Catharine Kavanagh is Western Stakeholder Director at Cardus. Based in Calgary, Catharine works to advance greater diversity and pluralism in provincial education and child care systems.Long before a student ever marches through the school doors to start a new academic year, families have made a lot of choices: everything from clothing to school supplies, to how to get to school, to which technologies are right for their kids. Laptop? iPad? So many options! Parents value these choices because they are invested in ensuring the best possible outcome for their kid, and achieving that means creating excitement for school and learning. The colours and patterns on school supplies may seem trivial, but sometimes they’re the key to a young learner’s inspiration to want to write or work on art projects. Where parents don’t often give thought to where they can best exercise their decision-making power is when it comes to the school itself — arguably the absolute most important part of the entire back-to-school experience! Canadian children spend on average 11,000 hours in school by the time they graduate Grade 12. That is a substantial amount of time being formed, shaped, and prepared for lifelong success, and it’s time that should be invested wisely — especially when high-quality options exist..In Alberta, we are deeply fortunate to have more publicly recognized educational options than anywhere else in Canada. Parents have at least six different school sectors — fully public, charter, Francophone, home education, Catholic separate, and independent — to pick from. Each sector has its own special niches, such as alternative sports and language programs in Catholic and public schools, and traditional home education versus a shared responsibility program, which offer parents an even longer menu of learning environments. When a child is in a learning environment that is the best fit for them, they have stronger academic achievements and better personal growth outcomes, as our past research has shown. Specialized programs and learning environments like these help contribute to Alberta’s Canada-leading results in science and reading, and our province’s second-place finish in math. Whether it is a specialized program dedicated to music, outdoor education, or supporting students with disabilities, or a learning community that offers hands-on, project-based teaching or a lower-stimulation environment, in Alberta, there is a school environment that provides a path to success for every child. And that selection isn’t stagnant. There are new schools, each representing new teaching methods and innovations, opening each year. Beyond the three commonly thought-of school sectors, each public charter school is required to offer a unique pedagogy — brand-new programs this year include Ukrainian language & culture, technical, career-focused programming, and agricultural literacy. The Alberta government's prioritization of educational innovation is helping to make these school options, already the envy of parents in many other provinces, more widely available. .Similarly, independent schools exist to serve distinct communities — for instance, students from a wide variety of faith backgrounds, or students with physical disabilities or learning challenges. Home education is another evergreen option that parents can tailor to support or supplement whatever a student is strong or weak in at any given time. Families already make back-to-school purchases and decisions based on factors like compatibility, practicality, brand trust, and price. Similarly, each child’s talents, perspectives, and personality make them better suited to different ways of learning, be it doing lessons outside or studying in a structured environment with frequent evaluations. As a society, we should be improving public awareness of Alberta’s pluralist approach to learning, thus supporting parents with as much information as possible about all the different schooling options that are available and accessible to them. Doing so will empower parents to seize their same capacity to weigh school compatibility, practicality, brand trust, and cost, to leverage whatever educational choice will provide the best holistic support to their child’s learning and whole-person development. Catharine Kavanagh is Western Stakeholder Director at Cardus. Based in Calgary, Catharine works to advance greater diversity and pluralism in provincial education and child care systems.
