Charter Schools & Privatization

Charter Schools: Less public transparency and accountability for public funds

Unlike Alberta's public schools, charter schools are not governed by publicly-elected trustees, accountable to Albertans at the polls, nor are they accountable to locally elected school boards. School boards are now and have always been an important exercise in democracy at the local level. Charter schools bypass this important democratic representation. 
Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately run institutions. 

​Public funds should not be diverted away from transparent, democratic and accountable public institutions. 

Charter Schools: hotbeds of exclusivity, pathways to privatization

A charter school is designed to meet the needs of a specific group of students, not every student in Alberta. Sections 44 (Resident Student) and 47 (Students with special needs must be provided with appropriate educational services) of the School Act do not apply to charter boards, since that responsibility is already delegated to local school boards.

This promotes the steady segregation of our school system: one class for those who "make the cut" and another for those left behind. What we teach our children today will become the fabric of tomorrow's society.  

Charter Schools: Undermine and underfund our public education system

Charter schools promote the narrative that specific programs are required for education, and falsely promote the idea that public schools are unable to meet the needs of specific children.

This kind of marketing undermines the confidence in a public education system for the direct purpose of creating a market for charter schools. The funding that follows these schools draws important and needed resources from the public system.  

This flow of funds away from the public system creates a public systems that struggles to provide adequate resources and the cycle of undermining and underfunding continues. 

Charter Schools perpetuate education privatization as they are not truly "public."

Alberta is the only province to legislate charter schools.
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• Defined by Alberta Education as autonomous non-profit public schools, they are not allowed to be religiously based and
  are not obligated to accept every student.
• Publicly funded, receiving 100% of the per student amount.
• Do not report to a publicly elected school board and their financial operations remain internal.
• The terminology under public school changes from tuition to fees. Charter schools are able to charge additional fees,
  including costs for laptops, overnight excursions, uniforms, enrichment and special resources for which there is no cap and
  no current regulation.
• In Alberta, the cap of a maximum of 15 charter schools in the province was removed in legislation in June 2019. Under the previous cap, charter schools had found a loophole by opening multiple campuses under one charter school application.

We call upon the Government of Alberta to:

Recognize the inequities promoted by charter schools​.
​Return the Alberta Education to its principal focus of funding one universally accessible public education for all children.
Roll charter schools into their local public school system, as originally designed. 

"On the whole, however, charters have failed to live up to their promise.”

- Jack Schneider, The Washington Post, May 30 2019

LearN MORE

"Public education is a fundamental human right every child deserves. When we marketize it, we do a disservice to our most marginalized students and society at large. The good news is: we do not have to buy into this marketing; we are not obligated to support this narrative.”