Media Release from the Society for Quality Education

A Word to the Wise: How Ontario's Public Schools Can Win Back Students

TORONTO – May 9, 2007

A recent Fraser Institute report sheds valuable light on why Ontario students are fleeing the province’s public schools.

“ Ontario’s Private Schools: Who Chooses Them and Why?” surveyed 919 families with children in the province’s private schools. The study found that when it comes to the parents who removed their children from publicly-funded schools, fully 94 per cent said they did so because they had been disappointed with their children’s publicly-funded schools. These parents went on to list the features they valued in their children’s private school – features such as dedicated teachers, an emphasis on academic quality, a high moral tone, character development, and safety.

The complete study is at: www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/privateschools.pdf.

The Society for Quality Education invites Ontario public schools to take advantage of this information by starting to place a greater emphasis on the features that private school parents find lacking. It is to everyone’s benefit to have strong public schools with healthy enrolments and, unless the government passes a law forcing everyone to send their children to public schools, the best way to keep enrolment high in publicly-funded schools is for the province’s public schools to improve their service and attract more students.

“Most private schools have no more money than Ontario publicly-funded schools — a clear indication that lack of funding is not the reason that the province’s publicly-funded schools have lost market share,” said Doretta Wilson, executive director. Enrolment trends in Ontario's major English-speaking school boards between 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 (the latest year for which data are available) show that the public boards lost more than 6,000 students, while the Catholic boards registered a very slight increase in enrolment. By way of contrast, the province’s private schools continued to grow during this period.

“Public schools need to take a good look at why parents have chosen to move their children out of public education. This study provides some valuable insight to help them bring families back to their schools,” Mrs. Wilson added.

The Society for Quality Education is a charitable, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting school choice in order to improve student learning in Canada. It funded this study so that all of the province’s schools would have valuable feedback to help them offer a better service to their students. More information about the Society can be found at www.societyforqualityeducation.org

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