There was a lot of conversation about education in the recent Alberta election, and I thought it worthy to put up a new thread on the topic.
Many people in Alberta do not realize that our systems and funding model are so different from most of Canada. I'll start by pointing out two anomalies:
1.
Alberta accounts for 40% of all home-schooled children in Canada. On a net basis, we have 50% more home-schooled children in our province than has Ontario.
While categorical observations are unfair, what we do know is that:
- Home-schooled children have a greater issue becoming integrated parts of broader society and they are not exposed to the full diversity of peoples in their younger years.
- A higher proportion end up becoming part of disease outbreaks, directly as a result of a higher proportion of home-schooling families being anti-vax extremists.
- Akin to the anti-vax observation above, home-schooled children have a higher chance of becoming a member of extremist groups, particularly alt-right and white supremacist extremist organizations.
2.
Alberta has the highest skew of provincial tax dollars going to the non-public system of any province in Canada. The public system here includes the public school boards as well as charter schools, but does not include the publicly funded separate (Catholic) school board, other non-public boards, home-schooling, and private schools (who surprisingly net millions from public funds).
A massive issue here is the deterioration over time of the public system, as in older areas of cities, efficiency of operations takes a massive toll, with often half empty public schools being within a couple blocks of private or religious schools. Embracing a formula similar to one in British Columbia or even in Ontario would save several hundred million dollars annually, and certainly billions over the period of a decade.
The issue of a working integrated society free of extremism is an important theme in the above, because under the guise of diversity of education, the Provincial education policies may actually be enabling closed views. Recent articles and reports highlight this "Alberta Phenomenon":
Extremist groups in Alberta detailed in first-of-its-kind report
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...s-kind-report/
‘Citizens don’t feel safe’ as hate fills Edmonton’s streets
https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/201...s-streets.html