Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Even when an organization is a non-profit there is a lot of money moving around and *personal* profits to be made.

Charter schools get the same per-student funding as the public schools and don't get to cherry pick students.

If you believe the charter schools have smaller class sizes, pay the teachers more, and STILL have money left over for slush, doesn't that imply the public board should have tons of extra money? They should have the slush money, plus the savings from bigger class sizes/lower salaries.

Do you think they're wasting all that on admin costs or where do you think that money goes?

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Charter schools get the same per-student funding as the public schools and don't get to cherry pick students.

If you believe the charter schools have smaller class sizes, pay the teachers more, and STILL have money left over for slush, doesn't that imply the public board should have tons of extra money? They should have the slush money, plus the savings from bigger class sizes/lower salaries.

Do you think they're wasting all that on admin costs or where do you think that money goes?

lol, what? Danni is that you?

- Charter schools take public funding and then throw private funding on top of it.
- They do not get to "cherry pick" students but they create barriers to keep undesirable kids out.
- I don't have to "believe" that charter schools have smaller class sizes, they advertise that information.

When you leave out important details your implications mean nothing and the rest is nonsense you made up.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Even when an organization is a non-profit there is a lot of money moving around and *personal* profits to be made.

Just look at the story about Rajan Sawhney's daughter getting a board position paying $120K. The public funding they get, along with your donations, are grifted out to their friends so that they never report a profit.

Sounds like a lot of BS. Gifting profit to friends? wtf? lol

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

lol, what? Danni is that you?

- Charter schools take public funding and then throw private funding on top of it.
- They do not get to "cherry pick" students but they create barriers to keep undesirable kids out.
- I don't have to "believe" that charter schools have smaller class sizes, they advertise that information.

When you leave out important details your implications mean nothing and the rest is nonsense you made up.

Ok now you are full of BS. Anyone can apply for a Charter school. It's all based on a lottery system. Well at least for Connect Charter and Stem Academy. They don't have private funding unless it's from selling meat and gift cards to parents....

My daughter isn't even guaranteed a spot into Stem High School even though my son is attending. There are too many applicants and they did away with the sibling rule. She has to win a lottery to get in.

Or are you talking about Christian schools where Kenney gave them a ton of money when he became Premier?

[Knut]

Originally Posted by Wolven

lol, what? Danni is that you?

- Charter schools take public funding and then throw private funding on top of it.
- They do not get to "cherry pick" students but they create barriers to keep undesirable kids out.
- I don't have to "believe" that charter schools have smaller class sizes, they advertise that information.

When you leave out important details your implications mean nothing and the rest is nonsense you made up.

Not all Charter schools have smaller class sizes.

Charter schools are good for kids with different learning needs vs. others. STEM based or Art based schools are great IMO. I disagree with religious charter schools only catering to a single religion though.

Charter Schools use lottery systems to determine who goes there as well.

There is value there and who cares if they use private funding to help fund a part of the education. The cost to the public per child is the same. Not every family can afford private school and Charter is a chance for them to get a more catered learning experience.

[Johnny Makarov]

When my son's robotics team went to the Worlds in Dallas this year, the 5 kids who went down, had to pay for the coach and the principle to go down with them.

The only thing the charter school paid for was the rental minivan for the 4 days. We had to pay for all the hotels, flights and food. It cost us around $3200/per kid.

I sure wish they had a slush fund for that! lol

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Ok now you are full of BS. Anyone can apply for a Charter school. It's all based on a lottery system. Well at least for Connect Charter and Stem Academy. They don't have private funding unless it's from selling meat and gift cards to parents....

My daughter isn't even guaranteed a spot into Stem even though my son is attending. There are too many applicants and they did away with the sibling rule. She has to win a lottery to get in.

Or are you talking about Christian schools where Kenney gave them a ton of money when he became Premier?

Just because there are some cool charter schools does not mean they are all good or above board. There are definitely a couple of charter schools that I am looking at for my kids if the UCP keeps murdering the education system the way that they do.

Did you click on the link about Rajan Sawhney's daughter? Have you learned anything about that story??

If you do not even look at the information being shared then how can you call it BS?

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Knut

Not all Charter schools have smaller class sizes.

Charter schools are good for kids with different learning needs vs. others. STEM based or Art based schools are great IMO. I disagree with religious charter schools only catering to a single religion though.

Charter Schools use lottery systems to determine who goes there as well.

There is value there and who cares if they use private funding to help fund a part of the education. The cost to the public per child is the same. Not every family can afford private school and Charter is a chance for them to get a more catered learning experience.

Having schools that cater to diverse learning environments is a great idea.

It should be run within the public school system and that system should be fully funded to be able to handle all of the kids in Alberta.

[Knut]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Having schools that cater to diverse learning environments is a great idea.

It should be run within the public school system and that system should be fully funded to be able to handle all of the kids in Alberta.

Parents pick up the slack for the difference through extra fees and fundraising. I am not sure why that is an issue. Are you saying that the Charter schools should get "more" per child. OR that the programs should be offered at all schools ?

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Just because there are some cool charter schools does not mean they are all good or above board. There are definitely a couple of charter schools that I am looking at for my kids if the UCP keeps murdering the education system the way that they do.

Did you click on the link about Rajan Sawhney's daughter? Have you learned anything about that story??

If you do not even look at the information being shared then how can you call it BS?

You didn't give a link and when i googled it only came up with headlines of how her daughter was a victim of a racist attack.

Connect Charter, which used to be the Calgary Science School used to have a test for kids in order to attend the school. They did away with that the year my son got in. Otherwise there was no way he would have passed the test back then.

Sounds like you were fed paste by some disgruntled CBE teachers...

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Charter schools get the same per-student funding as the public schools and don't get to cherry pick students.

There is significant self selection with charter schools though. Between supplemental fees and whatnot, as well as a focus on specific academic areas, charter schools essentially screen out a lot of low income and high needs students, leading to a pretty different (and generally far easier to educate) population than the public school system has. There's a reason why the Socioeconomic Status Index for charter schools in Alberta is vastly different than it is for public schools.

You see it in a lot of French Immersion programs too. Kids with significant behavioural or learning difficulties are simply never going to end up in those programs, even if they technically operate on a lottery for admissions.

The net result is, government-funded quasi-private schools for higher income families. If public schools had the resources they need (and what they had in prior decades), it wouldn't necessarily be an issue. But there's only so much money to go around, so investing in charter schools at the full level of per-student funding effectively marginalizes the resources available for the rest of the population (which is generally lower income and with higher needs).

[Johnny Makarov]

Are you guys confusing charter and private schools? wtf?

It's a lottery to get in. There is no picking and choosing from the 'rich' areas. There are just as many kids from the NE at Connect than from the other parts of the city. I can see that from the bus routes as they come in from all parts of the city.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Knut

Parents pick up the slack for the difference through extra fees and fundraising. I am not sure why that is an issue. Are you saying that the Charter schools should get "more" per child. OR that the programs should be offered at all schools ?

I am saying there should be one system for education, the public system, and that they should make schools that handle diverse learning needs.

One of the misconceptions in public education is the idea that we should just throw all of the kids into the same classroom and call that good. If a kid cannot speak English yet or has some kind of disability or learns better when outside then the education system should be robust enough to accommodate that.

Similar to the charter schools, you could still have lotteries or whatever to get into these focused schools.

The differences would be in transparency in the funding, eliminating the waste of having a board of directors for every charter school, more streamlined maintenance services, etc.

If you really want to have a private school then it should be 100% private funded and still regulated by the public school system.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

You didn't give a link and when i googled it only came up with headlines of how her daughter was a victim of a racist attack.

Connect Charter, which used to be the Calgary Science School used to have a test for kids in order to attend the school. They did away with that the year my son got in. Otherwise there was no way he would have passed the test back then.

Sounds like you were fed paste by some disgruntled CBE teachers...

Sorry, here you go.

Originally Posted by Wolven

...
Education = Foundations for the Future Charter Academy North High School grift

Smith had a charter school pay off her leadership rival to buy Rajan's loyalty and then gave the charter school money as a thank you for paying off Rajan.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Just because there are some cool charter schools does not mean they are all good or above board. There are definitely a couple of charter schools that I am looking at for my kids if the UCP keeps murdering the education system the way that they do.

Did you click on the link about Rajan Sawhney's daughter? Have you learned anything about that story??

If you do not even look at the information being shared then how can you call it BS?

Well even if the UCP doesn't murder the system you should have your kids goto a charter school. You just have to win the lottery.

Out of the 9/10 parents I recommended to apply for Connect only 3 got in. They are forever grateful. Oh and one of them lived in Rundle at the time of their acceptance. The others live in Hidden Valley and Springbank Hill.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Sorry, here you go.

That's your link? from Twitter? lol. I mean the UCP are pieces of kyit so i'm sure it happened but there is NOTHING from Google or any major news outlet.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Well even if the UCP doesn't murder the system you should have your kids goto a charter school. You just have to win the lottery.

Out of the 9/10 parents I recommended to apply for Connect only 3 got in. They are forever grateful. Oh and one of them lived in Rundle at the time of their acceptance. The others live in Hidden Valley and Springbank Hill.

Ya, it sounds awesome.

We shouldn't need to save our kids from the damage that the government is doing to the education system.

But.. as much as I am willing to argue about it on the internet, I will probably cave in and do what is best for my kids.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

That's your link? from Twitter? lol. I mean the UCP are pieces of kyit so i'm sure it happened but there is NOTHING from Google or any major news outlet.

Do you want to discuss it or just complain?

Or is it that you now want to discuss the corruption of corporate media?

[Knut]

I actually thing the Charter system should be expanded and subsidies in place for those that can afford it. The lotteries for the Charter schools are like 4-5x the enrollment numbers. The other issue is the long bus rides to get to the few charter schools there are.

We missed out on STEM Innovation and Connect Charter via lottery. We ended up going the private route as they could cater to our kids better (we are lucky enough to be able to afford this route). My one son has multiple learning disorders. Private schools do not all cater to kids either though and they can be super selective of the kids they accept. Once past the bottleneck the teachers are much more receptive to providing accommodations than the public schools (for the most part).

In an ideal world there are no separate school boards (CCSD and CBE) and everything is charter with subsidies to those below a certain income threshold.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Knut

Parents pick up the slack for the difference through extra fees and fundraising. I am not sure why that is an issue. Are you saying that the Charter schools should get "more" per child. OR that the programs should be offered at all schools ?

My kid's public school has extra fees for extra-curriculars/field trips and fundraising, exactly the same as charters. We went to the STEM Academy open house last year (and will apply this year), seemed the same as public school cost-wise.

Having schools that are open to everyone, charge no mandatory fees, and get the exact same resources per student as the public system doesn't seem like a big problem to me.

There isn't any reason to presuppose that 1 public board will always do the best job for all students. We already have 2 (and the smaller one gets consistently better results). It seems reasonable that they might not be perfect - why should they have a government enforced monopoly on public education.