A School Voucher For Every Child
Alberta used to have a world-class education system and, frankly, we're still a leader in education policy in Canada.
Crucially, the cornerstone of Alberta's education performance has always been the wide range of education choices available to our parents and students.
But in recent years we've started to fall behind as other jurisdictions - particularly in Europe and the US - have introduced innovative new ideas that improve outcomes for students.
The most impactful of these new ideas has been the expansion of school choice systems.
Simply put, school choice is the idea that parents and students should get to decide what school the student attends, rather than students being assigned to a specific school by the government, simply based on where they live.
Choice in education puts the power back in the hands of families.
A school voucher system is the most effective way of delivering this kind of school choice to every parent and every student.
In this system, rather than schools receiving bulk funding directly from the government, parents receive a "school voucher" for every child, which they can take to any school of their choice.
This means that the government is still fully funding the education system for every single child, but that a school's funding is now dependent on students actually wanting to be there, rather than on being forced to be!
It also ensures that, unlike in the current system where only wealthy parents can afford to send their kids to new and innovative schools, all parents have an equal opportunity to do so.
Vouchers are not a new or novel idea - but they are a good one.
They have been implemented all around the world and proven, over and over again, to lead to better outcomes for students in countless, peer-reviewed, academic studies.
Sweden, Portugal, South Korea, Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Estonia, Slovakia, Norway, and yes even some states in the United States, are just a few of the places that have introduced school voucher systems in recent years, and leap-frogged ahead of Alberta when it comes to student choice.
It's time for Alberta to catch up, and maximize school choice for every Alberta family.
The time to secure the Alberta advantage in education is now.
It’s time to implement a school voucher system.
If you agree, please sign this petition, and share it with everyone you know.
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Thought would have to go into what would be fair and what would work to improve the system and not just throw the whole system into chaos. But definitely parents should have more choice, and it would be nice for property tax payers to have some choice as well if they are the ones forced to foot the bill.