The Edmonton Model, and how it might apply to Burlington

[I’ve had this blog post waiting in unfinished draft mode for some time, as I’m hesitant to appear like I’m saying something like “Oh, if only they did things here like they do back in Canada.” It’s hard not to be aware constantly of the differences between the place you are and the place you are from, and I have many days where I’m thankful for all the great things that Vermont has to offer that I never would have experienced back in Edmonton. So, this argument goes both ways most of the time. In the case of the public school system in Edmonton, and Canada’s health care system, though, I hope that people here take a serious look at these examples of how we might be able to do things differently here in Vermont.]

It’s funny sometimes how you don’t value something fully until you don’t have it anymore. With all the debates about school funding here in South Burlington and the school system’s inability to fund any second language learning at the primary school level, I seem to wind up talking about the Edmonton School system on a fairly regular basis. I didn’t quite realize until I left Alberta (and as a parent of kids just entering the school system I sometimes lament what might have been had we not left) just how remarkable is the Edmonton Public School Board.

All you need to do is do a Google search on “Edmonton model” +schools and you will find articles from all over North America about school districts looking to Edmonton as model of how they might reform their school systems.

This 2006 article from MacLean’s magazine explains a few of the key differences with the Edmonton system:

Principals in the Alberta capital receive unheard-of autonomy and budgetary control, as well as the right to draw students from anywhere in the district. Once system-wide expenses for things like transportation and debt service are removed, Edmonton’s central board controls just eight per cent of revenue. The rest – 92 per cent – is spent by principals, based on priorities set by staff at each school. “You don’t have to be getting anybody’s permission down here to do stuff, you know what your level of authority is, and that’s quite a load off your back,” said McBeath, during one of his final days at the Centre for Education, the board’s electric-blue headquarters building. “In the old days – and in Canada, in most districts – the principals have to be on their knees begging somebody for something.” In exchange, principals have the responsibility to deliver the goods, as both managers and instructional leaders. That means doing what it takes to attract students, to keep them, and to graduate them at higher levels of academic achievement.



[. . . ] In Edmonton, for all its reputation as Alberta’s bastion of anti-corporate liberalism, there isn’t much taxpayer debate. The experiment in site-based budgeting and decision-making has evolved to the point where parents expect nothing less than the right to comparison shop. Even with Edmonton’s brutal winters, almost half of all students attend schools outside their neighbourhood catchment. That compares with about 20 per cent in a national survey published this November by the Kelowna, B.C.-based Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education. That survey found that 89 per cent of parents and 77 per cent of teachers want the right to select schools – a demand, it seems, most Canadian boards aren’t meeting.

In Edmonton, families pick from a stunning array of products: schools specializing in arts, sports, sciences, advanced academics, Aboriginal culture. There are traditional schools, an all-girls school, bilingual schools from Arabic to Hebrew to Ukrainian. There are Christian schools, including three that gave up private status to join the public system. Edmonton Public has more than 81,000 students and sees itself in competition with private institutions, as well as the smaller but highly innovative Catholic board. It wants every last student, and their blessed provincial grants. Such rapaciousness has critics accusing the board of a hidden privatization agenda. “Not in Edmonton,” McBeath insists. “We absorb private schools here.”

Here are few more links to stories about the innovative “Edmonton Model,” including coverage from US states ranging from Delaware and Massachusetts to California and Hawaii.

In today’s Burlington Free Press, there is a story about ongoing discussions of creating several “magnet schools” within the Burlington School System. Those both in favour and against this possibility, might want to take a closer look at the effectiveness Edmonton model in creating a system in which “public schools can provide a choice to every parent.”