The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Pupil-Teacher Ratios

Definition

Pupil-Teacher Ratio is the ratio of total student population to total certificated staff

The latest comparative figures for 1995/96 for the Canadian provinces show:

In 1981/82, Alberta ranked 5th and in 1991/92 Alberta ranked 2nd.

According to the Alberta School Boards Association's report Pupil, Teacher and Staff counts, the highest pupil-teacher ratios are

The premier's standard response

The premier's standard response about education funding is that "the almost $1 billion increase between 1995/96 and 2001/02 is far and above the rate of inflation and . . . should be adequate to satisfy the needs of the various school districts in this province."   Source: Alberta Hansard, April 21, 1999.

A very large percentage of that increase consists of the money allotted to the basic instructional grant.

The figures below show projected budget figures for that grant.

To define money for projected student growth as a budgetary increase is quite unacceptable. Whatever number of students are in school, the government has to fund them. An increase occurs when the government is providing more money through the instructional grant for each student in school. After all, that money will only be spent if there are as many as 10,000 new students coming into the system each year. The cumulative cost of these additional 37,500 students over the four-year budget period could be as high as $395,000,000.

The basic instructional grant remained unchanged from 1994/95 to 1997/98. It increased 4.7 percent in 1998/99 and will increase a further three percent in 1999/2000, two percent in 2000/2001 and two percent in 2001/02. In total, by the end of 2001/02, the per-pupil basic instructional grant will have increased 12.1 percent while inflation, conservatively estimated, could rise during the same period by 13 percent.

Comparison of basic instructional grant to Consumer Price Index in Alberta

What is the real increase in the per-pupil basic instructional grant?

As a result of the most recent provincial-budget announcement, the per-pupil instructional grant for 1999/2000 will be increased by three percent instead of the proposed one percent announced in last year's budget. In actual dollars, the increase will be $116 per pupil according to the new budget. It would have been $39 per pupil under the 1998/99 budget proposal.

For your information, the extra $77.40 that represents the additional two percent works out as 0.39-that's right, 39 cents per pupil per day. For a class of 30 students, that works out to $11.70 per class per day.

Certainly, it is good to see the money going into the classroom-right? The additional one percent that has been promised for 2000/01 over and above the one percent already budgeted will add another $0.20, or 20 cents, per pupil per day to the classroom.

Questions and Answers

Question

Ron Stevens, MLA for Calgary-Glenmore, asked the following question in the Alberta legislature, April 21, 1999:

By September 2001 total education spending will be almost a billion dollars higher than it was in '95-'96 . . . . Why, then are some school boards still talking about cuts to staff, resources and programs?

The education minister replied:

Staff costs are the largest single expense that school boards face, including the Calgary board of education. The Calgary board of education review . . . found that instructional staff take up about 83 percent of the budget of Calgary public schools. (Alberta Hansard, April 21, 1999)

Answer

In 1997/98, the last year for which audited figures are available, teachers' salaries and benefits for Calgary public teachers accounted for 59.8 percent of total school-board expenditures. All other staff, including the superintendent, cost an additional 16.3 percent. That total for all staff employed by the Calgary Board of Education comes to 76.2 percent.

Question

In response to an answer from the education minister, Ron Stevens, MLA for Calgary-Glenmore, asked:

If staffing creates such a restriction on school board decision-making, then why not just increase funding for schools?

The education minister replied:

In order to provide more funding, we would either have to raise education property taxes or raise income taxes or other taxes. Albertans do not want more taxes. (Alberta Hansard, April 21, 1999)

Answer

The education minister's response might well be considered a scare tactic. There are several alternatives. For example, page 39 of the government's 1999-2002 Fiscal Plan shows the government building into its budget an economic cushion of $617 million for 1999/2000, $667 million for 2000/01 and $1,077 million for 2001/02.

Principal sources of provincial revenue

Total revenue, which stood at $14,962 million in 1995/96, is projected to reach $18,230 million in 2001-02-an increase of 21.8 percent.

Teachers' Salaries

There is always a great deal of talk about teachers' salaries and how teachers' pay is way out of line.

The following are salary figures for the last seven years for a Calgary public school teacher who has four years of training and 11 or more years of teaching experience.

The figures represent an increase of $35 between September 1992 and the present time.

A recent study of teachers' disposable income across Canada by the Canadian Teachers' Federation compared teachers' real disposable income in 1987 and 1997. The salary figures chosen related to teachers who had 17 years of formal education and were at maximum level on the salary grid. For Calgary public teachers the figures showed: