BCBusiness

60 BCBusiness January 2015 and read to them. So is the difference between private and public students' performance really about the quality of their schooling? Christopher and Sarah Lubienski, professors of education at the Univer- sity of Illinois, set out to answer that question in a 2013 book titled The Public School Advantage. Using sophisticated statistical analysis tools, they focused on math achievement, since the subject is primarily learned in school rather than at home; after controlling for demographics, they found that public school students did just as well as their private school peers. And while those who go to private school are more likely to enjoy bet- ter jobs and higher incomes down the road, the causa- tion isn't clear, according to economists Michael Owyang and Katarina Vermann. "The observed correlation between school type and economic outcomes may arise because students who attend private schools are inherently more likely to succeed regardless of where they are educated," they wrote in a 2012 paper on school choice and economic outcomes. So why aren't B.C.'s top- rate public schools good enough for so many parents? Crawford Killian, a Capilano University professor who has written extensively about B.C. educa- tion for decades, theorizes that parents are flocking to private schools out of anxiety about their children's future—in part because middle-class incomes and social mobility in Canada has stagnated. "We have this cutthroat star system; kids have to be the best. Many parents see education as a way their kids can get a leg up," he explains. The Finnish school system, by contrast, strives to remove competition between students and fos- ter collaboration. "The Finns decided 35 years ago that everyone would have an equal education, and that was that." For years this strategy worked, with Fin- land ranking in the top three countries in international assessments. However, the Finns slipped in the most recent PISA results, albeit slightly. Educators there blame the decline, ironically, on com- petition: they say their previous PISA supremacy led Finnish policymakers to become complacent. till, some parents—no matter what PISA and others say about the quality and equity of B.C.'s public system—believe that the only way to get a truly excellent education is to pay for it. One school attracting students from far and wide—even across borders—is Vancouver's West Point Grey Academy ( WPGA), where parents pay up to $19,300 annually. Filmmaker Richard Stevenson—who is creator of The School of Life project, which produces video time capsules of children's lives as they grow up—was so inspired by the stories of two brothers who attended WPGA that he moved his family from Seattle to Vancouver so that his kids, now in Grades 5 and 6, could go to the school. "I'm in over 100 schools a year, so needless to say, I have been impressed by [ WPGA's] unique blend of high academic standards and social and emotional learning," he says. WPGA is recognized for its excel- lence annually by the Fraser Institute's controversial school rankings. (Only one public school cracked the list's top 20.) The core of what makes WPGA such a great school is personalization. Its junior-school teachers are trained in attachment theory—a school of "When a student has the security of an attachment, the mind is open to absorb new information. It also encourages students to look to their teachers for direction with regard to values, identity and positive choices rather than looking to peer attachments for all decision-making" — Ciara Corcoran, WPGA Junior School Principal

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