Most independent schools in B.C. have a religious or alternative teaching approach and don't conform to an "elite" stereotype, says a new report from the right-wing think tank, the Fraser Institute.

The Fraser Institute report says that over half of all of B.C.'s 340 independent schools have a religious affiliation and about 20 per cent are what the think tank calls "speciality schools".

These schools have a distinct teaching and learning approach (Montessori or Waldorf), have a specific focus such as the arts, athletics or STEM subjects or serve specific student populations such as those with special needs.

According to the right-wing think tank the Fraser Institute, only a fraction of independent schools in B.C. conform to the 'dominant stereotype for private school'. (Fraser Institute)

"Contrary to the common caricature that they are enclaves for the urban elite, independent schools come in a wide variety of types and serve many educational preferences," reads the report's executive summary, which looked at school-level data from the ministries of education in various provinces across Canada.

"Our study found that less than five-and-a-half per cent of independent schools conform to the dominant stereotype for private schools," said report co-author Deani Van Pelt.

Tax dollars to independent schools

"It's really key that all of us understand that the dominant stereotype that seems to be held for independent schools just simply doesn't hold true."

The report comes at a time when there has been outrage from the B.C. Teachers' Federation and others over the fact that independent schools in this province are subsidized by taxpayers, yet many school boards are facing cuts.

In B.C., funding is paid to independent schools on a per-student basis, with schools divided into two groups receiving either 50 or 35 per cent of the local school district's per-student grant amount.

"These are not necessarily exclusive schools They are schools that fill in gaps, and they do so at less than 100 per cent of the cost to the taxpayer," Van Pelt said.

"If those students were attending government schools, they would be entirely fully funded."

'A rhetorical device': UBC expert

However, according to an educational policy expert, the think tank's premise — that most of the public believe independent schools are elite, prep-school types of institutions — is a "straw man" argument.

"That's nonsense. Everybody recognizes they're very heterogeneous," said Charles Ungerleider, professor emeritus in UBC's Faculty of Education and a former deputy education minister in the B.C. government.

"If this were a paper at university, I would point out to the student that while that may be a clever rhetorical device for writing what you want to write, it starts with a false premise.

"They've not demonstrated the accuracy of the initial premise … I suspect it's largely a rhetorical device because the report was probably written for another purpose."

Ungerleider said he thinks the report was undertaken to attempt to counter those who are against public tax money going to independent schools.

"The defenders of private schools that are publicly supported use the diversity among private schools [argument] to imply that there might be a justifiable public interest in supporting private schools," he said.

Ungerleider said the argument that independent schools are diverse distracts from an "important public policy issue" that he said should be discussed — which is whether or not public tax dollars should subsidize the education of private school students.

"Is their justification for tax money … going to pay for the tuition of a student who goes to a private school, regardless of what kind of school that is — Montessori, Waldorf, Catholic, Jewish, Islamic — it makes no difference. Should our public tax dollars be spent that way?"

With files from CBC's The Early Edition

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