THE GREAT BRIGHT NORTH
Maybe Darby would be better qualified to comment on this, but it appears that the city of Edmonton has been conducting a long-term experiment in local control of schools — and for the most part, it works:
Edmonton has been giving schools more control over budgets and decisions — that’s what site-based management means — for 25 years in some form or other.
Beyond that, there are other big ways the 80,000-student district stands out.
In Edmonton, you can be a home-schooled public school student and still have access to all the traditional school resources you want. You can attend a public school program based on hockey, Christian principles or girls-only classrooms. Also, in Edmonton, Catholic schools are publicly funded.
Most students in this predominantly white, middle-class district opt for special programs rather than their neighborhood schools, meaning that students are commuting all over the city. Choice programs create competition as principals jockey for students. Local educators describe a veritable shopping spree in the spring as parents go looking for options for the next year.
And when they say school choice, they mean school choice:
[A] visit to Fulton Place School shows that Edmonton schools can be anything but standard when compared with Minnesota public schools. The separation of church and state is absent here. Student pictures and writing illustrating Bible verses are posted on the walls, and Advent wreaths and creche scenes are scattered throughout the school. When Price-Wagner needs to mediate a playground dispute, she talks to them about how Jesus would want them to act.