Education

The idea of hope in politics is often greeted with a slight cringe by experienced political activists. David Shirley doesn't want to take anything away from those who have worked hard for often elusive change, but the educator and activist is hoping people will take some inspiration from his work.

Alberta's newly elected school boards have by now finished with their organizational meetings, and are no doubt focusing on what they want to accomplish over their term of the next three years.  They do so in a context of considerable ambiguity and uncertainty, with musings from government about changing school board governance structure, perhaps by adding appointed members to boards.

EDMONTON—Results from Public Interest Alberta’s comprehensive survey of candidates running for school boards in Edmonton and Calgary reveal that there are important differences and views on a number of contentious educational issues.

Parents in the Capilano, Eastwood, McCauley, Parkdale, Spruce Avenue and Fulton Place school communities are to be commended for taking a stand to keep their schools open next fall.What they ran up against is an Edmonton public school board bureaucracy that acts as though it owns the schools, a majority of school board trustees who see their role as one of rubber-stamping administration directives, a minister of education who says it is not his problem, and a provincial government that passes its revenue failures and budgetary shortfalls on to those most in need.

EDMONTON—“Albertans should to very shocked to hear the price tag for building and maintaining 18 new schools in Edmonton and Calgary is now a whopping $634 million dollars when only a year ago the catholic and public school boards in those cities had predicted the total costs would be less than $240 million to build,” said Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. (For Edmonton, the costs were reported to be $117.8 million according to the June 15, 2007 article by David Howell in the Edmonton Journal)

EDMONTON—“Albertans should not be fooled by the ideological shell game in today’s announcement to build 18 new schools in Edmonton and Calgary,” said Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta

EDMONTON—A new report by Public Interest Alberta shows that many Albertans have serious concerns about the current state of our K-12 education system. The report is based on an online survey of over 4000 people from every corner of the province.