EDITORIAL: Let school dollars follow the students

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Ontario should follow the example of five other provinces on education funding and allow dollars to follow the student, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute urges.  

In a recent commentary published on its website, Fraser’s Michael Zwaagstra points to recent efforts that Ontario Education Minister Paul Calandra has made to rein in the out-of-control policies of large boards, such as Toronto District School Board, and says the province should go a step further and permit specialty or charter schools, which have proven successful in Alberta.  

Instead, TDSB seems more interested in social engineering than in teaching history, math and science.  

The province recently stepped in to stop the left-leaning board from renaming three schools — named for Sir John A. Macdonald, Henry Dundas and Egerton Ryerson.  

 As well, a recent controversy has undermined specialty schools previously dedicated to students with demonstrated elite athletic ability or talent in the performing arts or in technology.  

Previously, admittance to those programs was based on merit. In 2022, TDSB changed that to a lottery, leaving out in the cold talented students who’d worked for years to achieve the entry standards.  

Zwaagstra contends that if the funding followed the student, the school board would be able to open more programs for students with exceptional ability in certain areas.  

“Since there’s obviously a huge demand for these specialty schools, the TDSB should open more of these schools. The fact they aren’t tells us everything we need to know about the TDSB’s lack of commitment to school choice,” he says.  

A previous Fraser report referred to a 2023 report by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. It revealed that a typical charter school student had reading and math gains that outpaced those of their peers in traditional public schools.  

“In reading, charter school students experienced average learning gains of an additional six days in math and 16 days in reading,” said the report. “The researchers demonstrate that these learning gains were realized by tens of thousands of charter school students across the country, and progress was particularly strong among Blacks and Hispanics and those living in poverty.”  

Ontario’s boards are mired in a mindset that rewards mediocrity. A bandage won’t do. They need radical surgery.