Juno News - September 01, 2023Parents are fleeing the public school system
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Summary
In this episode, Andrew Lawton talks with Peter Stock, Paige Mcpherson, and Catherine Cavanagh about the growing number of parents choosing to home school their kids, and why they are choosing to do so. He is joined by the President of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association and the Director of Education Policy at the Fraser Institute.
Transcript
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Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show on True North, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
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It is Friday, September 1st, the beginning of a new month, heading into a long weekend,
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and that means back to school is upon us, which has probably invoked a little bit of anxiety in you,
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which I apologize for, but as you are racing out to Staples or wherever to get whatever you forgot to buy your kids for next week,
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just throw this podcast on in the car, and hopefully we will calm your nerves a little bit,
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because I want to shine a light in this particular episode on school choice.
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Now, I should say by way of context, this is an issue that I've cared about and have been interested in for many years now,
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although I think it's one that a lot of parents haven't really considered as being as relevant as it is now,
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because it is something that we're seeing a lot of parents really start to wish to bring up,
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which is this choice on where they can send their kids to school.
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In the last few weeks, we've been talking a fair bit about the parental rights battles that have been taking place
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It started in New Brunswick, but now we see these discussions even in Ontario and in Saskatchewan and elsewhere as well,
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when parents are deciding to take a little bit more ownership over what their kids are being taught in the classroom
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and what the schools that their children are going to are really pushing on them,
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or at the very least, what they are supposed to be doing.
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And this is where we get into a bigger discussion about the education system.
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And I wanted to really open it wide here because I know that for most people,
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and this was, I think, the case for me growing up in Ontario,
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the options that my parents considered were Catholic school or public school.
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Some provinces have other systems available, like in the Alberta example,
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which has charter schools that have really given a huge number of options within the public system to parents.
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And more importantly, why are we seeing some of these changes?
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So we have a fantastic panel of guests here to delve into this.
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Peter Stock is the president of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.
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Paige McPherson is the director of education policy at the Fraser Institute.
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And Catherine Cavanaugh is an Alberta liaison officer with Cardis.
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Let me start with you on this page to get kind of the quantitative analysis on this,
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because I know that you've done a huge amount of research into this for many years,
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as I guess one would expect from a director of education policy.
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I mean, what's actually the landscape here for what parents are doing with their kids?
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So at the Fraser Institute, we do a lot of research tracking this kind of stuff, looking
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at, for example, just to begin where our students are educated.
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And it's very clear that government public schools, as in your experience, Andrew, my experience
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growing up in Ontario as well, they're the predominant form of education really in every
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So we have a recent study looking at enrollment.
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And what is interesting is that although government public schools are where most kids
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in Canada are educated in every province, what's also true in every province is that
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we've seen growth in the number of students enrolled in independent schools or private schools.
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So between 2000 and 2019-20, every province saw an increase in the share of enrollment for
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And the provinces that have the most kids or the largest share of kids who are attending
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So that's the largest in Canada, followed by Quebec, which is 11.7% of kids.
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And I know we'll get into this more when we talk about the policies, but both of those
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provinces do offer school choice policies, which empower parents to use some of their tax
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dollars to go to the school of their choice for their child.
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Another interesting enrollment pattern that we've seen is that every province in this
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timeframe also saw an increase in the share of homeschoolers.
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So it is a small percentage of the overall student population in Canada.
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It's a small but growing area of our education system.
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So Alberta had the highest rate of homeschoolers at 1.9% of all students.
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But there are some reasons why, outside of even the kind of more philosophical or ideological
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reasons that you alluded to earlier, that parents might have some concerns about government
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We know that government public school spending is going up.
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Total spending exceeded the amount necessary to keep up with inflation and enrollment changes.
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We're talking billions and billions of dollars spent on government public schools.
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And at the same time, student achievement is dropping.
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Student test scores in Canada are on the decline.
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So while the spending is going up in government public schools, our students are not performing as
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So I think there are a whole number of reasons why parents might seek alternative education,
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but there are certainly some red flags that we see in the numbers.
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I know Paige alluded to the homeschool dimension there, but I wanted to go to you, Peter, on this,
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as that's really your area of expertise with the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.
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Are you seeing numbers that track with the groups you work with and the people you work with,
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The last three years has been wonderful for our movement in Canada.
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We've seen literally a doubling of the number of homeschoolers nationally.
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And in some provinces, it almost tripled in the first year of COVID.
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We did see those numbers fall back a little bit as time went by, but a massive, massive increase.
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And I should mention, even prior to COVID, the 15 years prior to COVID, we were seeing 5% growth
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So it is actually probably the fastest growing form of education in the country.
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Although, as Paige says, it's still a very small minority amongst the school population.
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Let's talk about the Alberta context specifically here, Catherine, because Alberta has always
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been, to me anyway, one of the more alternative systems to Ontario that I've looked at that
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said, you know, at the very least, if we're going to make a small-ish change that would
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have larger implications without totally blowing everything up, Alberta is a pretty great example
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You've got a system there that has a lot of flexibility within still the public system.
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And I was wondering, first, if you could just bring up, for people that aren't as familiar
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And then beyond that, are we seeing more of, you know, examples of parents using these
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independent schools, the charter schools there?
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So yeah, Alberta has one of the most supportive school choice environments in Canada.
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We not only have our public school system, our separate school system, and our Francophone
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We also have many different options for alternative school programs within the public systems.
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And then beyond that, we have our independent schools, which receive 70% of operating funding.
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And then we have charter schools, which offer individual-specific pedagogies, different ways
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And then we have multiple different types of homeschooling streams that parents can choose
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So the charter school world alone has really exploded in the last few years.
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I think we have three new charter schools opening this fall and multiple other schools opening
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a different campus in a different geographic area.
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And we've seen so many different types of learning be introduced through these models.
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So we've had, you know, rural charter schools open in the last year, a classical charter school.
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A charter school is opening in Edmonton this fall, geared specifically towards children
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There are, you know, Suzuki music charter schools.
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Basically, there's a whole, like, no matter how your child might learn, there is an option
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out there that is probably a really good fit for them.
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We've also seen our homeschooling numbers in Alberta as well.
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And then, again, they've come down a little bit since things have stabilized post-COVID.
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But they're still, they've gone from over 13,000 kids being homeschooled in 2019 to over
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And then the independent school world is also seeing an explosion of interest.
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Parents are really realizing that every child is different, that kids have diverse needs,
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and we need diverse options to serve those needs.
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And so we did an informal survey of independent schools in urban areas in Alberta recently.
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And almost every single school was either, they either had a long wait list or, and or
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they were planning to expand their physical space or introduce new programming over the
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So, um, it's, it's definitely a movement and parents are really realizing their kids
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need options and they're, they're looking into practical ways to make that happen.
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Let's talk for a moment, if we can, about the profile of a parent that homeschools specifically,
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because, you know, when I was younger, as I said, it was just entirely out of anything
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I didn't really have any exposure, even in university.
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I don't know if I met anyone I did when I really started to see homeschoolers in any
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And I was introduced to some people that were part of these homeschool co-ops and man, they
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are the hardest working people you will ever find homeschool moms and their kids.
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But, but, you know, it was exclusively religious in my view going into it.
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And now I've seen that change and that I've known a lot of people that are not particularly
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religious or, you know, they don't fit sort of the denominational profile you'd expect.
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And I'm wondering if we have any data or even anecdotally on that, Peter, about whether
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homeschooling is broadening beyond just that kind of harder line evangelical Christian demo.
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Oh, yeah, I think for sure you can find people from any, any background, the whole spectrum
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And, you know, and that, and that's as, as it should be really, people are making that
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choice, families are making that choice for a variety of reasons.
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Um, but at the end of the day, I think what we're seeing is a general concern about where
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things are going in the publicly funded system.
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I mean, that, that's, that's probably going to be one of the answers, not the only answer,
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but one of the answers that, uh, just about every parent will give you.
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Would, would that align with what you've heard, Paige, about whether, I mean, or let me actually
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Do you find values or quality is the bigger driver out of the public system?
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Um, well, I, I can tell you that in terms of the polling that we've done, um, of parents
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of kids in K to 12 schools and families, I'll just give one example.
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Um, an area that we look at is province wide assessment, standardized testing.
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This is something that is declining, um, really not across the board, but in many parts of Canada,
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And yet, um, like, like in terms of the number of standardized tests, the amount that standardized
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tests matters, the ways that parents can understand basically how their kids are doing in schools,
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um, even, um, how clear report cards are for parents to read, to really understand how their
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When we have polled parents, um, fairly recently on whether they should be given a clear idea
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of how their kids are doing in, in school, um, on these province wide assessments or standardized
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tests, parents overwhelmingly, an overwhelming majority of parents in every province do support,
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And yet we see it declining, um, in most provinces.
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And so that's just one of the areas in which, you know, I don't think that public government,
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public schools, or maybe what the province's education departments are, um, expecting of
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teachers and of schools and of that accountability mechanism to parents.
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They're just not in line with what parents are expecting to get from, um, these, uh, these
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bureaucracies to which they're giving their tax dollars without choice in the matter.
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Um, so that's one area, but then there's also, of course, curriculum, um, and there's,
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there's a whole number of other, um, of things that I think that, you know, parents do have
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There's also things like discovery math, you know, these, these educational concepts that
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are being introduced into curricula where you see these kinds of parent advocacy groups,
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uh, start up in protest because they simply are not able to help their kids with their
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They're seeing that their kids aren't doing as well.
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And as I mentioned earlier, we see on the international kind of gold standard testing,
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um, PISA international assessments, as well as the Pearls international assessments, that
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Canadian student results are, are really declining in math and science and reading.
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And it's, it's, you know, it's our kids who are going to suffer down the line.
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And really, I think, you know, society as a whole, who are going to suffer if these core
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So I think that, you know, what we've seen from, um, at least in terms of the research
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that we have done and the polling that we have done from parents, we haven't done a lot
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on sort of the philosophical pedagogical side, but we do know that there is certainly a concern
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with quality, um, and there's a decline in that quality, but there's also, I think, just
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a disconnect between what parents expect and what they want to see and what they're actually
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getting from their government public school system.
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Has there been any real research on outcomes at the end of it?
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I mean, for the most part are in Alberta, are charter school educated kids faring better
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after graduating than high school or public high school educated kids, for example, or anything
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Yeah, I would say there's a lot of research coming out on this.
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Um, and so we've done a survey at Cardis, uh, called the Cardis Education Survey.
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What are the outcomes for, for graduates who attended different types of school?
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Um, and so we, we ask questions to children or to, to graduates, I guess, not children anymore,
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um, who attended public schools, you know, private Christian schools, um, uh, who were in different
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types of homeschooling environments, both religious and not religious.
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Um, whether they attended like an elite independent school, um, and the data is really, really clear
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that those who attended any one of the alternative options, whether it's an independent school
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or religious school or homeschooling environment, um, have superb outcomes, both academically
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and in terms of, you know, civic participation, um, connection with their community, satisfaction
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with their life, satisfaction in their families.
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Um, and in some cases, you know, they're more financially successful, um, in some cases
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they're, they're more, you know, connected to their community.
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Um, and so it just really shows that these different, um, options and alternatives, um,
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and different environments for learning, they, when you find one that is a best fit for each
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individual child, it really allows them to thrive in every aspect of their life, including
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I know that there has always been this fear that in Ontario anyway, it goes back to the
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2007 election when, you know, we talked about faith-based school funding, which I thought
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was an entirely valid policy at the time, but ended up being the political career ender
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for John Tory, at least until he found a bigger political career ender a few years later.
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But the thing about that is that it was a perfectly reasonable policy to a lot of people who are
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religious but not Catholic, because, you know, as a Protestant, I would say, oh yeah, absolutely.
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I would love to have access to the same thing that Catholic students and Catholic parents
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And, and I wonder though, if there is a bit of a concern, because I've talked to some people
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that have said, especially on the faith front, that, uh, they enjoy being outside of the public
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system entirely because they feel it gives them a bit more autonomy.
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And I wanted to ask you about that, Paige, as far as, you know, the policy implications of
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coming into the public system or coming into public funding, does that force schools to
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really abandon the things that are why they exist in the first place?
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Um, and, uh, I think that we see, we, we have done research in this area.
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The answer, the short answer to your question is that it really depends on how the government
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The, the goal in my view should be that you don't want to, um, squelch the innovation and
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customization and the tailor made fit for every kid, um, kinds of benefits that come along
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with, um, empowering families to choose alternative modes of education, whether that be giving them
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a portion of their tax dollars to go towards homeschooling or go towards independent schooling,
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You want to allow those different educational models to be different, right?
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To, um, to innovate and, and provide, um, that unique benefit that they can to, to be
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The problem is that when, um, governments do start funding these models, we have seen that
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in provinces that offer funding to independent schools, there does tend to be a higher level
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And, and the way that the policy is structured is such that, um, and this is not to say that
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this is a bad policy, but there in some provinces are tiers of funding where if you follow certain
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levels of regulation, you'll actually get more funding.
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So that might be, um, if you're hiring certified teachers following the provincial curriculum, um,
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you might get different tiers of funding for your independent school.
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Um, and you, we also see this with homeschooling.
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There's three provinces that offer some level of funding for homeschooling, Saskatchewan, Alberta,
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and BC, and they do have higher levels of regulation on homeschooling.
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And many families who homeschool do have strong feelings about that.
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That's why they've, they've chosen to homeschool.
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They don't want to follow, um, all these different regulations that come along, uh, from the provincial
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government that they find in their local government public school, which would have been maybe
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So I think the sweet spot for governments is, um, and, and I will say that in Ontario,
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where you and I both had the experience of attending public schools, K to 12, um, Ontario,
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because it does not currently offer school choice to empower families, to use their tax dollars,
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really to choose school for their kids outside of the really government public umbrella options
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that you mentioned, Ontario has an opportunity now to craft a kind of a best in the country system
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of school choice, if it wants to, where it doesn't have to attach these heavy regulatory strings
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Um, it can offer funding to these different models without weighing them down with bureaucracy.
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So there is the opportunity for governments to craft policies in this way, but yes,
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how it currently stands in Canada is that the models that do there, the provinces that do
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offer funding do tend to have more regulation around those different models.
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If I can, Peter, I mean, do you have any markedly different experiences in the provinces where
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there is some funding for parents who homeschool versus the ones who don't?
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Uh, where, where there's funding, there are always strings attached.
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And, uh, you know, that, that's, that's the story that goes well beyond the educational
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Um, so, so that is the case in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, uh, provinces that don't
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provide funding with one exception, uh, are, are less regulated, let's say, uh, less heavily
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And the one exception is Quebec where the approach is, is, uh, has nothing to do with money.
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And I'm going to use that word very specifically.
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So they, they are imposing, uh, the state run educational system on homeschoolers and,
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and independent schools, private schools in that province.
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So, I mean, ultimately the best system would be, and this is like my inner libertarian shining
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here and that, you know, every parent or every child gets a certain number of dollars allocated.
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And if the parent wants to put that towards the government run school, they can, if they
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want to put it towards homeschooling, they can, if they want to put it towards a fully
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fledged, completely private school, and maybe it only covers a portion of the tuition, let
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I don't think anyone in Canadian politics is bringing that idea up, but are there policy
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models that you've seen, Catherine, that you like, if we were to just create it from
00:20:58.980
Well, we see in most countries around the world, actually, that they're, they all have
00:21:04.580
slightly different, um, exact structures, but most countries around the world do fund
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the, like, several different types of schooling options, specifically independent schools, um,
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to a much higher degree than any province in Canada does, even Alberta.
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And Alberta has the highest funding, um, in Canada.
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So there's certainly a lot of room to move down that road to different funding models so
00:21:25.380
that we could empower parents to make the best choices for their children.
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Um, the true crux of educational pluralism would be a system that respects parental, um,
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uh, knowledge of their children, one that has a, a reasonable and proper degree of accountability
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Um, and so we'd love to see steps taken towards, um, a policy that would, that would include all
00:21:52.220
And we see countries like these are, um, you know, these are like G7 countries that
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do this, the United Kingdom, um, other countries such as like Denmark, South Korea, all very
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high academically performing, um, have policies like this.
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And so there, Canada is the outlier in, in not doing so.
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I know, Paige, the opposition you get to the school voucher model that I just laid out is
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that it basically siphons money away from the public system.
00:22:20.180
It's the, uh, not a particularly compelling argument though, because as you've pointed
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out at the beginning of this show, uh, the public system itself does not have a correlation
00:22:34.020
So, so the reality is that pouring more money into government public schools is not improving
00:22:41.740
The data really clearly shows that, um, at least in terms of student success, which of course
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is probably what we want out of our government public schools or any school to which we send
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I think the, the real issue is that, um, a lot of families simply cannot afford educational
00:23:01.020
Um, and, and that is to say that if they would like to homeschool or they'd like to send their
00:23:06.300
child to an independent school, it's just simply not an affordable option for them.
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Uh, we know this, we know that, um, that, you know, things are tight for families right
00:23:17.080
And that even in the provinces where independent schools do receive funding, um, that it is,
00:23:24.340
uh, still difficult for many families to, to, to be able to send their kid to one of
00:23:28.960
And in, in the case of homeschooling for a parent to go to part-time work or, um, for
00:23:35.760
Um, you know, this is just not a financially viable option, especially in many of our larger
00:23:42.140
Um, so I think that what governments need to, um, to do is to, to seek policies that
00:23:49.640
make this, um, a more affordable option and make it so that parents are really in the driver's
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You know, which is the best educational fit for my child.
00:24:01.960
If it so happens that our government public schools are providing a world-class education,
00:24:09.840
And we see in the data that I mentioned right off the top that the vast majority of children
00:24:15.100
are educated in government public schools in Canada today.
00:24:18.060
So the concern that we're going to be siphoning money away from, uh, from government public schools,
00:24:23.560
I mean, it's, it's the, the reason that we, we spend education tax dollars is to educate
00:24:37.840
It should be going to students and whatever fits them best.
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And, um, I think that the irony in the argument that you presented is that if, you know, there
00:24:47.660
was that level of competition where government public schools then have to be a little bit
00:24:52.360
more innovative to compete, to try and draw students to attend their schools, then it could
00:24:57.900
actually allow for some really unique and beneficial things for students and families to come out
00:25:03.600
If they did have that drive to compete and, uh, and to be, to be truly excellent.
00:25:08.560
Um, but yes, I mean, the, the short answer is if government public schools are doing a bang
00:25:14.000
up job and they're, um, they're offering the absolute best education, then there's absolutely
00:25:18.080
no reason that families would take their children out of those school systems.
00:25:21.800
And if it so happens that they're not offering, um, that for every child, then it should be
0.60
00:25:27.800
on government public schools to figure out why and to try to do better.
00:25:34.800
And I would actually be interested in doing just anecdotally a few conversations with parents
00:25:40.820
and say, if money were no object, where would you send your kids to school?
00:25:44.660
And some may say, you know, the public system, because they think the public system is there
00:25:49.260
But I suspect there are a lot who would really take another option if it were there.
00:25:53.940
And I should say as a bit of a caveat to that, I learned not that long ago that the dynamics
00:25:59.500
and the demographics in private schools are a lot more middle-class than I would have thought.
00:26:06.140
And there you have, I think, a really useful bit of information and that you see how much
00:26:10.880
parents really want that parents where that is a very difficult financial decision to
00:26:15.480
make, uh, to get their kids into a private school where they have to pay tuition.
00:26:25.520
We did a study on this in Alberta a few years ago, and we found those exact same results.
00:26:30.560
Um, parents overwhelmingly that send their children to an independent school, you know, make,
00:26:36.220
I think it's an average of around $90,000 a year, which especially when you have multiple
00:26:40.440
children attending one school is not that much money.
00:26:44.400
Um, especially given as Paige said, like inflationary pressures we're dealing with right now.
00:26:49.280
Um, they were also less likely to make, um, they were more likely to make less than the
00:26:58.020
And they, the overwhelming majority of them were making significant sacrifices in other places
00:27:03.300
to be able to send their children to these independent schools.
00:27:08.520
Ones that cost tens of thousands, thousands of dollars a year, but those are definitely
00:27:12.320
the minority and those people, the people that go to those schools will always have a
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00:27:17.560
way to, uh, to get the education for their children that they want.
0.56
00:27:21.980
Those who are wealthy will always be able to, you know, supplement the education that they
00:27:26.600
might not be getting with extracurriculars or tutoring or tuition for an independent school.
00:27:30.840
It's really those who, um, are poor or who have other challenges in their lives, um, who
00:27:37.000
are disadvantaged by our current school system because they don't have those options.
00:27:40.340
If they're not getting a great education, they probably can't afford to go to an independent
00:27:45.280
They might not be able to logistically coordinate to go to a different public school, a better
00:27:52.320
As Paige said, they probably don't have a parent who can afford to take the time or effort
00:27:56.480
to homeschool them, um, and so the system as it exists now is ultimately very unfair,
00:28:02.100
um, and it's those who are disadvantaged who are getting left behind even further.
00:28:06.260
I'll give you the last word, Peter, and I'll ask you sort of an inverted version of the
00:28:10.820
question that we were just talking about, which is that do you see homeschooling as being
00:28:15.380
a desirable form of education in and of itself, or do you view it as being the option that's
00:28:22.000
left over because everything else is not adequate or is not within reach for people?
00:28:28.320
No, I definitely see it as, as, as a preferable option for, and, and as we've been talking
00:28:32.860
about, for families that, that can't afford it, because, uh, first of all, on that point,
00:28:37.400
um, there, there really is an adjustment in lifestyle that's, that's required if you're
00:28:41.540
going to home educate, uh, you're, you know, parents got a bit of a glimpse of that in the
00:28:47.680
I mean, you know, you, you are generally looking at a parent giving up an income.
00:28:51.160
Um, and so living on a single income is usually where most homeschool families are at.
00:28:57.720
And, uh, and as we said, we're in an inflationary environment, so it can be tough.
00:29:01.820
So, so we have to, we have to change our expectations about what's possible as a family with our finances
00:29:08.860
But if we've made that decision, um, our kids benefit tremendously because they're getting
00:29:13.640
something that you can't get almost anywhere else.
00:29:15.860
And that, and that's one-on-one instruction from instructors who understand the children
00:29:20.620
are, and are with them year after year after year.
00:29:23.240
So, you know, when you go to, uh, the typical public private school, uh, you've got a teacher
00:29:27.560
for a year, maybe two in some cases, but you get passed on along down the line.
00:29:34.160
They know their strengths and they can, they can focus in on those, um, homes, home education
00:29:38.840
works particularly well for kids who have special needs of some sort, uh, whether it's
00:29:42.860
a learning disability, learning challenge, uh, parents, parents can, again, provide a safe
00:29:48.020
environment, give one-on-one instruction and, uh, and really take, uh, the, the specific needs
00:29:54.260
of a child into consideration when they're teaching.
00:29:56.720
So home education delivers all that in a way that virtually no other form of education can.
00:30:03.160
I've heard some naysayers about homeschooling point out that, well, you know, parents aren't
00:30:07.100
experts in all these things that they're teaching, but it's like teachers aren't experts in all
00:30:11.760
I mean, you know, the teachers that have to teach science may have had a science background
00:30:15.640
in university, or they may not have, I mean, they may have taken, uh, whatever, and then
00:30:19.720
they've just had this, especially at the elementary level, they've just had all of these things
00:30:23.460
land in their lap that they need to brush up on.
00:30:25.360
So they're reading from the same curriculum that parents are going to.
00:30:28.820
And I think in that sense, uh, your, your points are incredibly valid there.
00:30:32.380
Uh, well, listen, it is a fascinating discussion.
00:30:34.960
One we'll have to revisit because I realized we we've only scratched the surface here.
00:30:38.980
Uh, Peter Stock is the president of the homeschool legal defense association, Paige McPherson,
00:30:43.880
director of education policy with the Fraser Institute and Catherine Cavanaugh, Alberta liaison
00:30:57.760
We will talk to you next week with more of the Andrew Lawton show here on true north.
00:31:03.740
Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show.
00:31:05.980
Support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news.
00:31:12.180
Thank you, Mr. Clark for talking to you next week.