quote:

A graduate of a recently-shuttered Christian home-schooling organization says government needs to introduce stronger legislation to protect students.

Bari Miller took classes at home from Grades 2 to 12 with Wisdom Home Schooling, a third-party affiliate with a Cold Lake Christian private school called Trinity.

Like all home-school parents across Alberta are required to do, her parents registered with a school board, created a lesson plan for her and had that plan assessed by licensed teachers.

What she didn't know at the time was that the supervisory organization her parents had chosen, Wisdom Home Schooling, was not registered with or accredited by the provincial government.

Diploma questions

It was not until she started applying to post-secondary schools that she realized the transcripts she earned through Wisdom were not recognized by the universities she wanted to attend.

"To me, it was a meaningless, worthless piece of paper," Miller said.

She described how disappointed she was when her application to the University of Calgary was denied. She had fresh questions about the instruction she had received at home.

"It was combined with a lot of biblical analysis and I really didn't learn any science that would be acceptable to a lot of Canadian universities," she said. "I was told that evolution didn't happen, and just a lot of things that I think didn't prepare me for the real world or for university."

Pupil precedents

The province shuttered Wisdom Home Schooling this week over alleged financial irregularities. Wisdom denies the allegations, and says the financial system wherein the registered Trinity Christian School allegedly transferred millions in public funds to Wisdom — an organization with which the government claims it had no legal relationship — was "neither illegal nor deceptive."

Alberta Education said it will provide the findings of its financial review to the Canada Revenue Agency and to the RCMP so those agencies can determine if further investigation is warranted.

The government's concerns are not only related to finances, however. In a letter to Trinity's board chair Tuesday, Alberta Education said the decision was made because Trinity "has failed to appropriately supervise its home education program." In a statement Tuesday, Wisdom also denied this claim, pointing out that Trinity has been in operation for 21 years and was established by government mandate in 1997.

While critics re-opened the debate of whether public funds should be used for private education, the province's own precedent on home-schooling may make it difficult to discern whether claims of wrongdoing could be justified.

Freedom and oversight

Prior to September 2016, department records show there were five supervising school authorities that used a third-party contractor to deliver home-schooling — the same model questioned by Alberta Education in its recent decision.

There are also no rules about what children are taught at home, even with regular supervision. Alberta's Home Education Regulation stipulates only that parents develop an education program, and that the supervising school authority accept that program.

The regulation does not require that a home-schooling program developed by a parent follow provincial education standards, or include information that would prepare students to write provincial or standardized exams.

School-awarded diploma marks and/or transcripts with grades are the main tools universities say they use to evaluate admission.

A spokesperson with Alberta Education described the prerequisites. "In order to obtain a final mark on an Alberta transcript for a course that has a diploma exam, a home education student must write the diploma exam and have a school-awarded mark submitted by the supervising school/authority," wrote Jeremy Nolais.

"In courses that do not have a diploma exam, a student's transcript will show a school-awarded mark submitted by the supervising school/authority."

A question of authority

He went on to explain that Wisdom Home Schooling did not have such authority. Wisdom refutes that claim, saying in a statement "education has arbitrarily determined that the work of WISDOM is not the work of Trinity. All allegations are based upon this false assumption."

Roughly 2,000 people have signed a petition asking the government to allow Wisdom to continue to operate.

Bari Miller, on the other hand, said her own negative experiences in the system suggest something needs to change.

"It's frustrating. Why should something that is not accredited exist? I don't understand how that makes it any different from your kids just not going to school," she said.

Miller took introductory courses at college and was eventually admitted to the University of Calgary. She is now doing her Master of Political Science at the University of Ottawa.

"Home-school your kids, that's fine. But there has to be regulation in place so we can actually function in the world once we graduate."

CLAM DOWN posted:

I honestly don't think you understand how racism works.

Postess with the Mostest posted:

Break it down for me, I have an open mind.

PT6A posted:

Jesus loving christ, please don't tell me we have to discuss why blackface and related concepts are offensive ITT.

Postess with the Mostest posted:

Break it down for me, I have an open mind.

flashman posted:

Oh no my William Wallace costume is racist?

Vintersorg posted:

The fukken puppet master folks, right dere!

GENDERED SLUR posted:

On the other hand I think wearing woad and the valknut are racist now too so I can't do that either. Thanks, racists 8(

THC posted:

Literally the only thing you loving progressives got us by strategically electing this government is a tax cut for people earning 200k

Subjunctive posted:

Some of those people are very nice. Can't you just be happy for them?

infernal machines posted:

I'm p. sure Ikantski is not literally asking "how is this racist?", he's baiting people into exposing the inconsistencies in whatever their personal take on the issue is, so that he can go "ah ha!" and make some point about relative values or something. It's not like this is the first time this has happened here.

Rime posted:

If they were dead and their assets redistributed to society, sure.

Postess with the Mostest posted:

I think of racism as actively or passively thinking your race is superior or one or more other races are inferior. I don't understand this expanded definition that includes everyone who wears a pocahontas costume and it seemed pretty obvious to a bunch of people here so I didn't think it'd be a huge deal to explain. Also, I wanted to post chiefselfieredfacephotoop.jpg. Happy halloween everybody.

Rime posted:

If they were dead and their assets redistributed to society, sure.

Subjunctive posted:

What's your second-best offer?

Baronjutter posted:

Taxed higher and although they'll grumble and not understand why or how it happened, society around them would get a little bit more pleasant as there'd be slightly less homeless people or violent crime or hospital waits.

Baronjutter posted:

Taxed higher and although they'll grumble and not understand why or how it happened, society around them would get a little bit more pleasant as there'd be slightly less homeless people or violent crime or hospital waits.

Subjunctive posted:

I wouldn't grumble at all. Those are worthy things to tax for.

Arivia posted:

Here's a hint: it's not mocking it like a halloween costume when you're wearing it at a ceremony where you were given it by actual Native leaders. JFC.

gentle pete posted:

Postess with the Mostest posted:

I think of racism as actively or passively thinking your race is superior or one or more other races are inferior. I don't understand this expanded definition that includes everyone who wears a pocahontas costume and it seemed pretty obvious to a bunch of people here so I didn't think it'd be a huge deal to explain. Also, I wanted to post chiefselfieredfacephotoop.jpg. Happy halloween everybody.

Postess with the Mostest posted:

I think of racism as actively or passively thinking your race is superior or one or more other races are inferior. I don't understand this expanded definition that includes everyone who wears a pocahontas costume and it seemed pretty obvious to a bunch of people here so I didn't think it'd be a huge deal to explain. Also, I wanted to post chiefselfieredfacephotoop.jpg. Happy halloween everybody.

vyelkin posted:

Trudeau has restored our international reputation and ability to smugly condescend to Americans so idgaf about what his policies actually are

- 64% of Canadians

eXXon posted:

We used to dress up in faux native garb in cub scouts and for Halloween and none of the zero first Nations kids I know complained so it must be ok.


John Tory's approval rating is about 70% mainly because he's not Rob Ford. Then again Ford was well above 60% before his scandals started and Tory is quite possibly an even shittier mayor so abandon all hope.

EvilJoven posted:

Some of you guys have your heads so far up your asses these days you can't tell the difference between blackface performance and dressing up like a native American for Halloween and that's pretty loving sad.

I bet you also call the Blackhawks logo racist.

EvilJoven posted:

The poo poo eating grin Indian logo is actually pretty loving insulting looking.

But the 'hawks? Come on. Drop 'being offended by things' from your list of hobbies for the winter then come back and take another look at it in the spring.