September 20, 2024

Opinion: No public money should build private schools in Alberta
Edmonton Journal
By Wing Li (Communications Director)

On Sept. 17, Alberta’s UCP government announced an “accelerated capital plan” that purportedly fast-tracks new school builds, modular classrooms, modernizations, and streamlines the clunky infrastructure approval process.

Alberta’s education system has needed infrastructure attention for decades. The dire need has been exacerbated through chronic funding cuts, compounded by year-over-year enrolment growth. At face value, this (albeit one-time) boost is certainly necessary for the public education system. However, alarmingly, the capital plan also rams through an egregious plan to fund private school construction.

Read more

September 18, 2024

Release: Public dollars should only be used to build public schools
Smith to accelerate private school construction at the expense of public school students

Last night, via televised broadcast, Premier Danielle Smith announced a plan that was supposed to alleviate overcrowded schools. Instead, she proposed an egregious charter and private school construction acceleration program and made no mention of complementary operational funding to attract and hire more education workers. Her plan expands private education by siphoning much needed public dollars to line the pockets of private institutions that are not open to the general community. Alberta already funds private education with one of the highest instructional subsidy rates in the country at 70%, but now Smith is adding to this siphoning by using public funds to pay for the brick and mortar construction of exclusive buildings that most Albertan kids cannot access.

Read our full statement here.

May 8, 2024
School Fundraising Survey

SOS wants to hear from parents and guardians in Alberta's public, Catholic and Francophone divisions about your experiences with school fundraising! We know that school fundraising pays for many things that core funding doesn't cover, but we'd like to get a sense of how much people are being called upon to give their time and dollars to fundraising, and what that funding is spent on. We hope you'll take a few minutes to fill out this short (5 minutes) survey.

*We do not collect your e-mail address. We may quote open-ended comments in our discussion of results, but only where such comments don't identify individuals or schools. Thank you for your time, and please feel free to share this link with your own networks.

Take Survey

May 8, 2024
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New publication:
"Connecting the dots between extreme ideologies, "parent choice" and education privatization in Alberta and Canada"
by Heather Ganshorn, SOS Research Director

Abstract
Privatization of public education in North America has long been influenced by two schools of conservative thought: neoliberalism, which seeks to create a marketplace for public services in which individuals choose the option they judge to be in their best interests and government's role is limited as much as possible to simply funding these choices; and neoconservatism, which believes that education should seek to uphold traditional religious and social values. These two strains are divided in terms of their view of how much control government should seek over education, but united in their agreement that funding should "follow the student" to the option of the parents' choice. Recently, far-right conservative groups in the U.S. and Canada have been inciting a moral panic over "gender ideology" in schools, and in particular transgender students. Under cover of this moral panic and the accompanying call to recognize "parent rights," the right is organizing to gain greater influence over public education through legislation and through the election of conservative candidates to school boards, even as it seeks greater privatization options for families who wish to opt out of public education. While this trend has been noticeable in Alberta for some time, it appears to be spreading to the rest of Canada as well.

​Read full article

February 29, 2024
Alberta education budget 2024: ‘More’ does not equal nearly enough
This afternoon, Alberta’s UCP government tabled their 2024 Budget. To our dismay, once again, inadequate K-12 education will continue to starve the rapidly growing public education system. The allotted education funding does not cover inflation and enrollment growth. Funding that doesn’t keep pace equals real cuts. Read our full statement.

February 21, 2024
Release: K-12 Students Must be Prioritized in Alberta Budget 2024

“Alberta children deserve to have an adequately funded education system for the growth our province and schools are experiencing. That is not happening. Alberta education is the worst funded in the country. Support Our Students (SOS) Alberta advocates for sustainable and adequate funding so that each Albertan child has equal access to a high quality education.” - Medeana Moussa, Executive Director

Read more >>>

February 8, 2024
Public Good Podcast New episode: 
“Parental Rights” Special Series:
Parental Rights As A Smokescreen for Privatization with Heather Ganshorn 

Through this episode, Stephen and Shannon speak to Heather Ganshorn about the ways that the parental rights movement advance and legitimize privatization of/in public schools. Ganshorn describes the parental rights movement as a smokescreen for groups with a broader culture war agenda. In addition, Ganshorn elucidates the connection between groups stoking fear about parental rights and those calling for more school choice. Stephen and Shannon ask Heather about specific examples within Alberta and also what she has noted about the spread and alliances of parental rights groups across Canada. Ganshorn offers a clear answer about the problem of increased parental choice; these choices are not available to everyone and leave schools to make choices about students.
Listen here>>

February 1, 2024
Release:
Danielle Smith’s “Gender Identity” Policies are Draconian Violations of Trans & Queer Students’ Rights

On Wednesday, January 31, Premier Danielle Smith released a seven-minute video on X (formerly Twitter) about her alarming “Gender Identity” policies. Support Our Students Alberta absolutely opposes these proposed measures. These sweeping policies specifically target young Albertans who identify as LGBTQ2S+ and outright ban their access to safe schools, healthcare, medicine, and psychological support. In school settings, these students’ rights to safe self expression will also be banned. Queer and transgender students, especially those without affirming homes, are already vulnerable to alienation, isolation, suicide, and homelessness. Smith’s policies significantly multiply their risk of harm. 
Read more here...

November 28, 2023
Alberta Students Continue to Learn in Overcrowded, Highly Complex Classrooms Despite Government Announcement

After too many consecutive years of steep education cuts, the small injection announced by the UCP Government today is significantly short of what is actually needed to alleviate overcrowded and highly complex Alberta classrooms. Statistics Canada found that Alberta comes in dead last and well below the national average in per-student spending. Meanwhile, a record number of new families are moving to Alberta from other provinces and abroad. Combined with historic inflation pressures, this means $30 million distributed across many school divisions does not go far to address the estimated $1.2 Billion/year shortfall of education funding. Earlier this week, the UCP Government struck down a proposed Education (Class Size and Composition) Amendment Act that would have restored public class size reporting, augmented funding, and overall transparency about the tangible crisis in public education. It was the UCP government themselves who removed class size reporting and funding in 2019. All this shows they are not truly committed to concrete action and this negligence only leaves students without adequate educational resources.
Read more here...

June 19, 2023
SOS Alberta Statement on Pride in Public Education

March 3, 2023
New OpEd just published:
"Charter schools erode public education" by Wing Li (Communications Director)

In the Feb. 15 Edmonton Journal, David Staples lauded the benefits of charter schools in a column praising the breadth of school choice available in the capital region. While Edmonton Public Schools are being forced to compete with charter and private-schooling options for limited public funds, we need to ask whether this competition for resources is equitable for children. At a time when Alberta public schools are losing EAs, teachers, librarians, and school counsellors, is it really fiscally responsible to funnel more money into exclusive options outside of the public system such as charter schools? 
Read more>>>

February 21, 2023
NEW Podcast Episode!!
Public Good Podcast featuring SOS Communications Director Wing Li

Listen here

10 Strategies for Equitable Public Education​

We would like the Alberta Government to redefine and recommit the government’s responsibility to a more equitable public education system for all Alberta students.

1. Make high quality early childhood education universal and accessible, leveling the playing field and closing the achievement gap for underprivileged children.
2. Build schools as community engagement centres, comprehensive facilities where children and citizens can participate physically, intellectually and civically.
3. Eliminate ALL barriers including all school-related fees (including, but not limited to, instructional materials, bussing, lunch supervision) and application procedures.
4. All schools should have a full, inclusive, and balanced curriculum including but not limited to arts, music, science, history, language arts, additional languages, mathematics, and physical education.
5. Reduce class sizes to bring them in line with the recommendations in the Alberta Learning Commission report of 2003 & provide adequate supports for classroom complexity.
6. Integrate charter schools into public system, eliminating all fees and ability to deny access.
7. Provide integrated services for students including medical and social services that help children keep up with advantaged peers.  One in six Alberta children live in poverty.
8. Reduce emphasis on high stakes standardized testing. Provide alternative and more comprehensive criteria for measuring student success.
9. Return to specialization for teachers at all grade levels.
10. Recognize that public education is a public responsibility not a consumer good.  Its quality and accessibility should be equitable across the province.

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