The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Alberta 2015–2035

What are the forces affecting communities in Alberta and how will they (re)shape our schools over the next two decades?

Over the past several years, the Alberta Teachers’ Association has asked teachers and many Albertans this question. This has started a dialogue about the economic, social and political changes that are affecting the Alberta landscape and what impact these changes have on the province’s public education system.

For more than a decade, Alberta has been Canada’s highest-performing province and the highest performing English- and French-speaking jurisdiction in the world on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests of student achievement. To maintain a vibrant and strong public education system, Albertan must be prepared to navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Imagining what education will look like in the Alberta of tomorrow is a complex undertaking. This issue of the Learning Team highlights seven trends that are changing Alberta. Each trend features information to help readers better understand the trend. It is hoped that these trends and the questions (see back page of this issue) will serve as a catalyst for discussions about Alberta’s future.

Alberta’s wealth continues to depend on primary resources and commodities in spite of the growth in many new enterprises and the decades-old emphasis placed on economic diversification.

A paradox of plenty

• One out of every 10 Alberta children lives in poverty, 42,800 of them school-age children, yet Albertans are materially some of the richest people on the planet.
• Poverty is costing the province $7.1 to $9.5 billion per year–investing 50% of this amount would eradicate the issue with the cost dropping over time.

Alberta’s demographic watershed

• Alberta’s population is now tipping the 4 million mark and projected to reach 5 million by 2020.
• 144 babies were born each day in 2012—52,398 that year.
• In 2012, 35,764 of the 200,000 new Albertans were immigrants from 200 different countries.
• There will be a doubling of immigration by 2030 and a tripling by 2050.

Public awareness and concern are growing as governments struggle to effectively respond to current environmental crises.

Smart movers?

• The typical Alberta high school student spends 3.5 hours per week on the bus.
• The “build and close, build and close” negative feedback loop is unsustainable for schools as Edmonton’s sprawl continues.
  —Michael Janz, Edmonton Public School Board
• Transit oriented development is the ideal growth strategy for Calgary.
  —Beverly Sandalack, University of Calgary

A new single family home is now 2,500 square feet—up from 1,000 in 1950, meanwhile the average household has shrunk from 3.4 to 2.6 people.
—Time, April 3, 2007

Whether it is Brazil for lumber, Texas for oil or the University of Phoenix for students, the world increasingly operates as a deeply interconnected, economic, cultural and political entity. There is only one planet.

Working hard–growing disparity of income and opportunity

• The income of the top 20% of wealthiest Albertans is 5,600 times that of minimum-wage income earners.
• Economic disparities in Alberta and Canada are growing, 10% of Canadian households hold 58% of the wealth.
• Canadians spend 277 minutes per day working or studying—the fourth highest of OECD countries.

Expanded and instant access to “point and touch” digital technologies and the need to be connected to others in both the virtual and the physical worlds are expanding the interest and capacity to offer broadened learning opportunities.

The intensification of childhood

• One third of Alberta parents have hired a tutor for their child. Typically, the child is already an honours student.
• 88% of parents expect their children to attend postsecondary—57% expect university attendance.
• The average debt for a student finishing an undergraduate degree in Alberta is about $24,000.
  —Public Interest Alberta

Adaptive learning

• Publishers and educational technology companies want to “atomize” students by collecting data that will profile them from kindergarten to adult life.

Governmental efforts to assess public mood using current public consultation models are being met with skepticism and mistrust. Opinion polls and focus groups are becoming less effective as measures of public opinion on complex issues in a democratic society.

If Alberta increased its taxation revenues by $11 billion per year, the province would still retain its position as the lowest tax jurisdiction in the country. —Poverty Costs 2.0: Investing in Albertans, 2012

A revolution about a revolution

• The blocking of MSN and Internet sites in China and Iran have been unsuccessful—Twitter and other applications for connectivity triumph.

Personal identity, once “set for a lifetime,” is now more fluid and increasingly a matter for personal exploration, conviction and commitment.

Rekindled narratives for Albertans and Alberta

• Finding—One in six marriages are based in Internet matching. Those seeking partners are increasingly having difficulty finding partners that match their expectations.
• Separating—Some 8,000 couples divorce in Alberta each year. Their marriage failed to meet the needs of one or both partners.

If we don’t teach children how to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely.
—Sherry Turkle, MIT technology and society specialist

Albertans of all ages are tangling with the promises of technology that expand into new creative, social and work relationships while dissolving the boundaries between person and machine, inner and public lives, information and entertainment, and domains of knowledge. Increasingly, technologies once adopted by a society are seen as much social as natural.

Growing screen time

• Among Canadian youth in Grades 6–10, screen time on weekends was 7 hours and 25 minutes per day, while weekdays amounted to 5 hours and 56 minutes per day.
  —Active Healthy Kids Canada

Our naked data and digital footprints

• In Canada, the average digital footprint begins around six months of age with 9% of newborns being given an e-mail address.
• 85% of Canadian mothers post photos of their children online before age two and 8% have created social networking profiles for these infants.
• More than a third of Canadian mothers post their pre-natal sonograms online.
  —Vancouver Sun, Oct 7, 2010