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McAllister supports increasing funding for education
The first thing you need to understand about Bruce McAllister, the Wildrose MLA responsible for the education portfolio, is that he refers to himself as an education advocate, not an education critic.
“The reason I say advocate is we are all in it together,” he says. “We have one of the best education systems in the world. We ought to be proud of the many things we do right. I think it’s because of the level of commitment from the people in the system itself. . . . I know how much [teachers] work and how much time they put in and how much they care. . . . That’s where it starts, that’s where the strengths begin, and probably where it ends. That’s where it all happens is in the classroom.”
Born in Fredericton, McAllister attended school in Medicine Hat through Grade 7, when he returned to New Brunswick to complete his education. He then enrolled in Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario, graduating with a diploma in journalism in 1991. After beginning his career in broadcast journalism in Medicine Hat, he relocated to Calgary, Winnipeg, Halifax and Victoria before settling in as host of Global Calgary’s Morning News until his 2012 election as MLA for Chestermere–Rocky View.
He describes himself as a big proponent of the public education system, which he attended and his children now attend. He has particularly fond memories of Mr. Helm, his Grade 5 and 6 teacher in Medicine Hat, who “just understood me and took the time to appreciate me as an individual.” McAllister recalls skipping recess one day in order to continue reading a series of books about a hockey player named Brody. “I actually hid one recess in this little compartment in the class so I could keep reading,” he says. While Helm did not notice the young McAllister, another teacher did, prompting Helm to remark: “What are you doing in there? You can sit in your desk and read.” McAllister suggests that, as an athletic student, he was probably the last person Helm expected to discover reading a book over recess.
McAllister identifies education funding as one of the challenges facing the province’s education system. He points out that the government promised long-term, predictable, sustainable funding for education before the 2012 provincial election but reneged on that promise afterwards. A Wildrose government, he says, would channel education funding to the classroom.
“We want to see more money to the front lines,” he says. “Any alternative budget that we’ve released always calls for more teachers. We always call for more frontline workers. At the end of the day, we need more teachers and fewer people telling them what to do—and that ought not to be rocket science.”
Class size is also a challenge. “To come up with something called a Class Size Initiative . . . and then realize it’s failing and pull money from it . . . is disingenuous. You don’t have to be too far from a school to recognize we’re putting more kids in classes and we seem to have fewer teachers.”
Another challenge is teacher workload. “If I’ve had one teacher, I’ve had 25 teachers tell me that they are drowning in a sea of government paperwork,” he says. “I don’t know when that started, but it’s almost like job justification to me.”
When asked about inclusive education, McAllister suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Decisions about inclusive education are best made at the local level, and early assessment is key, he says. “We want to see that funding support for that child going to that school so that school is able to acquire the resources that it can to help with that student. I think they’re best to figure out where that money goes.”
While he prefers to keep an open mind and await the recommendations of the Task Force for Teaching Excellence, he wonders whether it is not an example of “more government edubabble. If I was going to start a task force for teacher excellence, the first thing I would do is ask some teachers to sit on it,” he says. “I don’t think we need Matlock here to figure this out. If you want a task force on teacher excellence, wouldn’t you ask a teacher or two to be a part of that process?”
McAllister has also heard the criticism that the outcome may be predetermined by government. “They’ll have a lot of meetings. They’ll pretend that they are seeking input from the public, and in reality, they already know where they want to be. If they truly wanted to do something with teaching, I think they’d ask the teachers themselves. If I wanted my vehicle fixed, I think I’d probably go to a mechanic.”
At the same time, a Wildrose government would not reduce funding for private schools. “We don’t differ in any way from the provincial government’s viewpoint. We believe in choice in education, and we want to see those schools get a portion of funding,” he says. Nor would the Wildrose caucus oppose any move to remove the cap on the number of charter schools or to grant them permanency. “If the niche is there in the community, then we would support that also,” he says.
McAllister describes his caucus’s vision for the education system as collaborative rather than transformative. “Should we form government, I believe that we’ll be a government that works with the stakeholders, the people in the education system, those actually doing the work to make sure that our kids are getting a top-notch, quality education, that we’re graduating the best possible students in the country and world, for that matter, in preparing them for whatever path they choose,” he says. “We’re doing a lot of things right in education thanks to the people who are in education, so there would be no transformation. The biggest thing I’d like to see again is more money for teachers and the front lines.” ❚
