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The ATA News, in an effort to raise awareness of legislative affairs regarding education, profiles new ministers of education and critics named by all parties represented in the legislature. A profile of Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk appeared in the November 22, 2011, issue of the ATA News. A profile of official opposition education critic Kent Hehr appeared in the January 31, 2012, newspaper. This issue of the ATA News features education critics of the other parties represented in the legislature.
Editor’s Note: As of press time—Friday, February 10, 4 p.m.—despite repeated invitations for an interview, the ATA News had not heard from Rob Anderson, MLA for Airdrie-Chestermere and education critic for the Wildrose Alliance Party.
New Democrats vow to break cycle of “political gamesmanship funding”
Public education is a matter of pride, says New Democrat education critic Rachel Notley.
Notley identifies ameliorating disparities within society as one of the key roles of the public education system. Historically, the public education system “truly was public, and it provided high-quality education that was quite equitably accessible,” she says. “I think it’s in jeopardy now, and that’s my concern.”
A New Democrat government would eliminate public funding for private schools with the potential exception of those focused on special needs, she says. “We have so significantly dropped the ball on special needs education over the course of the last few years that I might see us phasing out funding for private schools that deal with special needs kids in a slower way to ensure that the public system is properly equipped.&rldquo;
Notley points out that government has cut special needs education funding by 20 to 30 per cent over the last three or four years by freezing funding for students with severe special needs and freezing the profiles of students with special needs. A New Democrat government would restore that funding in addition to ensuring proper funding for the class size recommendations of Alberta’s Commission on Learning, she says. While the New Democrat caucus is not particularly supportive of Setting the Direction for Special Education in Alberta, it strongly supports the idea of inclusion, provided that it is accompanied by adequate professional support and training.
School infrastructure is also in dire need of attention, she says. She points out that government is not managing the infrastructure debt, “a longstanding hangover from the Klein days.” In addition to infrastructure crises, such as that affecting Holy Family School in Grimshaw, public–private partnerships for new school construction, which government views as a quick fix, have long-term, negative repercussions, she says. They also have negative repercussions on urban cores, where the failure to properly maintain schools enhances the pressure on school boards to contribute to what she calls the doughnut effect (the city centre becomes hollow as population moves from inner suburbs to the outer suburbs). “It impacts education because it has a disproportionate impact on low-income students and students with special needs,” she says. In addition, education as a community-based and supported endeavour is “completely lost when you set up a 2,000-student school on the edge of the city and then tell everybody to bus to it.”
Notley also laments what she calls the recent phenomenon of “political gamesmanship funding.” She explains that, for the last few years, government has repeatedly threatened to break its promises to teachers and school boards to provide promised funding, creating administrative chaos as boards and schools attempt to respond to the impending budgetary shortfall. “They’ve created huge chaos within the school system in terms of where teachers are teaching, whether they can anticipate having that job the next time, the relationships that they build with the children, the relationships that they build with the parents. All that kind of stuff is completely thrown into disarray, so there’s an unmeasured cost that we have been bearing for the last two or three years over the politics of this government,” she explains. She vows that a New Democrat government would ensure adequate, predictable and sustainable funding for education.
She says that a New Democrat government would discontinue Grade 3, 6 and 9 provincial achievement tests and determine the best way to ensure system accountability and to properly measure student achievement. A New Democrat government would also introduce legislation to repeal section 11 of the Alberta Human Rights Act, which has a chilling effect on classroom discussion. “The constant and regular and committed championing of human rights should be an unquestioned part of the curriculum,” she says.
Pressure points in education need to be addressed—Alberta Party
Dave Taylor, MLA for Calgary Buffalo and education critic for the Alberta Party was interviewed by Laura Harris, ATA News.
What is the current state of Alberta’s education system?
“We have a good education system in the province of Alberta, one of the best in the world. But, it has pressure points. It has problems that need addressing and the way we see it, it’s difficult to address those problems when the funding for public education in this province is neither predictable nor stable …There’s the issue of teacher burnout, which we think is a real issue that we need to get to the bottom of, and I don’t think that we’re going to see much improvement in the situation until we change the way we fund education or the mentality that goes into making those funding decisions and return some decision-making autonomy to the local boards.”
Is the education system adequately funded right now?
“I think it’s difficult to tell right now whether it’s adequately funded or not, or whether it’s adequately funded in some areas but not others. … We think the first step to determining that is to move to a five-year planning cycle for education funding. Why five years? Simply because elections happen every three to four years. So if you start the budget cycle for your key areas—education is one, advanced education is another, health is another, and there are others as well—if you put those onto a five-year planning and budgeting cycle, you take the election cycle out of the picture and you start to fund and plan and budget in the public interest rather than the self-interest of the party that happens to be in power. … It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the way it is now.”
What does a successful community school look like?
“It seems a school where there’s a fair proportion of special needs or high needs students would make sense [for a community school]. I know that when you go back to the designated community school program that was back in the 80s and early 90s—and ran successfully for about 15 years—that even then, it was never the expectation that this community school model would work for every school in every community in every city and town and every place that has a school in the province. But it did work very well for some and it’s about schools at least having that choice and being supported to follow that direction. …There are so many other things that we think a so-called ‘community school’ could be about.”
Would the Alberta Party reduce funding for private schools?
“We’re still reviewing. We’re still discussing. We’re still debating, vigorously. One thing that needs to be a part of that debate is ‘What do the people think?’ which is pretty basic to what the Alberta Party is all about. …We haven’t come to a consensus yet on what the level of funding for private schools should be. But, I can tell you that most of the people we’ve spoken with who are outside the educational stakeholder community, most of the ordinary folks that we spoke to, are unaware that public funding for private schools was bumped up to 70 per cent a few years ago with virtually no consultation, no publicity, no fanfare—and they’re not too happy when they hear about it.”
To find out more about the education policy of the Alberta Party, click here.
