What We Believe

WHO AND WHY SQE
Who are the people behind SQE and why is there so much passion about school choice?
Answer: This is a very important question! We’re just like you – parents, educators, and citizens who believe the poor quality of our education system can no longer be ignored. Many of us learned the hard way that public schools are failing our children. We discovered that today’s school boards are unimaginably bureaucratic and unaccountable. For many of us, this discovery (and the implications for our children’s futures) was one of the most painful experiences in our lives. Some of us were forced to find expensive private alternatives for our children. As we watched real learning taking place, while at the same time making huge financial sacrifices, we simply could no longer accept that quality schools should be out of reach for most families. Now we’re determined to do something about it! In Ontario, the status quo is unacceptable and unsustainable. School systems around the world have implemented better and more equitable ways to teach children. We want to be an agent for change; a force for better-quality schools. We’re up against a powerful inter-locking monopoly – the teachers’ unions, the school boards, the faculties of education, ministry officials, and other vested interests – and we need your help. Will you join us?

EVIDENCE OF MEDIOCRE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
What evidence exists to support SQE’s claim that Ontario’s students are not learning enough?
Answer: In virtually every independent comparison of student achievement over the past 25 years, Ontario students have performed poorly relative to students in Alberta, BC and Quebec. The results of the most recent tests are on the web-site of Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office, but the pattern has been the same for many, many years. SQE is happy to provide the data from the earlier tests on request.

REASON FOR MEDIOCRE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Why do Ontario public schools consistently perform below expectations, given the province’s affluence and the high level of funding committed to public education?
Answer: Ontario ’s public schools are not as effective as they could be because they lack the energy and innovation that characterize accountable, choice-based systems engaged in wholesome competition. The usual excuses for low achievement do not apply here: Ontario spends roughly the same amount per student as Alberta, BC, and Quebec, and the four provinces have similar levels of per capita income and parental education. Why do Alberta, BC, and Quebec students perform better? It turns out that the more school choice a province offers, the better its students perform. The high-performing provinces – Alberta, BC, and Quebec – have the most school choice, while the Atlantic provinces offer the least amount of school choice in Canada, and their students perform worst. Unless defenders of the status quo in Ontario can refute decades of test results or prove that the children in some other provinces are intrinsically more intelligent than Ontario students, we must conclude that Ontario’s public schools are not teaching students as effectively as the schools in the provinces with more school choice.

SCHOOL CHOICE
What is school choice and why does SQE consider it essential to learning?
Answer: School choice gives all parents the opportunity to choose the school – public or private – that is best for their children. School choice is advantageous because it offers the most equitable and efficient way to effect school improvement. Teachers benefit from school choice as well, because it makes it possible for them to find positions that capitalize on their particular strengths and values. School choice is a powerful idea, a growing social movement, and a documented way to improve school performance. The public school monopoly badly needs more competition and accountability, and at the same time parents are demanding better performance from their schools. The answer is school choice.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
What is the best way to improve student achievement?
Answer: Competition among schools is known to improve their service. As in other sectors of the economy, competition forces educators to outperform rival schools – because if they don’t, they will lose students and the associated funding. Competition galvanizes educators into becoming more responsive, introducing popular innovations, raising standards, and encouraging parents to become more involved. Dozens of jurisdictions – in Canada (Alberta, BC, and Quebec), and around the world (including selected American states, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Chile) continue to expand options for school choice – with good results. With other countries continuing to forge ahead, Ontario is falling further behind. Experience is sending us a powerful message: school choice improves educational performance wherever it is tried.

IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Does SQE favour the total privatization of elementary and secondary education?
Answer: SQE is not calling for the end of public schools – we are calling for better schools in general. Privatization of schools is one of many means to deliver higher-quality education; the practical issue is to allow parents to decide the best school option for their children. Nevertheless, there must be minimum standards – and every school (public or private) must be required to meet or exceed these standards. In almost every jurisdiction in the world with school choice, existing school systems have been strengthened, increasing the choices available to their students. SQE is opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach, where one monopoly district school board dictates to parents how their children will learn, with little or no accountability for quality and performance.

CHARTER SCHOOLS
What are charter schools and why does SQE support them?
Answer: Unlike conventional public schools, charter schools – which are free and open to all eligible students – are not supervised by a school board but rather have their own supervisory boards. Charter schools are inspected to ensure that they fulfill the conditions set out in their charters. These schools are a choice-based innovation that is proving very popular with parents and teachers; they improve the performance of their own students and provide competition that results in the improved performance of the students in nearby public schools. Charter schools provide significant accountability to parents and students. They survive only if they fulfill their charter conditions to provide excellent (and sometimes special) education and if they attract sufficient numbers of students to provide ongoing financial viability.

EDUCATION VOUCHERS AND EDUCATION TAX CREDITS
What are education vouchers and tax credits, and why does SQE support them?
Answer: Education vouchers and education tax credits are two different ways to enable low-income parents to consider private schools. When education vouchers or tax credits are offered, public schools continue to be funded from the public purse, and private schools begin also to be funded from the public purse, sometimes in whole and sometimes in part. Currently, in Ontario, only a limited number of families are able to choose the school that is best for their child. Apart from the obvious unfairness, this two-tier policy reduces social mobility and works to perpetuate class differences. Vouchers and tax credits are equalizing measures that level the educational playing field.

TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ
What is the best way to teach children to read in kindergarten and grade 1?
Answer: Over the past 25 years, a prodigious amount of research into child literacy has converged, concluding that the best way to teach reading is to use SYSTEMATIC PHONICS. This research has been well summarized by the National Reading Panel, a National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development panel convened by the US Congress. Professor Keith Stanovich, a Toronto-based world authority on teaching reading, writes, “That direct instruction in alphabetic coding facilitates early reading acquisition is one of the most well-established conclusions in all of behavioural science”. Despite this consensus in the research community, most Ontario public schools still use “Balanced Literacy”, a non-systematic phonics approach. On its web-site, SQE provides a free systematic phonics reading program for parents who struggle with the absence of systematic phonics instruction at their children’s school.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN EDUCATION
What is the best way to increase accountability in education?
Answer: Experience shows that the best way to increase accountability is through funding that provides parents with the ability to enroll their children in schools that meet their needs – and to withdraw their children from schools that don’t. Accountability can be increased through more testing and reporting requirements, but these measures alone are not enough. Faced with the threat of declining enrolment and the associated reduction in per-student funding which can result from school choice, public schools will quickly accept that they must improve their service or eventually close their doors. This newfound focus on quality is the beginning of true accountability in education!

GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS
How much control should the government exercise over private schools that receive government funding?
Answer: Accountability must be a two-way street.Because education is a public good, it warrants sufficient tax resources to ensure that all children have access to schools that meet their needs. On the one hand, taxpayers are entitled to know that their funding of private schools supports teachers and a curriculum that reflect Ontario values and meet or exceed the province’s standards in all major fields of study. On the other hand, the government should not impose a regulatory burden that forces private schools to become carbon copies of existing public schools. A reasonable balance must be sought, including a requirement that eligible schools administer some form of standardized testing, either EQAO tests, Canadian Achievement Tests, or Canadian Tests of Basic Skill, and the results of those tests should be made public. In addition, schools should be required to conform to basic standards, such as Criminal Record Checks before employing teachers and conformance with the Ontario Human Rights Code.

TEACHER CERTIFICATION
Should the Ontario government require teachers at government-funded private schools to have Ontario certification?
Answer: Because Ontario certification is no guarantee of teaching ability, it makes no sense to force private schools to hire only Ontario-certified teachers. There are many uncertified individuals who might make excellent teachers – university professors, piano teachers, authors, trade school instructors, managers, professionals, and many others. The principal of each school is in the best position to choose staff members who can be built into a strong instructional team that will be accountable to parents. Each principal should have the authority to hire the best teachers possible, certified or uncertified, and then be held accountable for the school’s results.

SCHOOL BOARDS
What is the role of school boards?
Answer: SQE neither endorses nor opposes school boards per se. There may always be a role for school boards in a choice-based system. For example, SQE endorses a school board like Edmonton’s, which actively seeks to attract students by responding to the needs of its student community, providing the options that parents, students, and teachers seek. Unfortunately, this market-based orientation is rare. More common are boards whose actions demonstrate a lack of vision, a protection of the status quo and “unionized” teachers at the expense of innovation, and a lack of responsiveness to the needs of their students and the pursuit of excellence. The question to be asked is which school boards contribute to excellence in school performance and which boards are delivering substandard services.