Starting Charter Schools in Canada

In order to start a charter school in Canada, one must reside in a province that has charter school legislation. In Alberta, one can contact Alberta Education for the Charter School Handbook. It gives in detail the objectives of a charter school, what regulations must be adhered to and other information that directly relates to charter schools. At the back of the Handbook, there is a charter school application form that can be submitted to the local school board and to the Minister of Education upon completion.

Once the province has legislation it is up to the community or group to prove that there is a feasible plan of action to establish a charter school. There must be sufficient support in the community to ensure that the charter school will be successful. Also, there may be a minimum enrolment of students; in Alberta, the number is seventy-five. All of this will demonstrate that there is a strong desire and system of support for a charter school.²¹

School Choice and Vouchers

A galvanizing point in the debate over charter schools and the public funding of private schools is the concept of school choice. School choice proposes that citizens are entitled to a range of education options and that the form of those options is best determined by the education marketplace. Proponents of school choice argue that the public education system would benefit from the competition for student enrolment among schools. By applying market principles to public education, offering parents and students the choice of education environments, the better schools will thrive and the worst schools will be forced to improve or close down.

Opponents of school choice argue that disadvantaged parents and students would not have access to the full range of choices, while privileged families would abandon the poorer schools and create an elite within the public education system.

An equally contentious issue in public education, particularly in the United States, is vouchers. A voucher is a certificate that represents the public cost of educating a student. Parents can redeem the voucher at the school of their choice and the school receives the funding to educate the student, from the government. As of 1999 vouchers have limited use in the United States, with a handful of cities offering them to needy parents of students in the poorest-performing urban schools. Advocates of school choice see vouchers as a mechanism for revitalizing public education and enabling students to attend the school, public or private, that best meets their needs. Opponents of an expanded voucher system express concern that disadvantaged children would be left behind as schools compete for highly motivated, easier to educate students and give preference to wealthier families who could pay fees in addition to the vouchers. Critics argue that such competition would contribute to the deterioration of public education by moving tax dollars to private schools and leaving public schools impoverished and with a disproportionate share of disadvantaged students.