Education

EDMONTON -  On the first day back to school, thousands of parents and advocates are calling on the provincial government to stop the implementation of the new curriculum that has been roundly rejected by families, teachers and education experts. Instead, Public Interest Alberta, Protect Public Education Alberta, Youth Voice Alberta, and Support Our Students Alberta are demanding a process led by education experts to develop a new curriculum that will set all Alberta students up for success.

EDMONTON - The Alberta provincial government has given the green light to the first new charter school in 13 years after the Black Gold public school division shuttered a rural elementary school in June 2020.

EDMONTON -  Despite last week’s announcement of $262.8 million in federal funding to help re-open Alberta schools safely, public education advocates are still ringing the alarm about conditions in Alberta’s classrooms. The 2002 Alberta Commission on Learning (ACOL) set targets for school class sizes that the province has consistently failed to meet.

EDMONTON - The Alberta government has introduced its much-anticipated Choice in Education Act, which entrenches public subsidies of private schools in legislation and facilitates expansion of charter schools and home schooling. The changes represent a further fragmentation of the province’s delivery of education and come as funding cuts continue to devastate public schools, with growing class sizes and diminishing levels of classroom supports.

In an article titled “NDP child care plan shows vast gap with UCP policy” published on March 26, 2019, Don Braid wrote about the NDP’s plan to expand the $25 a day child care pilot program that would create additional child care spaces and bring affordable, quality child care to Albertan families. Mr. Braid noted the large investment required to make this a reality and asks whether “voters will see this as a major social benefit and economic driver or just another expense the province can’t afford.”

Just before the election call on March 19, the NDP tabled Bill One, which provides a strong statement about the need to take a stand against policies of health care privatization, and the steps that are needed to effectively do so.

EDMONTON - United Conservative Party (UCP) Leader Jason Kenney announced his party’s K-12 education platform. Despite the platform containing several points, issues affecting classroom conditions were not presented as priorities.

EDMONTON - Public Interest Alberta, a non-partisan progressive advocacy organization,  encouraged support for Edmonton Public Trustee Bridget Stirling’s motion, to ensure the public nature of school ownership and operation:

For some time, Albertans have been concerned with the privatization of education. The concerns centre around the equity of publicly funding schools that charge tuition in the tens of thousands of dollars. People argue further that we must protect public schools from the threat of privatization. But the truth of the matter is privatization is already here and it’s already operating under the public umbrella. We’ve built our system around a competition model, where the more students a school has, the more funding the school gets.

Originally published in the September 2018 issue of Alberta Views magazine.

"Our province has Canada’s most generous subsidies for private schools. Setting aside those private schools serving children with special needs, many of which fill gaps in our public systems, the Alberta government spends $110-million per year subsidizing private schools. This would be far better spent supporting students in public schools.

Parents enrolling children in private schools choose to opt out of their local public, Catholic or francophone system. They certainly have the right to do so, but they shouldn’t expect the public to fund that choice. Similarly, public funding makes library books available to anyone at no charge. Some people instead buy books from a bookstore, but they don’t expect the government to subsidize those purchases."

Read the full article.