Approximately 1,800 kids attending School District 43 classes this year will be foreign students who pay a $14,000 annual fee to attend.
They do so because their parents recognize good value when they see it as SD43 has one of the highest achievement rates in the province.
The argument for enticing international students goes like this: SD43 students benefit from rubbing shoulders with peers from other countries and will therefore be better prepared to deal with global economies.
This is debatable but SD43 does rake in millions of dollars from international education to enrich the budget bottom line and make up for the fact that the district remains one of the lowest funded in the province on a per-pupil basis.
But we can't help but wonder if this approach simply feeds the government position that the district is doing just fine and a better funding formula isn't needed to make the rules more fair.
