A primer on charter schools /

The appendices provide a comprehensive list of the research and publications on Alberta’s charter schools, and an overview of the characteristics of the vari- ous charter schools in operation in the province. [...] Charter schools tend to have a higher number of students in their first year of study, relative to traditional public schools, because of the greater rate of student turnover in these schools, and the higher percentage of charter schools who themselves are in their first year of operation. [...] In contrast to the growth observed in the United States, Alberta remains the only province that permits the establishment and operation of charter schools in Canada.21 In sum, a total of 44 jurisdictions have charter school laws. [...] Critically, one of the central explan- ations for the lack of growth in charter schools in Alberta is the artificial restriction placed on the number of charter schools permitted in the province. [...] The report that followed, Charter Schools: Provisions for Choice in Public Schools, identified the absence of competition as the primary reason for the “failure of public schools to provide the level of excellence in education necessary for success in an increasingly competitive society” (cited in Ritchie, 2010: 3).