ALBERTA CHARTER SCHOOLS

ALBERTA CHARTER SCHOOLS PASS FIRST TEST
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
NOTES FROM THE FRONTIER
September 27, 1999

IN BRIEF: CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE NON-BUREAUCRATIC ALTERNATIVES TO THE CENTRALIZED PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. THEY OPERATE IN PARALLEL WITH THE PUBLIC SYSTEM AND RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING. THEY TEND TO FOCUS MORE ON PERFORMANCE THAN THEIR TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOL COUNTERPARTS. CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE MUCH MORE POPULAR IN THE UNITED STATES COMPARED TO CANADA, WHERE BUREAUCRATIC RESISTANCE AND A LACK OF LEADERSHIP HAS CONFINED THIS MODEL TO JUST A DOZEN SCHOOLS IN ALBERTA. THE EXPERIENCE THERE HAS BEEN POSITIVE SO FAR.

By Peter Holle

A preliminary report card has been issued for Alberta's fledgling charter schools. The results, released at the Frontier Centre's "The Future of Schools" conference September 11, show great promise for the idea of school choice.

Charter schools operate within the public system, but differ in a few fundamental ways. They are essentially contract schools; the teachers and parents who establish them set out their educational objectives in advance and must meet those goals or see their charters revoked. Although they receive the same per-pupil grant as other public schools, they pay for their own buildings and other facilities. Finally, they are generally free from direct control by Education Department officials in matters of curriculum and management.

Although Alberta is the only province to legalize charter schools, 36 American states have done so, and about 1,100 have opened across the US. In 1997, the Hudson Institute conducted an extensive review of the 600 charter schools then in operation. It discovered high satisfaction levels on the part of participating parents, teachers and pupils and positive scholastic performance: "Their focus is on education, [and] their students are flourishing academically. ... ," with a 98% success rate in raising student achievement.

Last year, the Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education, a research centre in Kelowna, BC, began a two-year, in-depth study of Alberta's charter schools. At the conference, Helen Raham, the Society's Executive Director, debuted the study's initial, first-year report. A final report will follow next year.

Most of Alberta's twelve charter schools are located in Edmonton or Calgary and have smaller class sizes than normal in the public system. Ms. Raham's organization found rising enrollments and high retention rates for both students and teachers: "Fully 85% of parents surveyed intend to keep their children in the school for as long as it remains available." Although it's too early to assess their academic performance - they have only been operating for less than three years - all of them identify a focus on student achievement as a key ingredient in their charters.

Certainly the new schools have kept their promises to diversify curricula. The study finds that "[t]he schools appear to be applying educational approaches in rather novel combinations, or using approaches not offered by the district, or applying accepted approaches to groups of students that appear to be underserved in the system." Half the schools cater to specialized niche groups in the education markets, and the others "employ a particular methodology, educational philosophy or curricular focus above the core curriculum."

The problems so far? Raham mentioned start-up difficulties without the traditional support framework public schools receive from their divisions or the Department of Education. The costs of leasing space, normally provided free of charge in the public system, may eat up 10% of their budgets, and they also must pay for other items like transportation and outside evaluations. Aside from money, though, Raham found isolation from provincial and district administrators - indeed, in some cases even hostility - to be creating difficulty for charter schools. She recommends a special government bureau dedicated to helping out.

Opponents of school choice in Manitoba have been quite vocal in labeling charter schools as failures because two out of Alberta's twelve have closed. Raham contradicts them. One of the schools, she said, closed because it was started up in a remote, rural area without enough students to survive. The other, in Calgary, had long waiting lists to get in, but foundered on financial, not academic mismanagement.

And allowing failing schools to close is a key to improving public education. Too many poorly performing schools in the public system just carry on year after year, dispensing a substandard product to a captive market. Why not let them fail, and let the good schools pick up the slack?

"Notes from the Frontier" is an information service provided by The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, an independent public policy research organization.

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