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J-C Couture
As the school year winds down, teaching and learning conditions in Alberta’s classrooms bear out the observations made in the recent Parkland Institute publication, Taming the Tempest: An Alternate Development Strategy for Alberta.
The Parkland report highlights the Alberta government’s current disinclination to plan infrastructure and investment, maximize oil and gas revenues, prioritize value-added jobs, and save for the future. "The Alberta government’s mishandling of this boom has resulted in growing homelessness, skyrocketing inflation, and an economy that is entirely vulnerable to the whims of international energy markets," says Diana Gibson, the report’s author and research director for the Institute.
The tempest metaphor captures much of what we know about Alberta’s classrooms this year, thanks to the data gathered through the newly expanded research capacity of the ATA. The picture the numbers paint points to the growing complexity of Alberta schools. Currently, 1,500 new children arrive in Alberta each month (that translates into 10,000–30,000 new students arriving in Alberta during the next school year). The faces of these new students reflect the growing diversity and complexity of Alberta’s classrooms. For example, 25 per cent of Calgary’s children under the age of 15 are a visible minority, while 20 per cent (or 17,000) require English as second language services.
The Association’s annual survey of members provides startling indicators of the conditions in Alberta classrooms. Thirty-one per cent of Alberta teachers reported increased class sizes with the composition of classes having significantly or somewhat worsened for 42 per cent of classrooms. Further, support for students with special needs declined in 43 per cent of classrooms.
Teachers’ workload significantly increased in 2006/07. Seventy-one per cent of Alberta teachers reported an increased workload, the largest increase ever reported in the history of this annual survey. Not surprisingly, the largest increases in workload were related to communicating with parents (49 per cent), preparing and designing lessons (46 per cent), instructing students (46 per cent) and marking (47 per cent).
The conditions faced by new teachers points to systemic, longer-term challenges ahead. While almost 63 per cent of new teachers indicate that class size was a somewhat or very positive influence on their ability to teach this school year, almost one-third (30 per cent) of beginning teachers feel that the size of their classrooms has a negative influence on their ability to teach, and 29 per cent see class composition in a similar light. The lack of support for students with special needs was identified by 30 per cent of beginning teachers as a significant and negative influence on their ability to teach.
Classroom conditions are not the only thing that affected the experience of new teachers this school year. Consider that student loans or debt related to university studies is reported by 65 per cent of new teachers in amounts ranging from $435 to $75,000 with an average debt at $24,042. Because 75 per cent of Alberta’s teachers report that financial concerns were a moderate or high source of stress, it is important that a long-term solution to salary issues be achieved. In this light, keeping Alberta’s new teachers in the profession will continue to be a significant challenge. In a province where 30 per cent of teachers leave the profession after the first five years, we can ill-afford failure to address issues such as class size, support for students with special needs and financial well-being.
Against the backdrop of Alberta’s booming economy, the dramatic changes that took place in Alberta classrooms this past school year reinforce the underlying message of Taming the Tempest. Without government commitment to sustain development by investing in education and other public services, Alberta students will continue to be denied the benefits of the tremendous growth the province is experiencing.
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