Differences abound from the widespread use of uniforms, to near-universal behavioural challenges, to the fact students don’t earn diplomas but are expected to either take the right classes to go to college (a step toward university) or just drift off into the workforce. There is also an intense effort by the government to oversee every aspect of the system through a convoluted merit-pay system and the teacher’s unions were debilitated by Margaret Thatcher.

Beyond all of that though, England has never had elected school boards – or Local Education Authorities as they’re called here. Basically, the local municipal or city council just appoints a few bureaucrats to run the schools.

This naturally raises the question: Are appointed or elected school boards more effective?

Interestingly, this question was raised by the City of Chicago, where there is a push is on to create an elected board. Currently the mayor appoints the Board.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago wanted to give the question the academic treatment and following a review of the research and their analysis of the effectiveness of the Mayor’s Board gave the following key findings [pdf]:

1. There is no conclusive evidence that mayoral control and mayor-appointed boards are more effective at governing schools or raising student achievement.
2. The Board’s policies of top-down accountability based on standardized tests, and its simultaneous expansion of selective-enrolment schools, expanded a two-tier education system in Chicago.
3. Under the mayor-appointed Board, CPS has made little progress in academic achievement and other measures of educational improvement, and on nearly every measure there are persistent, and in some cases, widening gaps between white students and African American and Latino students.
4. The Board’s policy of closing neighbourhood schools and opening charter schools has generally not improved education for the students affected. In some cases, it has made things worse.
5. Although data on charter schools, nationally and locally, are mixed, there is no evidence that, overall, CPS’ charter schools are significantly better than its traditional public schools.
6. Chicago’s mayor appointed board is comprised of elite decision makers who are neither representative of the student population of CPS nor directly accountable to the public. Board structures and processes severely limit public input in decisions.

Based on this, the authors come out strongly in favour of an elected board and call for an urgent course shift.

While the background in England is different than Chicago, I think there are important similarities.

First, England has a very heavy top-down school system. Teachers are responsible to the school administration, who is dually responsible to the local authority and government regulators. Lessons will be observed randomly and students performances are almost uniformly judged on nationwide standardized tests (which are of extremely dubious pedagogical value).

Second, by keeping school control out of democratic accountability, similar closure and transparency issues are inevitable. In Edmonton a few years ago, parents protested continual school closures and influence the Board to put a moratorium on closures until the issue could be studied. This wouldn’t happen in a system where bureaucrats don’t need to worry about their job security every 3-5 years. Here in England, this means council staff are more than happy to outsource school administration to corporate academies and religious institutions if it means cost savings. The effect on the students and community becomes irrelevant.

Finally, the last point is especially pertinent as demographics in England’s larger cities begin to shift. While democracy doesn’t guarantee representative diversity, it does offer non-traditional routes to give voice to often-marginalized groups. One doesn’t need to be Oxford-educated or a party hack to be elected to a school board but the path to influencing backroom bureaucrats is less clear.

It’s also important to note that the Chicago study pre-empts some of the eventual arguments against any change. They note that the appointed boards are not necessarily more efficient and in fact, since a democratic board is more responsive to local needs, may actually put its limited funding to better use.

Of course there is little to allay concerns that elected local education authorities would simply introduce another field for the bitter partisanship of English politics to do battle on. Already Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems (and I guess the Greens and UKIP to a lesser extent) fight for control over Westminster and local councils, but the experience of the Vancouver School Board, which does feature partisan politics, suggests it may not be that damning.

Perhaps the biggest danger though is for the ability of local boards to introduce anti-science measures – whether it’s creationism, anti-vax, or anti-wifi, school boards in North America tend to be easy targets for the pseudoscientific forces.

One ambitious member of a local Young Liberal riding suggested merging the Catholic and Public school boards to save money and end the religious privilege. The idea gained quick traction and made it to the top four spot.

Unfortunately, this caught the attention of the Catholic school board administration, which circulated emails calling on their staff and trustees to crash the poll, down-voting the idea. At the time of writing it sits at –220 votes.

Go to the site, register, and vote up the idea and spread the word.

Chubb was asked in 2011 about a proposed anti-homophobia policy at the Edmonton Public School Board (which was passed). As head of the school, Chubb stated in an interview about his school:

It’s not that we are anti-gay in any way, shape or form. We just need to be able to articulate the moral element to all Christianity … and our Christian community is not able to accept that homosexual acts are not immoral. If you don’t feel comfortable with your children in that kind of milieu, don’t send your students here.

It’s worth noting that since 2004 Meadowlark Christian School has been operated as an Alternative Program within Edmonton Public School Board. This means that despite parent’s paying up to $1,600 in tuition for their child to attend, the school still receives public funding and can discriminate against staff and faculty who aren’t Christian enough. Furthermore, it means that Chubb’s 2011 comments represented a desire to violate a proposed policy of their own school board.

When asked by local blogger Daveberta about the comments, Chubb argued the views were those of the parents and that

My position now, as it was then, is that you cannot legislate belief. I am a firm advocate for freedom of speech and conscience. I staunchly defend those who are discriminated against in any way.

Perhaps Chubb was just doing his job but the argument that “some” students should not be sent to some schools offered by the Public School District only highlights the discriminatory nature of permitting faith-based schools within a public system.

Edmonton voters, it’s up to you to push for a secular school board. Get informed and vote wisely.

One such front group in Edmonton, Alberta offers a program called “WAIT! Let’s Talk Sex!” to local schools, with a strong emphasis on abstinence-only based education. Education that has been demonstrated time and again to fail students, leading to higher rates of dangerous sex, teen pregnancy, and sexually-transmitted infections.

The program is designed to fit the provincial curriculum for grades 7 through 10 and they claim to have reached 14,000 students in Edmonton and area. Edmonton’s ostensibly secular public district has about 80,000 students and lists the centre as an “approved vendor.”

There is a petition circulating to get Edmonton Public Schools to bar these ministers from proselytizing to students and to instead teach comprehensive sexual education, as mandated by the Alberta curriculum.

Sign and share it now.

If you live in Edmonton, make sure you contact your Public School Trustee candidates and have them pledge to keep Edmonton Public Schools secular.

(H/t Luke Fevin)

Over the past few years, the British government has been increasingly trying to solve its broken education system through a combination of market-based reforms. Key among them have been the opening of many “free schools,” that is, fully government-funded schools that are free from the control of local authorities (locally-elected school boards).

Many of these free schools are religiously-motivated and are permitted to have discriminatory admission policies that favour students of a particular faith. The system is loosely based around similar programs in Alberta and BC where independent schools receive a certain amount of government funding.

The British Humanist Association’s Fair Admission Campaign has highlighted that these free schools end up increasing social fragmentation and class separation, with students of higher socioeconomic standing being admitted disproportionately.

It sharply highlights the growing need to consider amalgamating the competing systems into a single non-discriminatory body.

Unsurprisingly the local Catholics remain quite comfortable with their privilege, despite an increasingly secular and aging population.

Such integration has caused some concerns among those in the Catholic system about a gradual merging into one system.

“There is the fear of what I call creeping incrementalism,” Iatonna said. “I don’t have that fear.

“I think Catholic schooling will be around because of the desire for it from Catholic parents.”

Minor efforts are already being made to reduce administrative duplication, and it’s predicted to save the province of Ontario over $10 million. One report by a Liberal delegation suggested the total savings for the province could be up to $1.6 billion.

As local boards make this minor steps toward amalgamation, the rights of non-Catholic students to have a secular education must be protected. It’s very foreseeable that a shared Catholic-Public school would push Catholic idolatry and worship on the public side and would potentially limit job prospects for non-Catholic teachers.

Better for the provincial government to take the initiative and provide clear guidance toward a path for one school system.

The story prompted the following email from a fan with an Ontario email address (a province that has recently bowed to pressure from religious conservatives to not implement a progressive and comprehensive sexual education curriculum, preferring ignorance to information).

Mr Bushfield. I just read on the internet that you think children in schools should not be taught abstinence and instead be taught safe sex.

Are you kidding me? It is people like you who are ruining our children. Please Please Please, leave our children alone, so they can grow up normal and not filled with all this filth.

I will pray for you.

I already posted this on my Facebook, where it received 44 Likes and 31 comments. Apparently people love the irony of filthy safe sex and someone praying for me.

TO: Ian Bushfield—B.C. Humanist Association

DATE: November 17–2012

FROM: Leonard R.,
Abbotsford, B.C.

SUBJECT: Article in Abbotsford Times — Nov. 8–2012

The article states you have protested to the Minister of Education of B.C. about the free distribution of Bibles to Grade 5 students at various schools in B.C. Your inaccuracy and intentional mischaracterization clearly reveals your intent at mischief, deceit and treachery.

1. You accuse; religion is creeping into the schools. How, in your puny mind, do you arrive at that? The Bibles are given to the students outside of the school, after class time, only to those students whose parents have given written permission for them to receive one. You are being devious and accusatory without substance. Quite a stretch of a wicked imagination.
2. Then you say “abstinence” is being taught in schools and somehow you link that to religion. Only a warped mind would concoct such a bridge. No science can refute the fact that there is no better way to avoid teenage pregnancy than abstinence. Disprove that, my uninformed friend. It causes me to question if you endorse the lecherous designs of those who would victimize impressionable young girls, lest they start to believe in abstinence and therefore would be less likely to permit themselves being impregnated. Just asking. .ca
You claim the “motivation” is religious.
Your letter to the Minister of Education of B.C. is serious communistic “motivation” to rob Canadians of faith of the freedom of free speech and replace it with your idea of mind-control, right?

Your interference in freedom of religion is vile, reprehensible, dangerous and a serious threat to traditional values. Traditional values are beneficial to everyone, yet you seek to destroy them. Shame on your destructive activities in this direction.
Obviously you prefer the society of the former Soviet Union or perhaps that of Saudi Arabia. If so, go and live there and that would be to the benefit of the rest of Canadians.

Leonard R.

This is why I’m excited to be working with some great parents to start a secular parenting meetup group in Vancouver through the BC Humanists.

The group will kick-off after our Sunday, June 17th meeting (Father’s Day), at which we will be discussing Dave McGowan’s Parenting Beyond Belief. The meeting is from 10am-noon at Oakridge Seniors’ Centre. Following the discussion, we will move to the nearby Columbia Park (42nd Ave and Columbia Street) for a barbecue and picnic.

This informal meeting will help gauge the interest in this type of group and allow us to determine what kind of programming to put on later.

With luck, we can hopefully set up a freethinker summer camp next year and maybe I will get to polish off my DiscoverE science presentation skills.

Alberta’s education laws haven’t been updated in decades and given last year’s slow resolution of bring secular schooling to Morinville, it’s long overdue. Yet the proposed act is drawing criticism on all sides.

The Catholic School Trustees Association fears that this is the first step to destroying their century-long privilege. Specifically, the act will allow the government to force secular and Catholic schools to share space when necessary and to amalgamate school boards.

Meanwhile, homeschoolers rallied 1500 people for a protest because they don’t want to have to teach they’re children to obey the Alberta Human Rights Act (seriously).  To placate these religious homeschooling extremists, the education minister caved and “offered an amendment on Monday to the preamble of the bill, recognizing parents’ right to raise their children within their ethical and religious traditions.” This was not enough to satisfy those who believe we can simply put two words like parents and rights together and suddenly have a codified law.

Nevertheless, the Alberta Liberal Party (who are the fourth party in terms of the number of candidates nominated) is skeptical of the government and fears it will further surrender to the Religious Right.

Kent Hehr, MLA for Calgary Buffalo, asked the education minister , Tom Lukaszuk, whether the province would soon provide “public funding of a school of Scientology or Druids or a school for witches and Wiccans?” Lukaszuk parroted the standard lines of “choice in education” in response.

Hehr pressed further asking if Lukaszuk was “comfortable with parents teaching that homosexuality is a sin or that evolution is not real?” Sadly, the education minister either dodged the question at best or admitted that parents have a right to poison the minds of their children.

Please, listen to the answer. I am comfortable with the fact that parents have the right of teaching their children and passing on their family values, their religious beliefs, and their morality. This is what we do as parents. Whether my daughter comes from a public school or whether she stays at home all day long, I still take responsibility for teaching her what is right and what is wrong, so that aspect has nothing to do with homeschooling. That is what we all as parents have the primary right to do, and we continue doing that.

Choice in education is a smokescreen for wasting money on inefficient two-tiered school systems. Alberta (and BC) currently grant ridiculous amounts of money to private schools, which can discriminate in enrolment and hiring under this absurd system. Furthermore, the United Nations Human Rights Committee condemned the separate school system in Alberta, Saksatchewan, and Ontario as discriminatory and called for the ending of separated school funding.

It will be interesting to see if the majority of Albertans (represented by neither the Homeschoolers or Catholic schools Associations) will stand up for secular, adequately funded education. Hell, it will be interesting alone to see if any party is that brave – the Alberta Party already missed that boat with their platform [pdf].