And if they did not exist, Canada would still be one of the world’s leading education nations.

Charters and choice is general is a distraction with very little to contribute to the quality debate.

Where to I collect my prize for being the first person on this thread to recognize Doug’s “testy when losing” comment, because I FOUND IT!!

IS ALBERTA A ?TALL POPPY?  ?  STRIKE IT DOWN !

People hiving off to education alternatives — NOPE, can?t be allowed.  Not charters, not home education.  STOP standardized testing so people can?t compare — less choices the better.

Disempower, disarm, claw-back any consumer power, choice and voice.  Parents are the consumer — so, get rid of their right to withdraw their kids from certain classes.  Parent veto — NO, NO, can?t have that.

Do we have compulsory education? Yes, but what we really should have is COMPULSORY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN GOVERNMENT PUBLIC SCHOOLS.  That way we inculcate ?community values? and balance-out any family values kids may bring with them to school.  All must attend.

Homophobic bullying in our society?  Yes, that?s why we need a uniform curriculum inculcated into every child, be they in public, private, faith-based or home school.  Yep, that?s the answer.  All march to the same drummer. The state drummer.

Sound like fascism rearing its ugly head.  Yes — it is — in Alberta.

Does SQE do harm or help by raising expectations about charters and ?so-called choice? in Alberta. Well, it?s been shown many times that ?wishful thinking? publicly expressed is GREAT — GREAT for those who hate reform because it gives THEM the chance to ramp-up the opposition to reform, or provide some crumbs to placate the hungry public.

THEM, who is THEM, and isn?t this some paranoid conspiracy rant?

1.  The current Alberta regime is NOT the Alberta Nikiforuk was talking about.

2.  THEM are those now in charge of the henhouse.  Foxes, RED Tories beholden to those who helped elect the new Premier, Alison Redford. (Google:  Alison Redford elected with teacher union help.)

3.  Redford promised the teacher union, if elected, she would return $107 million to the education budget. She was and did.

4.  Redford promised removal of standardized testing in elementary years.  She will.  See Doug Little?s report: http://www.thelittleeducationreport.com/willalberta.html

5.  She promised to revisit the ?parent veto? by which parents could excuse their kids from ?sexuality and religion? classes.  A new School Act is now winding it?s way through the legislature that includes related changes.

6.  Who are the most free of the free?  In education it is the home educators.  But now, parents as primary educators, are to be forbidden certain Bible-teaching. Home educators are alarmed that Big Brother will be on their doorstep.  http://www.examiner.com/homeschooling-in-phoenix/gov-t-intrusion-homeschooling-alberta-bill-to-outlaw-bible-teaching-on-gays

7.  Compounding the Alberta direction to clamp-down on parental sovereignty and education primacy is the news from the US that one of the four candidates for Republican Presidential nominee, Santorum, says public schools are anachronistic — having become ?big factories? and says he and his wife would continue homeschooling their seven children if he becomes President.  Two other candidates are also favorable to HE, Paul and Romney.

8.  This brings to mind the story from Jamaica. The former Education Minister, now Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness and family are home educating. http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/201111280.asp  A hue and cry has arisen, as with Santorum.

Do you see my point?  People cannot be allowed to be independent of state schooling. Why, when it gets to the highest rulers of a nation, this might just open the floodgates !

9.  The home education pioneer, John Holt, was always worried about the embedded fascism within coercive compulsory public schooling circles.  He strongly felt home education was necessary for three main reasons:  a) for the people who wanted this choice; b) as a testament to parental primacy in education; and c) as an antidote and challenge to statists in their drive for universal government schooling supremacy.

Alberta?s current direction is worth witnessing.

I hope people can conclude with me that it is the wrong people presently driving education for the wrong reasons.  I will close with Holt?s prophetic declaration:

?Today freedom has different enemies.  It must be fought for in different ways. It will take very different qualities of mind and heart to save it.?

Luckily those with an interest in charters and choice don’t need approval from the usual suspects to pursue the issue.

For such an unpopular and fringe sector the “charter and choice” schools sure do get certain folks in a tizzy

Kinda makes you wonder what they’re afraid of…

“Kinda makes you wonder what they?re afraid of?”

Losing money and power!

Here’s an old post—Why Our Critics Fight Us So Hard—that explains it.
/index.php/blog/read/why-we-what-we-do-ii-why-our-critics-fight-us-so-hard/

“Kinda makes you wonder what they?re afraid of? “

They’re afraid of parents making choices that do NOT include them, their excuses and their old boy ideas that have gone the way of the dodo bird.

They’re afraid of losing their power and union dues.

In any dispute between the state interest in children and parents, the interest of the state must come first. They have the broad view of the society. The parent view is narrow and self interested.

They?re afraid of parents making choices that do NOT include them, their excuses and their old boy ideas that have gone the way of the dodo bird.

I guess those old ideas make us #1 in the world at post secondary grads - not bad.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.