Public Education

What is it that makes public education unique, vital, and attractive? In Alberta, as in many other jurisdictions, the provincial government allows, regulates, funds, and protects separate school education, charter schools, independent schools, and home schooling, as well as public education.

Unlike all other forms of education, public education is inclusive, as a matter of conviction and by design. It is inclusive in the classroom and also in its system of governance. It is inclusive in that inclusion is both and equally a right and a responsibility. All children have a right to be included in public education. All members of the community have a right to participate in the government of public education (universal adult suffrage). Everyone in the classroom has a responsibility to include all others, and everyone in the community has a responsibility to allow and encourage all other adults to participate in the government of public education.

Unlike all other forms of education, public education is designed and provided to be a deliberate model of a civil democratic community rather than any other form of community. This aspect of public education is one of the foremost reasons that public education tries to represent self-government, grounded in the local community.