LAU: Teacher Unions Make Strong Case for School Choice

Article content

Arguments for expanding school choice are often made by parents dissatisfied with the government-run school system, think tank researchers, and conservative and libertarian columnists. However, advocacy for government policies, which improve families ‘access to alternatives to government-run schools, sometimes comes from unexpected places: lately, from public education bureaucrats and teachers’ unions.

Article content

Earlier this fall, the Peel District School Board published an “Empowering Modern Students” user information , which speaks ill of the current system. It posits that “at Peel, we must recognize that society operates in white supremacy structures” and that “our system has been built on colonial structures designed to defend white supremacy. This power structure has created barriers for underserved students. “

The authors of the booklet perhaps intended to increase support for public schools to become more “awake” by infusing more “social justice” ideologies into classrooms. But most people, learning that the public school system in the Peel region is apparently based on white supremacy, could conclude that families need better access to alternative educational systems. In other words, they need more school options.

Article content

Meanwhile, in Alberta, the teachers union is also inadvertently advocating for expanding school choice. The new draft of the K-6 curriculum from the provincial government, according for the Alberta Teachers Association, it has “a variety of deficiencies,” “is not designed appropriately for teacher use,” and includes “strictly defined content that does not reflect the development of knowledge, understanding, and skills to The 21st century”.

The curriculum, the union claimed, has “developmentally inappropriate learning outcomes that lack high academic standards.” The union president said the curriculum “is based on ideological and outdated ideas of what children should learn, by those who seem to have no experience teaching” in Canadian classrooms and therefore would prepare them for the failure.

Article content

So there you have it. The government-run school system in Ontario’s Peel region is built on white supremacy and the government-run school system in Alberta will prepare children for failure by using a poor quality curriculum. Of course, while government monopoly policies doom many children in those jurisdictions to attend those schools, the same cannot be said for other facilities, such as grocery stores, for example.

Because a white supremacist grocery store would be an unpleasant place to shop and face competition from other non-racist grocery stores, it would fail to attract customers and would eventually close. Similarly, a poorly managed grocery store that does not provide good food at prices satisfactory to consumers could not survive for long. The difference between schools and grocery stores is that families often don’t have school options, but they do have grocery store options.

Article content

Currently in Alberta, private schools must teach the government curriculum to be eligible for provincial funding. Surely, if the government’s curriculum is as poor as the Alberta Teachers Association describes, it’s time to end that rule so families can afford private schools that use alternative curricula. In Ontario, monopoly policies prevent families from using their tax money to support private education. Surely it is time to change that policy as well, so that children do not march into a racist school system.

After all, it is taxpayer money that is used to educate children. Better to send it to schools that aren’t setting kids up for failure.

Matthew Lau is an Adjunct Scholar at the Fraser Institute.