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Alberta’s teachers and parents are to be commended for their hard work. Since the 2013/14 school year began, many of you have contacted your MLA or the education minister to express your concerns about untenably large classes and a dearth of public resources for students with special needs.
The discussion has found traction in the mainstream media and on social media. Many of you posted stories to our website about your large classes and few resources. Minister of Education Jeff Johnson is aware of teachers’ and parents’ concerns—that much is clear—because he’s finally talking about them. Last month, Johnson told delegates at the Canadian Education Association conference in Calgary that he’s a big game hunter. He explained how important it is that a big game hunter not be distracted by rabbit tracks. Johnson suggested his big game is the implementation of Inspiring Education and the rabbit tracks are the issues of class size and funding.
Johnson is downplaying the importance of our concerns. In the legislature during question period, he said class size is not the most important factor affecting quality education, and he told Metro News that “it’s not even in the top two or three” factors.
Although we can congratulate ourselves that the minister has noticed, he still hasn’t got the message. Rather than admit that public education in Alberta is underfunded, Johnson prefers to say there is no problem. I get it. For Johnson to actually address the issue would require increasing education funding and reforming how the province generates revenue. His government’s not willing to go there.
Instead, it is easier to ignore the vast amounts of research that support small classes, especially in the early grades. Teachers and parents know the detrimental effects of overcrowded classes; they see it every day. They know that from the students’ perspective, a profoundly different quality of interaction occurs when there are 17 kids in a kindergarten class than when there are 28. Unfortunately, our kids only get one shot at kindergarten. The learning that is missed in that year can create great difficulties for them later.
Education is a human-centred enterprise that requires professionals. As a result, much education funding goes to salaries. When funding falls short, fewer teachers and school staff are employed, and students start piling up in our classrooms. Crowded classrooms and overworked staff are not simply a factor of education quality; they are the barometer of public education’s health and the adequacy of its funding.
I worry that Johnson is actually undermining the current system. Alberta has a world-class public education system because of our outstanding teachers. The minister should be looking at evolving the system by celebrating the great work of teachers and providing the resources and assistance teachers require. Instead, he is looking to overhaul the system by implementing vaguely-defined educational reform. It makes sense then, that he might want to undermine the current system in order to create support for wholesale change. So, while Johnson’s out hunting the big game, the housework is being neglected at home.
This strategy has been used elsewhere; take public healthcare, where the government is undermining confidence in the system through chronic underfunding and continuous restructuring and upheaval. By convincing us that the healthcare system is broken—as evidenced by long wait times—the government can create support for its vision of change, which could include alternative systems of delivery and increased privatization.
This leads me to ask: Is Johnson’s vision for Inspiring Education the same as that of the hard-working front liners who make the system great and are now propping up this increasingly stressed education system? If large classes and chronic underfunding of public education are merely rabbit tracks, then what is the big game that Johnson is hunting? ❚
I welcome your comments—contact me at jonathan.teghtmeyer@ata.ab.ca.
