likely to see in Alberta if we continue on the path that we are on when it comes to charter schools. It is a story published March 17th in Salon.
00:13:33
Speaker
Oh, she's online news magazine. Uh, the headline is the far rights national plan for schools plant charters to fund public education. And before we get into the particulars wing, you know, is there anything about this piece that you want people to know about before we kind of get into it? Like, how did you even come across it? Uh, it was sent around in our SOS chat group. Um, cause it was, it came out kind of last week, right? Yeah. Marcia and Katie said it came out right at sort of the presser.
00:14:03
Speaker
a press tour that Jason Kenney was on. And the distinction of the story is that it is such a parallel to what we're seeing unfolding. There are a lot of truth bombs in it as well, that when the people are interviewed, they just really admit the flaws and the weaknesses of the charter system. And it kind of shows us our adventure will end there, the choose your own adventure. This could be our destination.
00:14:33
Speaker
and that was really jarring.
Charter Schools as Ideological Platforms
00:14:35
Speaker
Agreed, agreed. All right, so here is, I'm gonna start reading the piece right now. The Orange County Classical Academy will be referred to as OCCA throughout the piece. Part of Hillsdale College's Barney Charter Schools Initiative opened its doors in August 2020 with a combative flare. The school flew a pro-police thin blue line flag and announced its adoption of a sex ed curriculum, quote, designed to support parent authority and family values, unquote.
00:15:01
Speaker
which an ACL review has found, includes the suggestion that LGBTQ students may outgrow their orientations or identities and that women who have abortions are destroying themselves.
00:15:12
Speaker
While other school districts around the country stressed over masking or whether to open in-person or at all, OCCA advertised its complete lack of pandemic restrictions. Yeah, which, you know, we already have like public schools that are already doing that here in Alberta. Yeah. Up in like Lecrete and Mackenzie County. Yeah.
00:15:31
Speaker
An FAQ on the school's website makes clear that, like Hillsdale itself, it offers a classical education focused primarily on the, quote, history and cultural achievements of Western civilization, unquote, which it sees as, quote, the heritage of every scholar at OCCA, unquote, no matter where they come from. Students primarily read the works of white men since the great leaders, thinkers, scientists, writers and artists of Western civilization have mostly been white men.
00:15:58
Speaker
That's a quote from their marketing materials. While teachers will discuss historical bigotry or discrimination when appropriate, they won't judge historical figures by modern standards. In sum, it's a plan Taylor made to address the conservative complaints of the past two years, which OCCA co-founder Jeff Bark says has now earned the school a 1000 student wait list, largely from conservative homeschooling families.
00:16:25
Speaker
So yeah, there's the intro to the OCCA. There you go. This story is quite long and detailed. There's more that we're going to read from it. But yeah, I think that gives a hint of what you can get from a charter school system, which is like an unabashed ideological project, which is
Political Influence on Education Policies
00:16:49
Speaker
uh, particularly associated with a particularly viral and form of like, uh, white supremacy and, and like conspiracy theory stuff and anti, anti health information, anti pro COVID, I guess is probably the better way to frame that. Yeah. Yeah. Pro virus. Yeah. There's a bunch of stuff in here about like how they got the charter, like eventually like,
00:17:17
Speaker
they ended up throwing a bunch of money at like
00:17:21
Speaker
Uh, uh, they ended up having a majority on like the school board, uh, for like the County, uh, you know, the, the critics, there were three critics to four proponents for this. You know, the, the conservatives who were for this charter school received nearly their entire campaign budget from a PAC affiliated with the California charter schools association. Um, which, you know, you, you hate to see and also is, um, you know, stuff like that is very common in Alberta with packs.
00:17:51
Speaker
Um, you know, and the other, uh, the other part of this, that's like, also we find in Alberta is that there were very close familial and, uh, social links between like.
00:18:06
Speaker
You know, the, the politicians in clay and play, like in this case, the Florida's education minister, uh, was married to like a person who was on the board member of like, uh, one of these like classics schools. You know what I mean? And we see this in Alberta too, right? With people with conservative connections being involved in either starting up charter schools or, you know, working on the boards of charter schools, working in the charter school system. Right.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, you really have to ask how those connections are helping. You know, most people, this is kind of inside baseball, right? If you don't know the history of some of the candidacies that have fallen through in parties, but they also get to have, they continue to have their friendships, right? So behind closed doors, they're influencing policy on one hand.
00:19:01
Speaker
But what other kickbacks are being handed under the table using the new legislations that are being more lenient? So it's a pattern, too. It's not just one person. It's sort of, oh, these charters crop up. And it's kind of easy to follow the connection. You know, they were public candidates at one point, right? They were in the news. And if you are,
00:19:30
Speaker
a listener that follows the money, I guess. It's pretty easy to see that these are kind of pet projects and in a way becomes a sort of racket to profit a bit off their friends still being in positions of making policy.
00:19:47
Speaker
So Florida's education minister, a man named Richard Corcoran, is kind of like reported on extensively in the piece as well. And it goes, Richard Corcoran, who has reportedly suggested cutting the public school system by two thirds, and whose brother has worked as a lobbyist for a charter school management company, spoke at Hillsdale the same year, telling the school's attendees to view education as the battlefield where Republicans could win the political war. Nat Fight Corcoran said, steady progress towards school privatization was being made.
00:20:14
Speaker
As Florida Republicans move closer to achieving their stated long-term goal of making 100% of the state's students eligible for school vouchers, Corcoran suggested that once the state manages to lure one and a half million students away from public schools to get those kids across the Rubicon, as he put it, the resultant loss of funding and forced consolidation would alter the educational landscape so radically that not even future Democratic governors could change it back.
00:20:39
Speaker
Indeed, they might be getting close already, he said, with almost a third of that number already using vouchers or in charter schools. You can't take those 500,000 kids and bring them back into the public school system, so you have to keep doing what we're doing as quickly as we're doing it, he said. And that really is the strategy here, right? It's the long-term crippling of the public education system by just getting as many students out of it as you can.
00:21:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think timing here too for us is on the heels of a pandemic. The acceleration of charter school expansion is strategic. They are hoping that future governments have a hard time putting the cap back on, right? Once you get that toothpaste out of the tube, it's hard to put it back in. And I think that speaks to why Jason Kenney is going so full, full speed ahead. It's a bit of this disaster capitalism at play.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yes, very much, agreed.
Long-term Impact of Charter Schools
00:21:41
Speaker
So we'll link to this piece in the show notes and it's very well done. It decides its sources, it skips all across the country to kind of like get you to the hotspots, right? Where it's like, this is, at its core, these are always hyper-local battles, right? These are battles at the county level, these are battles at the neighborhood level.
00:22:04
Speaker
you know, they've got to find a place to get a school set up and then they've got to get that, you know, usually they've got to find a friendly school board with which to cooperate, at least for the like building side, right? Like, and there are lots of touch points for people to fight back against these charter schools, but it's like,
00:22:23
Speaker
at every fight of this nature is one that's going to benefit the group that is thinking in the long-term and has the considerable financial resources to devote to that kind of long-term strategy, right? Yeah, absolutely. There is money to be made, right? And when there is that force, it takes a lot of people power to fight back, especially grassroots organizations that are chronically underfunded.
00:22:51
Speaker
And getting people to understand what's happening takes a long time, right? It's this has been happening since the 90s even longer in the past in the States so these are decades of ideological projects and getting people online to understand that this matters and Before it happens in your neighborhood, right? That's the question is how do you get people? aware and you know
00:23:18
Speaker
push their elected officials or vote for elected officials that are for public education in the Paris form. Um, that takes decades to sort of prime and, and move the people here, especially in Alberta. Yeah. Like you can't kill a public education system all at once. Nope. It's a long-term project. It's an erosion. So we always like to say this is an erosion. It's the long game.
00:23:47
Speaker
They've been playing the long game, but there are going to be moments that can't be undone. And so that's what the UCP is trying to do is having these caps removed and changing this legislation and doing it all at once. So it is harder in theory and maybe in practice to dial it back in enough, in enough period of time to fix what was eroded.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah. I'm going to close off with a kind of final few paragraphs from the salon piece. This is a quote. This is going to be a quote from Mariana Orapessa, who's like a public education advocate.
00:24:25
Speaker
I think, like Corcoran said, the battle for America will be won in education, she said. There are so many wins for conservatives by privatizing education. They get to control the message, decrease taxes, get access to the hearts and minds of all the children in America. They get to kill teachers unions. That one can't be stressed enough. They basically allow for segregation academies. They're allowed to fund their own Christian views. All of these things are connected, she said. And it's happening on multiple levels, federal, state, and local.
00:24:53
Speaker
quote, this is going to quote from Ortepeza, they're going to keep plugging away because they have the resources, they have the connections and they have the vision. They are playing the long game and while Healesdale might not seem important now with 53 schools and all they have to do is, but all they have to do is get a few more states to adopt their standards and the game changes.
00:25:11
Speaker
That game-changing moment may have arrived last month, but unlike previous charter school efforts, which have largely gone unnoticed outside affected local communities, and as journalist Jeff Brian notes, have drawn a little protest from Democrats,
00:25:24
Speaker
Governor Lee's grandiose plans for Tennessee have sparked substantial pushback. State Democratic leaders have criticized the plan as academically unnecessary, an attack on public education, and in the words of Democratic State Senator Ramesh Akbari, the retailing of a warped version of history.
00:25:44
Speaker
Local journalists have also accused Lee of seeking to create a network of publicly funded private Christian schools and Hillsdale of a backdoor form of money laundering. On February 28th, the ACLU of Tennessee filed an open records request seeking all records related to Lee's partnership with the college. Lee is the governor of Tennessee.
00:26:01
Speaker
To Frog, who's another public education advocate, who's quoted in the piece, this is a heartening wake up call. I've been advocating for public education for 10 years and the last couple of years have been extremely difficult, she said. It seems sort of hopeless and like everything is just rolling through the legislature. This time, though, things seem different. Perhaps it's the overreach, but I think it has awakened a lot of people to what the privatization movement is all about, which is not the well-being of students.
00:26:26
Speaker
So there you go. That's the piece. We will link to it in the show notes. Really does kind of lay out what the larger game plan here is when it comes to charter schools. And it certainly is grim, even though the story does end on that hopeful note, right? Yeah, it does. It's a bit terrifying to see the parallels for us, I think.
00:26:48
Speaker
you could name people that are like the parallel character in this story in our political landscape, right? We do have opposition that seems to have enabled some of this too. And because it's like, oh, education's always going to be around because it's only this 1%. And we need to take the lessons that are learned here. And it could be us.
00:27:16
Speaker
And this classical academy approach, I mean, that's the name of the charter school that's in the lead of this piece.
Recent Developments and Political Figures in Charter Schools
00:27:23
Speaker
I mean, Alberta is getting its own version of this classical academy.
00:27:27
Speaker
the first charter school in a while. No, I guess there was a charter school in like 2018 or something, but it's the first, it's the newest charter school in Alberta will be opening this September. And it's going to be run by Kalyn Ford. You remember Kalyn, you may remember Kalyn Ford as the candidate who resigned before being, before running in the 2019 provincial election for things that she said about the like,
00:27:54
Speaker
the clash of, it was essentially like class of civilization stuff. I don't want to say too much about Caitlin Ford because I'm currently being sued by her. But needless to say, yes, like connected to the conservative movement. And if you've ever read it, if you've ever read anything she's kind of like said, she's a very strange person. And now she's going to be running a school or is involved in the running of a school.
00:28:18
Speaker
Um, you know, other political players with connections to charter schools, Jeff Wilson, who's a former Wildrose, uh, MLA, what charter schools he associated with. He's associated with the FFCA, uh, the foundations for the future. And, uh, Lisa Davis, who's a former Calgary public school board trustee who ran on like a, on like a conservative slate. Uh, she's involved in another charter school. That's correct.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yes, a STEM Academy, because apparently we don't have STEM in public schools. That's our concept. That's our concept. STEM does not exist. Uh, if you go to high school, you just can't learn anything about math or science. No science, no technology, like you can't touch a computer.
00:29:00
Speaker
And again, this does come on the back of $73 million for charters that was in the Alberta budget. That's $25 million in operating funding and $47 million in capital investment. And that capital investment is unprecedented. To my knowledge, there has never been this sort of investment in the actual buildings and structures that charter schools happen in. And the government is essentially giving them charter schools free money to just shore up their budgets when it comes to the facilities that they have to have their schools in.
00:29:29
Speaker
Yeah, they're getting a ton of kickbacks from multiple areas because they already have agreements with some of the public school boards. They house them. The CBE houses some of the charter schools and they get a dollar in rent from these nonprofit societies, quote unquote. So yeah, it's problematic. The other thing I would say too, is that sometimes charter schools will come into a neighborhood as competition to, and they close out the neighborhood school. That's one,
00:29:58
Speaker
threat that we face is that a kid living across the street from a charter school probably won't be admitted. And then they have to bust out of their neighborhood. And that's the geographical threat of how privatization can erode public education. And it happens under the radar until you're like, I can't get into the neighborhood school. That's a charter. Yes, that is, um,
00:30:24
Speaker
an incredibly frustrating part of this is that they gather, they're parasitic on the public system, right? And they only show up in a neighborhood and can you even go there? I mean, you can apply. There's, there's no guarantee that you'll get in. Like they talk about how they, they, um, they don't turn people away, but that's like simply false. Like if more people apply, then there are people available than there are spots available in the school. There's a judgment call about who gets in, right? They absolutely turn people away because they can just say, well, our, our niche is in, I don't know.
00:30:54
Speaker
like farming and if this child is not showing you know tendencies or inclinations to farming through our farming entrance exam um right like there's such so many arbitrary excuses they've been legislated and that is obviously an example that i'm making up but not that far from reality right when you're seeing we have a special purpose people that live in the community don't always fall under that
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, let's go through what some of these charters are, right? Like Aurora Academic Charter Schools. This was a charter school where Jason Kenney did his presser at. It's in Edmonton. It's had its charter since 1996. So going on 26 years, have they figured anything out? Who knows? Their charter focuses traditional education.
00:31:42
Speaker
Um, you know, the Calgary Ghouls, Calgary girl's school got its charter in 2003. It's all girls focused on fostering competent, confident and caring young women. Um, connect charter schools got its charter in 1997 Calgary based again, inquiry based technology rich with outdoor and experiential education. Like, I think we figured out that that's like good. And that's been integrated into the public school system. Like field trips exist, computer labs exist, you know,
00:32:10
Speaker
Check. Yeah. Yeah. Foundations for the Future, which is the one that former Wildrose MLA is involved with, Jeff Wilson. Academic Excellence and character education, whatever character education is. In 1997, that one's existed. New Horizons Charter School, 1995. Sherwood Park, gifted education.
00:32:31
Speaker
um, Valhalla charter schools, got its charter in 2008, rural leadership and French as a second language through direct instruction. Like that's just like a handful of the ones, but like, this is, these are the names. This is what their sensible focus is. And this is how long they've been around. Right. And with no accountability, right. Of, of, are you duplicating, right? The question of, are you duplicating programs? And as you read that list out, I'm like, yeah, every school,
00:32:59
Speaker
I know has some form of this already embedded in their curriculum, which is some other thing that I'd like to bring up is that this is kind of connected, right?
Interconnected Policies in Alberta's Education System
00:33:10
Speaker
The story of how this is a right wing ideological imposition is at our back doors. You know, you see this in the curriculum that Jason Kenney is trying to push forward. And what I would like to push is that it's all connected.
00:33:26
Speaker
It's not one issue or the other because we love siloing our issues and like, what is Jason Kenny worst at? And the bigger picture is that if you can push ideology in public schools as well as having your little niche charter schools, it's all erosion, right? All of it is fragmentation and also winning this culture war.
Integrating Charter Schools: A Proposed Solution
00:33:50
Speaker
And I think the way I want to close this out too is like, how do we solve the problem of charter schools? I would argue that it is, it is a solvable problem and that 10,000 students out of like 740,000 students in the K to 12 system in Alberta is like, like we could just be like every other province and get rid of charter schools. And, you know, here's the solution that I propose to get rid of charter schools. You don't just like snap your fingers and get rid of them all at once, though you could if you wanted to.
00:34:18
Speaker
Um, I argue there's a very simple solution here, even for a group as risk averse as the Alberta NDP. And that, that, and that is once the charter has had five to eight years to test out their pedagogical innovation or whatever it is that makes them special, the thing that they got their charter to do, they have to make a choice. They have to become a private school or they have to join a public school board.
00:34:43
Speaker
And I can look at that list and the vast majority of the charter schools that exist in this province have existed for more than five to eight years. And you have to prove it. If what you're doing is useful to education, well then integrate it into the public school system. There's all sorts of public schools that have special focuses. There are
00:35:05
Speaker
language focuses, there are STEM focuses, there are arts focuses within the public school system. So what makes you so special that you have to exist as a charter school in perpetuity, right? Yeah, totally agree. This is time for them to pick a lane, right? Are you going to be public or are you going to be private? Go private and be independent then.
00:35:24
Speaker
if you want that exclusivity. But I think charter schools have been straddling this hybrid for too long. It's confusing, first of all. And that's the point, right? If you can call them public charters, which is an oxymoron, then you can get away with so much. So yeah, pick a lane. And it's really easy to be folded back into the alternative programming in many of these school boards. They already have them.
00:35:46
Speaker
Yes. All the big city school boards have reams of like alternative programming, as you call it, precisely as a response to like what happened in the nineties with charter schools and private schools.
00:35:56
Speaker
And becoming a private school in Alberta is not that bad. We have the highest levels of private school subsidies in the country. Again, we're the only province with charter schools, and we have the highest levels of private school subsidization in the country. And there are provinces. There's Ontario.
00:36:18
Speaker
has give zero dollars to private schools, whereas Alberta gives 70 percent of what a public school would get on a per student basis that goes to a private school. Oh, yeah. We love them for some reason. Yes, we love private schools in this province and like go if what you believe, if what you're doing at your charter school can't operate, you just can't countenance it with it being at a public school board, then like become a private school man. Lots. There are lots of private schools in this province.
00:36:48
Speaker
They're probably looking at charters like, Hey, you get a hundred percent. What? Maybe more private will become charters this way to get more money. Yeah, it is a better financial arrangement. It is true. Um, so there you
Conclusion: Education as a Public Good?
00:37:03
Speaker
go. That is the show on charter schools. Is there anything, you know, people think people need to walk away from this, uh, you know, podcasts, learning about charter schools. If there's one thing you wanted people to walk away with it, what would it be?
00:37:17
Speaker
I think it would be that we need to really examine what we think about education. Are we, are we going to continue thinking after a pandemic after and facing climate change? Are we really still stuck on education as an individual product? Are we still consuming, you know, seeing this through a consumer lens when we understand that we need to have public infrastructure and public goods to get through any collective problem. So that is a think piece that I want people to ponder.
00:37:48
Speaker
Fantastic. I agree wholeheartedly. What is the best way for people to follow along with the work you and your friends at SOS Alberta are doing? You can follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at SOS Alberta. And you can also see our website, www.supportourstudents.ca. And you just all link to it in the shout outs, but you did just recently put out like a little short hit on charter schools as well, right?
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, an info piece. Yes. A hit of information and education for people. Yes. Feel free to read that, share that as well. Also, obviously, if you like this podcast, please share it with your friends. One of the best ways that podcasts gain audience and power and influence is by getting as many people as possible to listen to it. So share with your friends, leave a
00:38:41
Speaker
leave a review on Appa Podcast. That's also quite helpful. If you could do that, I haven't asked for people to do reviews in quite some time. Also with regards to even just the podcast itself existing, one very helpful thing that you can do is you can join the 500 or so other folks who help keep this independent media project going by becoming a monthly donor. There is a link in the show notes as well as just the progressreport.ca slash patrons is where you can go to do it. Put in your credit card, contribute. Me and Jim really do appreciate it.
00:39:10
Speaker
Also, if you have any notes, thoughts, comments, things you think I need to hear, I am very easy to reach on Twitter at, at Duncan Kinney. And you can reach me by email at Duncan K at progress, Alberta.ca. Thank you to Jim Story for editing this podcast. Thank you to cosmic fam, you communist for our theme. Thanks again to Wingley for being an amazing guest and goodbye.