Unchartered Territory: A Historical and Critical Analysis of Alberta’s Prohibition on Religious Charter Schools

Executive Summary An Inexplicable Restriction The goal of charter schools is to give educators freedom to explore and discover new routes to student success. Given an abundance of research pointing to the efficacy of faith-based education, including the positive effects of matching religious students to schools of religious fit, it is striking that religious charter schools are restricted. No clear rationale for this restriction is present in official policy documents or the legislative debate that went into legally instituting charter schools. Different Constitutional Realities This prohibition is not founded on evidence, reason, or jurisprudence but is rooted in American charter-school laws—alien to Alberta and illogical to retain. The Canadian and Albertan constitutions understand church-state separation differently from the understanding in the US. In deference to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, American laws specify that charter schools must be nonsectarian. The prohibition does not make sense in Canada, as Alberta has constitutionally protected denominational, i.e., Separate, schools. Catholicism is the Charter of a Separate School Alberta Separate schools enable the religious freedom of Catholics in at least three ways