Support for Catholic schools ‘generational,’ poll finds

Younger voters are less likely to support public funding of two school systems: poll

Younger adults are significantly less supportive of publicly funded Catholic schools in Edmonton than their older counterparts, a new Mainstreet Research poll says.

While nearly two-thirds of adults 50 or older said the Alberta government should continue to fund the Edmonton Catholic school board, support fell to 47 per cent among the 35-to-49 set and fell to 41 per cent among young adults.

“I think what should be most concerning to people who are proponents of publicly funded Catholic education is that if you look at the demographics, there looks to be a generational split,” said David Valentin, executive vice-president of Mainstreet Research.

“Every year that passes is another year in which we really have to ask ourselves if (publicly funded) Catholic education should continue,” he said.

Approval of the performance by Edmonton Catholic school trustees also lags behind their public counterparts, according to survey results. The telephone poll found 31 per cent strongly approved of the job public trustees were doing, compared to 14 per cent for Catholic trustees.

Twenty eight per cent of those polled said they strongly disapprove of Catholic trustees’ performance compared to 11 per cent who indicated strong disapproval of public board trustees.

The divide in resolutely positive and negative sentiments between the boards is likely the result of a continued pattern of negative stories about Catholic school board governance, not only in local media but on social media and by word of mouth, Valentin said.

After a government-hired consultant concluded last year conflict among Catholic school trustees was “intractable,” Education Minister David Eggen ordered the board to re-write all of its policies under the supervision of the deputy minister of education.

A quarter of people polled wanted Eggen to take further action in response to that report, 44 per cent said that step was appropriate, and eight per cent said Eggen shouldn’t have taken that step.

Twenty-three per cent weren’t sure.

Edmonton public school trustee Michael Janz’s idea to offer Catholic programs in public schools fizzled with respondents — 63 per cent said the public board shouldn’t do it. Another 11 per cent liked the idea, and 26 per cent said they weren’t sure. Support for the idea was highest among seniors and lowest among young adults.

At Janz’s prompting, the Edmonton public school board voted last month to lobby the provincial government to remove a check box from education property tax forms indicating whether the property owner supports the public or Catholic school system. Janz has said the designation is an anachronism because tax money is pooled and schools are funded by the provincial government based on how many students are enrolled.

Support for keeping the check box was at 32 per cent, with 37 per cent in favour of elimination of the box. The other 31 per cent were unsure.

The public was also split on whether Catholic and public school boards should share services such as busing, or facilities like libraries and gyms. Where 29 per cent were in favour of sharing, 32 per cent opposed it, and 39 per cent weren’t sure.

Respondents likely had more questions about how such sharing arrangements would work, Valentin said.

Mainstreet conducted the survey for the Journal using an automated telephone system to survey 732 Edmontonians on March 10 on both land lines and cellphones. The weighting of responses for each age demographic was adjusted based on the results of the 2011 federal census. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.62 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.