Kenney’s GSA stance gets the air time, but former SD76 chair says his views on choice will be even more harmful

By Tim Kalinowski on November 4, 2017.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

UCP leader Jason Kenney’s remarks on GSAs received a lot of political air time recently, but his critics say his uncompromising support for schools of choice, including private schools, charter schools and homeschools, may be more problematic for Alberta education in the long term.

“All of these experiments have been done in the United States, and, quite frankly, the United States ranks as the lowest industrialized country in the world in terms of its education system,” states former SD76 board chair, and staunch public school advocate, Terry Riley. “If that’s what (Kenney) wants, taking Alberta from being the best education system in the English-speaking world and turn it into an American, bottom-rung education system, then go ahead and do that stuff.”

Forty Mile Home Education supervisor Craig Funston on the other hand, feels more choice means better education for Albertans.

“I have talked to Jason Kenney personally about this matter when he came to Taber,” he says. “I told him we are not asking for any special treatment. Parents should have a choice in their education, and homeschooling just happens to be one of those choices.

“It’s important for people out there to understand parental choice in education is a strong, positive thing.”

Funston points to lower costs to taxpayers associated with homeschooling and other private schools as being a significant side benefit of allowing greater choice.

Riley says Funston, and Kenney who has stated similar ideas during his recent leadership campaign, are totally off base in making such statements.

“That’s not true,” says Riley forcefully. “The fact that those schools do not deal with the needy students. Those schools are taking an average cost per student. If you are earning $30 million and I am earning a dollar, on average we are earning $15-million.

“If you dump all the students who need extra educational supports for educational success into one system, and those students cost $30,000-$35,000 a year to educate, and you only let the students that cost $5,000 a piece into homeschooling or the other schools, then you can say ‘Yes,’ indeed, you have an average in those schools cheaper than the public school system which is handling all the most challenging kids.”

Riley says Medicine Hat’s public school system is often forced to absorb students with the highest needs in the region when other local school systems simply tell parents they can’t handle their kids.

“When they have a kid which has all these educational challenges they say to the kids, ‘We don’t have a program for you,'” states Riley. “‘Go to public system’ … It is amazing to me how these school districts can say we are a public school system, but they will not educate all the public. As soon as there is a problem, they say ship ’em over.”

Funston disagrees with Riley’s costing assessments, but says it’s not only the money which sets schools of choice apart.

“It’s about the freedom to educate or choose the education for our children, is what it boils down to,” he says. “And I think Mr. Kenney will be open to that.”

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