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The following are excerpts from newspapers throughout Alberta. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the ATA.
21st-century education still a fantasy
“Relations between the government and the teachers union in BC have been toxic for as long as anyone can remember. The teachers, too, are trapped in this mess, trying to do more and more with what seems like less and less. As John Watson, one young teacher, said in a letter to the Vancouver Sun, ‘We cannot face the 21st-century with a 19th-century education model and 20th-century technology.’ … What would a 21st-century education system look like? The thinker Walter Russell Mead has some good ideas. Imagine a world where groups of like-minded teachers are empowered to get together and open neighbourhood schools and run them as they see fit. Parents could choose any school they want. … Teachers would be treated as entrepreneurs and professionals instead of factory workers. … That’s just fantasy, of course—for now. But the old education model, like so much else from the 20th century, is finished. Someone, some time soon, will begin to reinvent it.”
—Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail, March 8, 2012
No delay necessary for secular public education in Morinville
“Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk is dissembling about the real purpose of Bill 4, the St. Albert and Sturgeon Valley School Districts Establishment Act. ‘To dissemble’ is to play a shell game, so that fellow MLAs, the media and the public watch the wrong shell and miss the hidden pea. … In truth, Bill 4 is not about public education in Morinville. Almost two years ago, some parents in Morinville asked to receive a secular public education—one not imbued with Catholicism. The providing St. Albert public school board specifically refused to provide secular public education, either directly or indirectly. The minister has had five choices. … The simplest, least costly, most timely, just and appropriate remedy would be for the government to withdraw Bill 4 and think more carefully about what it wants to accomplish in St. Albert. In the meantime, Lukaszuk should immediately sign a ministerial order, based on Section 239 of the School Act, transferring jurisdiction for public school education in Morinville and Legal to Sturgeon School Division. As part of this, the minister should transfer two or more schools from St. Albert public to Sturgeon School Division. … No legislation is required to provide genuinely public school education in Morinville. No delay is necessary.”
—Guest Editorial, David King, Edmonton Journal, March 7, 2012
Just a few questions about Wi-Fi on buses
“Alberta is preparing to take the rural school bus ride to a new level, as revealed in Red Deer on Friday when Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk announced a couple of pilot projects at a rural education symposium. The province will provide money to try to reduce the length of bus rides, and also install wireless technology on buses. … The project that raises more questions than it answers, the $210,000 School Bus Wi-Fi Initiative, involves putting Wi-Fi on about 30 school buses in the Prairie Rose School Division in the Medicine Hat area. … As the Wi-Fi project gets underway, parents of children who ride school buses might want to consider a few things. Should a school bus become a mobile classroom, a place to study and learn, and do homework? Who will monitor students using Wi-Fi on buses? Not the driver obviously. … What controls will there be on the Wi-Fi to ensure students are only accessing appropriate information? … And ultimately, if all rural buses do get Wi-Fi, who is going to pay for it?”
—Mary-Ann Barr, Red Deer Advocate, March 6, 2012
