The End Of An Error

Believe it or not, the Alberta Parents’ Union and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) have found common ground in opposing the same policy.

The Weighted Moving Average is part of the formula which re-allocates funding from one school to another when students move schools.

But, as the name implies, under this formula, the funding only fully follows the child from an old school to a new school over the course of three full years, rather than immediately.

The ATA oppose this formula because it means that when schools grow quickly, the funding to pay for those new students takes a few years to fully arrive.

And we agree - that's a big problem!

Of course, the ATA's opposition isn't exactly principled or coherent.

While they don't like the idea that a growing school's funding takes longer to be transferred from a shrinking school, they also hate the idea that a school that's losing students should lose funding, too.

In other words, the ATA would prefer to give more money to both successful schools and failing schools.

Classic.

Perhaps that helps explain why, despite years of advocacy, an eight-figure budget, and nearly 100 employees, the ATA has made absolutely no progress toward fixing this problem.

Rightfully so, since their opposition has been incoherent and unprincipled.

By contrast, our small team, with an even smaller budget, started working on this problem in early August.

By mid-September, Premier Smith said she was looking into it.

And by the start of this month, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides confirmed that his Ministry is hoping to make Budget 2024 the last under the Weighted Moving Average.

We still need your help to get this fix finalized, and there's more on how you can help with this below.

But, overall, we certainly welcome this end of an error, and parents should, too.

You see, the coherent and principled stance here is simple: the money should follow the child.

The money should, in principle, follow the child wherever they go, without educrats in Edmonton deciding how much follows which child to which school.

Trapping kids within a limited menu of schools is not good for the families who want to leave or for the families who want to stay.

Families benefit from choice and competition being available to us to motivate excellence in our schools.

Limiting these options is not even good for the educators the ATA claims to represent, who would benefit from more robust and varied competition for their skills.

In a competitive system, the incentive of money leaving when families leave is just as important as the incentive of money coming in when families come in.

Thus, school choice truly is a rising tide that lifts all boats.

All boats except the monopolistic union boat that can’t handle the competition to its empire, that is.

But here at the Alberta Parents’ Union, our commitment to the money truly following the child is why our advocacy against the Weighted Moving Average works and the ATA's advocacy doesn't.

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So, here’s what you can do today to help ensure the government follows through on this change:

Please email Premier Smith, Education Minister Nicolaides, and Finance Minister Horner at the following addresses:

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

You should always write to your elected officials in your own words, but we recommend making three key points:

1) Thank them for their intention to ditch the Weighted Moving Average, and encourage them to go further.

2) Emphasize the principle that the money should follow the child and that the current model fails that test.

3) Insist they must have a new model in place for Budget 2025 that respects that incentives matter - and that we want to incentivize school authorities to attract students rather than repel them.

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Choice in education is a foundational Alberta value.

That means the money follows the child to the education their parents choose, without thumbs on the scale from educrats in Edmonton.

We're overjoyed to see the Government of Alberta correct their subtle undermining of that principle.

School construction grants being extended to charter and independent schools represents a recognition of the fundamental injustice of using school construction to prop up only traditional public schools.

One day, we are confident we will see them address the larger disparities that remain when a child's family chooses an independent school or home education.

Because of our simple message and your unwavering support, we are winning.

More importantly, we will win.

Welcoming the End of an Error,

-Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union Team