The ideological extremism of teacher unions and school board organizers won’t let them grasp what a regular taxpayer would see as a historic capital investment in education: the premier’s announcement last week of $8.6 billion for school construction. They’re upset because the funding includes up to $600 million for charter and non-profit independent schools, almost perfectly matching those schools’ proportion of the student population. Getting 93 per cent of the funding isn’t enough for boards and unions. They want all of it, but they shouldn’t get it.

Firstly, teachers’ unions and the big school boards assume that what they do every day is the sum total of public education in Alberta. It isn’t.

Public education includes 45,000 Alberta kids attending independent schools. They too are members of the public — and their education is as much public as it is in any government-run school. Treating independent schools and the tens of thousands of students who attend them as outsiders is as ridiculous as dismissing half the population of Lethbridge as irrelevant to the province.

Education funding is for all students. In a pluralist system like Alberta’s, that includes students who attend independent, charter, and other schools. The fact that Alberta has made the historic decision to fund the construction of independent schools’ buildings (beyond the traditional partial operational funding) simply means the province is coming closer to the uncontroversial global norm of funding pluralist public education.

Secondly, school construction is in dire need of a kickstart in Alberta. The modernization project at John G. Diefenbaker High School in Calgary was first identified by the local school board as needing upgrades more than 13 years ago. Sadly, public school boards’ gears grind very slowly. Hopefully, billions of dollars in funding will grease their machinery enough to get them building and expanding.

This also underlines why independent schools are part of the solution. Every child who finds their best learning environment at an independent school, leaves one more space for a child who might find the same thing in a big-board school. In fact, because independent schools get less operational funding than the big-board schools do, the province saves about $3,400 per independent-school student.

Helping independent schools with construction or expansion will relieve pressure on the big school boards and help the province save public dollars. And it will help more Alberta children find a spot in some of the most in-demand schools in the province. Between the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2024, the number of Alberta independent-school students grew by 10.5 per cent — triple the rate of public schools and more than double the rate of separate schools.

Finally, construction and expansion funding for charter and independent schools will go a lot further than many folks might think. Cardus crunched the numbers in a policy brief earlier this month. Considering only the independent sector, $100 million would be a great start toward funding 120 startups or expansions of non-elite, accredited, and provincially funded schools. These schools, by law, are non-profit, employ provincially certificated teachers, use the government curriculum, and have a certificated principal. They’re also accountable to an operating board or advisory council as well as directly to the education minister.

More than just receiving funding, the brief envisions independent schools and their communities raising additional capital through significant gifts and sacrifices to match the government investment. This is the real stuff of community where everyone pitches in and doesn’t wait for or blame the government for inaction.

Ultimately, Cardus’s recommendation is to develop a forgivable loan investment that will challenge schools to: prove they’re partners with the government and are meeting a community needs, by raising matching funding; meet specific enrolment growth goals; operate for a minimum of 10 years.

Alberta is on the cusp of developing historic and creative ways to solve school overcrowding. The announced $8.6-billion fund recognizes the province as a leader in school pluralism, will spur school construction across the board, and will make independent school funding as effective as possible. Alberta’s government should forge ahead despite the unions’ and school boards’ ideological roaring.

• Michael Van Pelt is CEO and Catharine Kavanagh is western stakeholder director at think-tank Cardus