Education

Public Interest Alberta is pleased to release Priorities for Advancing the Public Interest.

The Alberta government has released its 2018 budget, which includes effective cuts to most areas of public services, as spending fails to keep pace with inflation and population growth.
 
“The piecemeal cuts to public services in the budget take Alberta in the wrong direction, but the striking thing is what is not in the budget,” said Joel French, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “Absent are many things Albertans need, like improved classroom conditions in schools and addressing the shortage of long-term care beds for seniors.”

A new report on four school boards’ policies and procedures on sexual and gender minorities points to the need for substantial changes in order to properly protect students and their rights, according to Public Interest Alberta.

EDMONTON – Public Interest Alberta joined with 16 other organizations today to urge the provincial government, in Budget 2018, to reduce public funding of private schools, exempting special needs schools, and reallocate the funds to improve classroom conditions in Public, Catholic, and Francophone schools.

Our province needs to move forward, not backward, and it needs to do so by moving in more fair, equitable, and effective directions, both in terms of public services and tax revenue in this budget.

EDMONTON—Public Interest Alberta Board Chair Larry Booi stated today that recent letters to the President and Chancellor of the University of Alberta by Catholic boards and superintendents are “a shocking example of an assault on academic freedom in our province.”

EDMONTON—Public Interest Alberta joined with 13 other organizations today to urge the provincial government to phase out the public funding of private schools, exempting special education schools, over three years and reallocate the money to fulfill its education-related campaign promises.

EDMONTON—A coalition of organizations led by Public Interest Alberta and the Edmonton and District Labour Council today called on Edmonton City Council to reverse the decision to sell two pieces of public land to private schools.

Today Public Interest Alberta and the University of Alberta’s Dr. Kristopher Wells, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Policy Studies, released Making the Grade, an analysis of four Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity policies that school boards have submitted to Alberta Education.

Public Interest Alberta has long advocated for quality public education system that is accessible to all children and families.  This month, we spoke out against PC MLA Ric McIver's Motion 504, advocated for an end to public funding for private schools, and called for charter schools to be absorbed into the province’s public school boards.