Nenshi Must Come Clean
The Alberta NDP Leader, Naheed Nenshi, needs to come clean and tell Alberta parents what his position on school choice is.
During the federal election campaign, Nenshi spoke at an event held by "Public Interest Alberta" - a stridently anti-school-choice organization.
Even worse, the event was hosted by the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA), which also opposes school choice, and Nenshi didn't just speak - he gave the keynote address!
We don't know what he said at the event, but it seems unlikely he defended parents' right to choose the type of education their kids receive, doesn't it?
Public Interest Alberta, in their own words, “advocates to phase out funding for private schools and end the charter school experiment”.
We've covered the Alberta Teachers’ Association's disingenuous attacks on school choice before, but here's a quick reminder for anyone who missed those emails.
It is the official position of the ATA that charter schools should be abolished, going so far as to say:
Most seriously, the net effect of the establishment of charter schools has been to disadvantage the poorest and most vulnerable student populations, contributing to the segregation of education as parents who have the means to place their children in charter schools abandon failing public schools to those who don’t.
It's important to note that, not only is everything in this despicable quote from the ATA a lie, it is the exact opposite of the truth.
For starters, charter schools cannot and do not screen families for “means” or charge families to attend.
The ATA has also partnered with the Alberta School Councils’ Association to run advertisements calling on independent school funding to be zeroed out.
Those advertisements are, of course, paid for by the ATA, not the supposed parents’ organization.
Sadly, the ATA has completely hijacked the provincial-level advocacy of the Alberta School Councils’ Association away from the parents who serve on local school councils.
As we have discussed before, parents’ democratic voices have been silenced within the organization intended to represent us to the provincial government, in favour of the ATA's agenda.
That's one of the reasons we felt compelled to form the Alberta Parents’ Union, in the first place.
It's worth noting that charter and independent school teachers are the only teachers in Alberta who are not forced to belong to the ATA and pay $1,422 per year in dues to do their job.
The Alberta Opposition Leader, Naheed Nenshi, needs to come clean on school choice, after being hosted by the ATA and Public Interest Alberta, who want to abolish charter schools and defund independent schools.
Nenshi has never attacked school choice, but neither has he quite made his position clear.
From 2015-2019, when the NDP was government, they never went so far as to abolish charter schools, but they did deny new charter school applications.
Likewise, the NDP government threatened several independent schools directly with defunding, but didn't actually defund independent schools.
That’s because charter and independent schools are wildly popular, especially with the families that currently enroll their kids in one of these schools.
But lengthy wait-lists for almost all such schools show that they are popular with families who haven't found a seat in one too.
Further, research shows consistently that public school kids are better off in every way when their public school has to earn their enrollment.
Now, Nenshi is aligning himself with the radical agenda of the ATA and Public Interest Alberta, which raises questions about his commitment to educational freedom.
Naheed Nenshi needs to come clean on school choice.
He needs to tell parents what he believes about charter and independent school funding.
He needs to let us know whether he plans to trap families in schools that are hostile to their values.
When schools have to listen to the families they serve, everyone is better off - including the majority of us who still opt for our assigned public schools.
That's why school choice is a rising tide that lifts all boats!
If you agree, please sign the petition demanding Nenshi Must Come Clean on school choice!
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