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Like others across the province, teachers were anxiously waiting to see if the provincial government would come through on its promises to provide stable and sustainable funding to education in its 2012-13 budget. Unfortunately, what the government presented is a shell game budget that will fail to bring stability to Alberta’s classrooms.
The 2011 budget from last year reduced a number of grants in half and proposed that others be eliminated entirely. Premier Redford responded to discontent over the cuts by announcing $107 million in funding in October 2011. The big question on people’s minds before the February 9 budget for 2012 was, “what would happen to the grants that were cut in 2011?”
The grants that were cut, which included funding for the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement and Enhanced English as a Second Language, remained cut in 2012. Instead of reinstating the grants, the government initiated a new grant for boards called the Equity of Opportunity grant. The new grant totals $107 million and so does not receive the benefit of the 2 per cent increase it would have received as a general grant.
The Equity of Opportunity grant includes a general grant of $156 per student and allocations to help rural schools based on low population density or distance of schools from major service centres. Ultimately, funds that had been devoted for AISI and Enhanced ESL are being turned into general revenue funds and not given inflationary increases.
This realignment of grants means that funding directed to the Alberta Initiative on School Improvement has been cut in half from 2010-2011 levels and now stands at just over 40 million dollars. AISI is a program that has achieved world-wide recognition and has made great strides toward improving programming and student learning experiences. Cutting AISI will further undermine schools’ ability to innovate and enhance student learning.
The Equity grant is not the only one being shortchanged from inflationary protections. The base instructional grant and class size initiative grants are only receiving an increase of 1 per cent for the upcoming school year. These funds which provide for the bulk of government spending on classrooms are receiving less than the 2.5 per cent projected for inflation this year and less than the 2 per cent being provided to other smaller grants. Ultimately, small grant increases in a time of rising costs will put school boards in the position of cutting staff and or programs once again.
Another big news piece of Budget 2012 is the announcement of three-year budget cycles in an effort to provide stability and predictability. Unfortunately, the two per cent increases to the base instruction grant scheduled for both 2013 and 2014 will not be sufficient to support the needs of the majority of Alberta students. Government’s own projections for inflation sit at 2.3 per cent for both of those years.
With funding levels falling below projected rates of inflation, workforce stability may be compromised and staffing cuts could come in any of the three years. Achieving new collective agreements, when those currently in place expire on September 1, 2012, will be exceedingly difficult.
School boards could cushion the impacts of the government’s funding shortfalls, but they must be prepared to go into their surpluses. Collectively, school boards are sitting on approximately a half-billion dollars in surplus funds. But their track record on maintaining staffing in light of reduced funding is suspect; the public education system is still down 650 teaching positions due to cuts made in 2011 and 2010 school years. With education funding so tight, school boards need to be more accountable to parents and government about their spending.
One good piece of news is the announcement of a new funding framework for inclusive education. Still, there is uncertainty about how the funding model will work at the school level and whether the needs of truly exceptional students can be met with a more global application of grants.
