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The road to Damascus?
I read this very interesting piece in yesterday’s Globe and Mail about the growing demand for alternative schools. The article by Trailee Pearce (the byline is missing off the print version) can be read in full here.
While the article talks about the rise in popularity of choices for alternative schools, what really struck me was the comment by the Calgary Board of Education’s superintendent of learning Cathy Faber:
“Parents were telling us quite clearly they wanted more choice. They weren’t confident any more that the one-size-fits-all model worked. From our side we already knew that it didn’t work.”
Well they sure did take their time to find that out in Calgary! What a change of tune from the public board, but only after they learned some tough lessons.
SQE’s film Charter Schools: Alberta’s Best-Kept Secret (made in 2004) has a segment on the Calgary Science School, a charter school, founded in the 1990’s long before Calgary’s alternative. If you watch the segment (here) or click on the video below, you will hear the former Chair of the Calgary Board and founder of the charter school say that the Board wasn’t very accommodating when she wanted to start an alternative school in the board way back in the day:
“They were quite belligerent about it. I think they found it threatening and they could NOT have been less receptive to the notion.”
So with charter legislation in place, the science charter school was born.
One other Calgary charter school, Foundations for the Future Academy, has a waiting list of thousands and several campuses. There is also a Calgary Girl’s School charter. You can see more about those schools in our video or on the YouTube segments, here and here.
So a conversion on the road? None of the Calgary alternatives would have happened if it wasn’t for the competitive influences of Alberta’s charter schools. Parents want change and they want choice.
Ann Kidder is an example of the old status-quo thinking, that I have a really hard time dealing with, without getting angry about it.
“But what, then, happens to the kids left behind? Annie Kidder, executive director of the advocacy group People for Education, worries about the erosion of the public education system as a pillar of Canadian society, a model of social diversity.
“Over the last few decades the education system has a harder and harder time balancing those purposes with our individual desires for our kids and a growing individualism in Canada,” she says. Increasingly, middle-class and upper-class kids migrate to these schools, she says, and their parents know how to work the system and navigate entrance exams and essays if need be.
Ms. Kidder says this as a parent who juggled the same diverging motivations. Her daughter, now 19, attended an arts school in Toronto. She recalls the feeling she had when she checked out the other parents at early information sessions at alternative schools.
“This is when I became a self-hating yuppie, or whatever,” she says. “You look around and everybody is the same, basically. They talk a lot about social justice, but when you look at who’s there, we’re a very exclusive bunch of people.”
Ms. Kidder says the experience was “fabulous” for her daughter, who told her at the time that she thought it was wrong, too, and wished all schools could be like her school.
There’s also the reverse critique, which you wouldn’t wish on any child.”
Angry for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line, is that Kidder and other like-minded people do not want parents deciding on what is best for their children, and actually infers that the rising individualism is based on selfish motives, and people’s personal knowledge is helping them to navigate the system to avoid the hardships of what does constitute an education. Exams, essays, and all other aspects is part and parcel, but to imply that people are running to the alternative schools to make it easier for their children, is poppy-cock.
The rising of individualism, simply implies that people are no longer willing to allow the state to educate their children. Parents want power, a change and choice when it comes to their children’s education. P4E is a find example, of telling parents that the State, the public education system have the best interests for children’s education, and certainly not a parent who best interests are based on selfish motives. Many examples of it can be found on the P4E site, where parents who are difficulties with the school, are being put in their place, and all done in nice civil words, that the education system knows what is best for their children.
Saying the above, it is rather ironic to find a video on P4E, that speaks volumes on individualism. Perhaps it is on the site, to present the image that P4E does not settle for the status-quo, and are crazy enough to think that they can change things.
Much more suitable for SQE and other like-minded education organizations, who are not settling for the status-quo in education.
http://schools-at-the-centre.ning.com/video/think-different-this-is-why