Public Schools and Multiple Choice

Has the time come for "school choice" systems like the Toronto school board is proposing?

The Toronto District School Board’s recently announced plan, Elementary Programs of Choice, has resurrected the issue of school choice here in Canada. The board is proposing to allow four specialized elementary schools to open in September of 2011 – a school for boys, a school for girls, a choir school, and a sports academy.

The idea emerged from an initial vision of an all-boys school first advanced by board director Chris Spence and is now being presented as a broader strategy aimed at rejuvenating a stagnating public school system. The four schools would be publicly funded and have an open enrolment policy with no tuition fees charged. Dr. Spence has publicly stated that one of the prime objectives is to stem the flow of students from the public to the private system.

Whatever the intention, the Toronto initiative has raised a key question: Does the move represent a significant departure from the “one-size-fits-all” philosophy that has long dominated Canadian public education?

Like many other urban school systems, the Toronto board is struggling to cope with declining enrolment driven by the middle-class flight to the suburbs and the mushrooming of the private system. One look at the annual Our Kids magazine directory of private schools tells the story. Many Toronto families with young children are turning to private venture or independent schools for programs better suited to their children’s individual needs.

The school choice initiative is not unique to Toronto. On April 1, Michael Zwaagstra of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy correctly pointed out that Toronto is only following Edmonton’s lead. More than two decades ago, the Edmonton Public School Board blazed the trail by adopting “school choice” as a cardinal principle and opening the door to a wider range of alternative school programs, including aboriginal education, Christian studies, science, and the performing arts.

The educational battle lines are now forming over the Toronto board’s initiative. Defenders of “as is” public schooling like Annie Kidder of Ontario’s People for Education see this as the thin edge of the wedge leading to the erosion of social cohesion and the possible death knell for traditional neighbourhood schools. Fired up by a recent National Post commentary, Doretta Wilson of the Society for Quality Education has applauded the move as a positive sign. The SQE blog, School for Thought, hoped for a breakthrough but wondered if the initial plan amounted to “tossing a bone to a famished dog.”

The Toronto school choice plan also begs a few other questions: Is the plan the first crack in the standardized, “equal experience for all” public school system? Or does the plan offer what Advocates for Childcare Choice founder Kate Tennier termed a “calculated choice” aimed at satisfying current parent demands while staving off potential structural change? Will the plan actually make a difference to children in disadvantaged, lower-income communities? Are we now on the road to broadening school choice or simply conducting new school experiments on children?

Dr. Paul W. Bennett, Director of Schoolhouse Consulting, is the author of The Grammar School: Striving for Excellence in a Public School World (Formac Lorimer Books 2009). Send comments to director@schoolhouseconsulting.ca