Public dollars, private schools - does Alberta need to reconsider how it funds education?

In this week’s episode of The Line: Alberta Podcast, Rob Breakenridge takes a closer look at the debate around education funding in Alberta. The province-wide teachers’ strike has helped to illustrate some of the challenges and frustrations that have been building up in the public school system. Alberta’s population has risen rapidly in recent years, and it’s been a challenge for the system to keep up with sufficient space and teacher levels, leading to crowded classrooms and stressed out educators. Along the way, Alberta has seen its per-student education funding fall to the lowest of all the provinces.Alberta is also unique in the public dollars that support private education. That funding follows the student and represents 70 per of what the per-student public funding. The broader debate around education policy has drawn in this particular aspect of the Alberta system - should Alberta continue to spend public dollars on private education.In this episode, we’ll hear two different perspectives on that question. Alicia Taylor is a high school chemistry teacher in Calgary and is the organizer of a petition campaign that is hoping to use Alberta’s legislation to force a referendum on ending public funding of private schools. Meanwhile, Catharine Kavanagh is western stakeholder director at the think tank Cardus - they argue that Alberta’s emphasis on choice in education - and the diversity of options outside of the public system - delivers many benefits.