An effort is underway to remove public funding for independent schools in Alberta. It’s not coming from the UCP government. It’s not even coming from the opposition NDP. It’s coming from one public school teacher.
On October 7, Elections Alberta approved an Alberta Fund Public Schools citizen initiative that asks, “Should the Government of Alberta end its current practice of allocating public funds to accredited independent (private) schools?”
What’s a citizen initiative?
Such citizen initiatives are a relatively new thing in Alberta, though the concept is a familiar one. A successful citizen initiative requires the government to either draft a new law, policy, or constitutional amendment or hold a referendum on a particular issue. The modern form of citizen initiatives was introduced by the Citizen Initiative Act passed in 2021.
The original Citizen Initiative Act required that, for a citizen initiative to move forward, 10% of eligible voters must sign a petition supporting the initiative. Under these rules, a petition would need 293,976 signatures collected over 90 days to move forward. However, in July, the government amended the Citizen Initiative Act to require only 10% of the number of voters who actually voted in the last election for it to move forward. Since only 40-70% of eligible voters turn out to vote in provincial elections, this change significantly lowered the number of signatures needed. Now, a citizen initiative only needs 177,732 to move ahead.
The change also lengthened the signature collection period to 120 days. In this case, the signature collection process began on October 14. Signatures can be collected until February 11.
What’s the likelihood that this succeeds?
The Citizen Initiative Act only allows paper petitions, making it difficult to collect 177,732 signatures.
To put these numbers into context, the official petition with the greatest number of signatures in recent federal Canadian history was a 2023 petition that expressed a lack of confidence in the Trudeau government and called for a general election. It garnered 387,487 signatures. But that petition was conducted online and open to all Canadians, not limited to pen and paper signatures in one province.
But one recent citizen initiative in Alberta did meet the required threshold. Earlier this year, a former deputy premier of Alberta launched the Forever Canadian petition that declares Albertans’ desire to remain in Canada and counter the call for Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada. That paper petition, which closed last week, received 456,388 signatures. Elections Alberta is currently verifying the signatures and will publish the results of the petition by January 6.
A couple of things give the Alberta Fund Public Schools petition a shot at reaching the signature threshold.
First of all, public school teachers have the organizational means to get paper signatures. The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) represents approximately 46,000 teachers across the province. The ATA generally opposes the government funding of independent schools, claiming that any money that goes to independent schools comes at the expense of public schools. If the ATA was able to get every public school teacher to sign the petition, and that teacher was able to get their spouse and two relatives or friends to sign, the petition would reach the required number of signatures without the need to canvas the general public at all.
Second, the state of public education is already in many citizens’ minds. On October 6, public school teachers went on strike, cancelling school for three and a half weeks. The strike only ended because the government passed legislation ordering teachers to go back to work. All of this has made supporters of the public education system angry, perhaps angry enough to sign the Alberta Funds Public Schools petition en masse.
That said, as of November 10, with 92 days left in the signing period, the Alberta Fund Public Schools has 13,799 signatures. At this pace, the petition is on track to get 135,450 signatures, short of the required 177,732.
What’s at stake?
Nearly half a billion dollars in public funding for independent schools.
Alberta is the most generous province to the typical independent school. Ontario and the Maritime provinces provide no financial assistance to independent schools. Most independent schools in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba receive 50% of the equivalent public school funding. That figure rises to 60% in Quebec. The Alberta government subsidizes most independent schools with 70% of the base instructional grant for public schools.
As generous as Alberta is towards independent schools compared to the other Canadian provinces, the most just policy would be for provincial governments to fund independent schools the same as public schools. Currently, the government is playing favourites, privileging government-run schools over independently-run schools. This despite the fact that most independent schools provide a similar (or even superior) quality of education.
According to the government’s enrolment records and budget, the government spends $461 million on 48,024 independent school students. That works out to about $9600 per student. If the government were to pull all funding from independent schools, schools would look to comparable tuition increases to cover the gap. Under this scenario, the average family with four kids in school could be asked to fork over a further $38,000 per year if this petition is successful.
It’s a stretch to say that defunding independent schools is an existential threat. Independent schools in provinces like Ontario operate without any public funding. But the removal of funding would almost certainly lead to a significant decline in the number of students attending independent schools, as parents are squeezed financially.
Why the push?
The application for the citizen initiative lists four reasons for the campaign.
Reason #1: The majority of Albertans agree that public funds should only be used to fund public schools.
This is factually true. A recent poll by Angus Reid found that 35% of Albertans want independent schools to be defunded, 25% think they should receive less money, 23% opine that they should continue to receive the same level of funding, and 10% desire more funding for independent schools.
But just because something is politically popular doesn’t mean that it is the morally right choice. The voice of the people is not the voice of God. As mentioned above, the most just and equitable solution would be for the government to fund all educational institutions equally, rather than favouring government-run schools.
Reason #2: Public Schools include Public, Catholic, and Francophone schools that are open to all students, without payment of tuition.
Again, this is true enough. Alberta has the greatest diversity of school choice in the public system. They even have charter schools, which are public schools run by independent boards.
Of course, the only reason that such schools admit all students without the payment of tuition is because the government fully funds them! If the government fully funded independent schools as well, most of them wouldn’t charge (much) tuition either.
Independent schools do have restrictions on who can attend their schools. Some public schools do as well. But that doesn’t have to be framed as an exclusionary model. Public schools operate more or less on the model of requiring a diversity of students to attend a uniform set of schools. Independent schools operate on the idea that there should be a more uniform student body within a diverse set of schools. That change of emphasis need not make independent schools ineligible to receive public funding, especially when independent schools save the government money and often have better educational outcomes than public schools.
Reason #3: A strong public education system, with choice, excellence, and inclusion, benefits all citizens of our province.
There is little evidence that a government has to rely on an entirely public system to achieve this. In fact, the provinces that fund independent schools the most and thus have the highest proportions of independent school enrollment – Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia – tend to outperform other provinces that provide no financial assistance to independent schools. Beyond academic performance, independent schools tend to produce better citizens. There is a strong body of evidence that a robust independent school system bolsters the performance of the entire education system.
Reason #4: Diverting public funds back into public schools would help alleviate some of the funding shortages that public schools have been experiencing.
On its face, this is true. Giving public schools more money would reduce funding shortages. But there is no requirement in the petition or the public finance that the government reallocate any cancelled funding for independent schools to the public school system. They could simply save that money or reallocate it to other areas where it is needed more (e.g. health care).
Furthermore, the implicit idea behind this fourth reason is that pumping more money into education automatically leads to better educational outcomes. The focus becomes on how much money the government is spending rather than how well students are faring. It is true that Alberta spends the least amount of money per student ($13,494 per student). But Alberta also has some of the best student outcomes in the country. Alberta should pride itself on getting so much bang for their buck.
Finally, withdrawing partial funding to independent schools might not end up saving the government much money. That $461 million per year would not be going to independent schools, but if enough independent school students switched to the public system because they simply couldn’t afford far higher tuition rates, the government might have to spend even more money on the public system. After all, the government only subsidizes independent schools to the tune of 70% of the operating costs of the local public school. It (currently) does not cover the capital costs (e.g. the building itself) of independent schools either. But the government covers 100% of public schools’ operating costs and would have to build more public schools if there were an influx of students.
So what can you do?
Right now, the big concern is that public school supporters may get enough signatures for this citizen’s initiative to move forward. If they get enough signatures, the government must respond. There isn’t really anything that we can do to stop people from signing the petition. But we can still advocate for independent schools. If this citizen initiative does get enough signatures and eventually triggers a referendum, then making the case for independent schools to our neighbours and community members will be indispensable. Their votes will count. But right now, it is also worth reaching out to your MLA, the Education Minister, and Premier Smith, encouraging them to support independent schools as much as they can.
The American Supreme Court continues to be busy. After upholding the legality of an age-verification law to limit access to pornography in Paxton and a ban on medical transitioning for minors in Skirmetti, the U.S. Supreme Court recently tackled gender and sexuality ideology in education. In Mahmoud v Taylor, the Court ruled 6-3 that requiring students to receive “LGBTQ+-inclusive” teaching with no opt-out violated the free exercise of religion.
Overview of the case
The Montgomery County school board in Maryland, adjacent to Washington DC, oversees one of the largest school districts in the United States. The district enrolls over 160,000 students and has an operating budget of almost $3 billion. The Board approved “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks for the K-5 classroom (students aged 5-11). These books affirm same-sex relationships and transgender identities. Teachers were expected to use these books as a part of their classroom instruction and to affirm LGTBQ+ identities. For example, “If a student claims that a character ‘can’t be a boy if he was born a girl,’ teachers were encouraged to respond: ‘That comment is hurtful.’”
At first, the Board notified parents when these books would be used in class so that they could opt their children out of those classes. Many parents believed that these resources were “implying to [children] that their religion, their belief system, and their family tradition is actually wrong.” But the board rescinded the opt-out policy within a year.
Various parents – two Muslims, three Roman Catholics, one Ukrainian Orthodox – who had children in the school district challenged the constitutionality of the lack of an opt-out. They claimed that indoctrinating children with a pro-LGBTQ+ worldview violated their constitutional guarantee to the free exercise of religion.
Their argument goes something like this: 1) their religious beliefs include specific beliefs on gender and sexuality, 2) their religious beliefs require them to educate their children in these beliefs, and 3) the use of “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks undermines these beliefs, 4) therefore, the Board’s requirement that all students be subjected to “LGBTQ+-inclusive” teaching violates their right to the free exercise of religion. Here is how the Court sums up the Petitioners’ beliefs:
Mahmoud and Barakat are Muslims who believe “that mankind has been divinely created as male and female” and “that ‘gender’ cannot be unwoven from biological ‘sex’—to the extent the two are even distinct—without rejecting the dignity and direction God bestowed on humanity from the start…” [I]n their view, “[t]he storybooks at issue in this lawsuit . . . directly undermine [their] efforts to raise” their son in the Islamic faith “because they encourage young children to question their sexuality and gender . . . and to dismiss parental and religious guidance on these issues.”
Jeff Roman is Catholic. And Svitlana Roman is Ukrainian Orthodox. They believe that “sexuality is expressed only in marriage between a man and a woman for creating life and strengthening the marital union… that gender and biological sex are intertwined and inseparable” and that “the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created…” [A]llowing those teachers to “teach principles about sexuality or gender identity that conflict with [their] religious beliefs” would “significantly interfer[e] with [their] ability to form [their son’s] religious faith and religious outlook on life.”
The Persaks are Catholics who believe “that all humans are created as male or female, and that a person’s biological sex is a gift bestowed by God that is both unchanging and integral to that person’s being…” They are concerned that the Board’s “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks “are being used to impose an ideological view of family life and sexuality that characterizes any divergent beliefs as ‘hurtful.’” They think that such instruction will “undermine [their] efforts to raise [their] children in accordance with” their religious faith.
The parent petitioners in this case… all believe they have a “sacred obligation” or “God-given responsibility” to raise their children in a way that is consistent with their religious beliefs and practices.
The guarantee of the free exercise of religion disallows attempts to compel children to abandon their religious beliefs. For example, in the 1943 Barnette decision, the Court ruled that schools could not require Jehovah’s Witnesses to salute the American flag, which they considered to be a “graven image.”
But the court was clear that this constitutional right goes beyond policies that compel children to abandon or violate their religious beliefs. It also “protects against policies that impose more subtle forms of interference with the religious upbringing of children.” A classic 1972 freedom of religion case – Yoder – allowed Amish parents to take their students out of school after eighth grade, despite a state law that required school attendance until age 16. The Amish parents reasoned that “the values taught in high school were ‘in marked variance with Amish values and the Amish way of life,’ and would result in an ‘impermissible exposure of their children to a “worldly” influence in conflict with their beliefs.’”
The Court in Mahmoud decided that pressuring students to adopt a pro-LGBTQ+ worldview is a similar infringement on the free exercise of religion. “The [“LGBTQ+-inclusive”] books are unmistakably normative. They are designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”
This accords well with the Reformed recognition that no teaching can be truly neutral. There is a worldview underlying the sexual revolution and the gender revolution. Rather than trusting God’s Word and general revelation as the authority for morality and truth, the LGBTQ+ position boils everything down to feelings. For instance, two of the LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks insist that same-sex marriage must be permissible if two men “love each other” and accepting another person’s gender identity “is about love.”
The majority opinion dismisses various arguments in defense of the Board’s mandatory “LGBTQ+-inclusive” education. These resources are not simply “exposure to objectionable ideas… The storybooks unmistakably convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender.” Constitutional guarantees do not stop at the schoolhouse door. The fact that parents can educate their children elsewhere (e.g. in a private school or at home) does not mean that the public school can exclude children of religious parents. “Public education is a public benefit, and the government cannot ‘condition’ its ‘availability’ on parents’ willingness to accept a burden on their religious exercise.”
Room for improvement…
Unfortunately, the Court doesn’t bother to further apply its claim that education cannot be neutral. For example, the Court tries to be neutral on these matters of gender and sexuality. “We express no view on the educational value of the Board’s proposed curriculum, other than to state that it places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ religious exercise if it is imposed with no opportunity for opt outs.”
This decision also isn’t the final word on this matter. Rather than ruling definitively on the constitutionality of requiring children to be fed an “LGBTQ+-inclusive” worldview, this case only grants a temporary injunction. It requires the Board to notify the parents in the case – but not necessarily other religious parents – if “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks will be used in the classroom and allow these parents to opt their children out of those classes until the main issue is decided. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of the Court. The parents were asking for such an injunction. But it means there is still more to do to protect religious freedom south of the border.
…But still better than here in Canada
Canada is still several steps behind the United States in preserving the religious freedom of its citizens and combatting the sexual revolution and gender revolution. Teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) is rampant in public schools across the country, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario. Only Alberta has taken significant steps to remove gender ideology from classrooms. They now require all materials related to gender and sexuality to be approved by the Ministry of Education, and schools must obtain parental opt-in before teaching these subjects.
Canadian courts have not yet weighed in on the issue, though they likely will soon, since a couple of LGBTQ+ organizations have voiced their intention to challenge Alberta’s policy. Canadian courts could use similar reasoning as the US Supreme Court in Mahmoud. They could rule that any required teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity violates Canadians’ Charter right to the freedom of conscience and religion. We’re praying that any future legal decisions here in Canada will also preserve the space to teach creational norms around gender and sexuality.
A little over a month ago, the Alberta government initiated a public survey to gauge what the provincial government should do about sexually explicit books in public school libraries. We encouraged you to participate in this process, so thanks to all of you who took the time to fill out the survey!
The results of the survey were recently released. The results are mixed, as you can see from the responses on each of the survey’s major questions.
Have you ever been concerned about a book in a school library being inappropriate for a certain age group due to sexually explicit content?
While concerns about access to sexually explicit content in public school libraries is common among socially conservative circles, that concern isn’t shared by the broader society in Alberta. Only 31% of people surveyed mentioned that they had ever been concerned about a public school library book being inappropriate for a certain age group due to sexually explicit content. That is a sizable minority, but nearly twice that number have never shared these concerns. Either there truly isn’t any objectionable material in those libraries, these folks don’t know or don’t care what materials are available, or they are fully in favour of sexually explicit material being available for every age level.
At what age should children be able to access materials with sexually explicit content in school libraires?
There is a wide diversity of opinions on this question. The plurality of respondents (34%) opine that sexually explicit materials should never be available in school libraries while only half that number (16%) think that they should be available at every grade level. The remaining respondents are somewhere in between those two positions, with 4% saying that they should be available starting in elementary school, 22% by middle school, and 23% by high school. Framing the question in this way makes it seem like the most supported action is for sexually explicit content to be entirely removed from schools.
But if we add up at which point Albertans think sexually explicit material should be available (e.g. the twenty-two percent who think that such material should be available starting in middle school would also be in favour of it being available in high school), the picture looks a bit different. Looking at the question this way, a supermajority (65%) are supportive of these materials being available in high schools and 42% in middle schools.
Now, the survey doesn’t break down what types of sexually explicit material they are talking about. Most parents would have few qualms of science textbooks depicting sexual organs in high schools, but far more parents would be uncomfortable with novels describing sexual activity in detail. The purpose of one set of books is educational while the purpose of the other set is to incite sexual desire.
Who do you think should decide what materials are age appropriate in school libraries?
When asked who should decide what is appropriate for school libraries, the top responses were school librarians (70%) and teachers (55%). In other words, the education “experts.” Parents came in a close third (52%). The fact that parents aren’t at the top of the list illustrate how the Christian principle that parents should have the primary responsibility over their children’s education isn’t top of mind for most Albertans. Elected school boards were also towards the bottom of the list, with only 34% of respondents opining that the school board get involved in these decisions, despite the fact that they were elected to oversee these public school districts.
Given the range of actors that survey respondents want to be involved (or not involved) in determining when and where sexually explicit materials should be in school libraries, it is hardly surprising that there isn’t a clear consensus on what should be done.
How do you think school libraries should handle materials with sexually explicit content?
The most common response to this question was for school librarians to restrict access based on age/grade level (41%). Essentially, respondents – who already stated that school librarians should have the most control over what sexually explicit material is available – tend to want to give them the discretion to determine what is appropriate. Nevertheless, a sizeable percentage (29%) think that public school librarians should entirely remove this content from their shelves. This percentage is only slightly less than the percentage of people (34%) who think that, in general, this content should not be available to students at all.
Parental involvement and consent relating to sexually explicit material
Two questions dealt with how far parents should be involved in this issue. A majority (62%) agree that parents should play a role in reporting or challenging the availability of sexually explicit content in school libraries (compared to 34% who disagree). But this doesn’t seem to be an endorsement of parents actually having any power over the availability of these materials. Implementing the policy as worded in the survey would probably give parents the opportunity to ask school librarians or school trustees to review certain materials that they think are inappropriate but leave the final decision in their hands.
When asked if parental consent should be required for children to access sexually explicit content in school libraries, respondents were sharply divided. Fifty-one percent disagreed that parental consent should not be required while 44% agree that they should.
Taken altogether, the results of this survey reveal only half-hearted support for parents to play a substantial role in determining what content should be available in public schools.
How supportive are you of the Government of Alberta setting consistent requirements for school boards in how they select and manage school library materials?
And finally, one question surveyed Albertans on what the provincial government should do. (This was really the point of the entire survey.) If the provincial government was looking for a clear mandate to regulate books in school libraries, they didn’t get it. A majority of Albertans (55%) are not supportive of the provincial government stepping into this issue, with a full 46% being not at all supportive. Only 39% wanted the provincial government to intervene. Despite these results, the province has announced that they will indeed bring in provincial guidelines for public school library books.
Conclusion
Like the survey respondents, Reformed Christians might have conflicting thoughts on the role of the provincial government in this matter. If we truly believe that parents should be the ones directing the education of their children, it doesn’t really make sense for the provincial government to mandate what should or should not be available in public school libraries. Parents should have that power, perhaps through existing parent advisory councils.
Unfortunately, public schools are far from parent led. If we really wanted to entrench the right and responsibility of parents in matters of education, far more systematic change would be required. For example, allowing only parents whose children are enrolled in a given public school district to vote in school board elections and empowering that parent-elected board to have far more control over the school or school district would be two transformative steps.
But that’s not the system of public education that we have now. If parents lack the power to keep sexually explicit content out of public school libraries, school boards are politically afraid to take a stand, and school staff (teachers, admin, and librarians) are increasingly dominated by progressive sexual ethics, the provincial government may need to intervene.