Internationally, the decade was dominated by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and President Ronald Reagan of the United States.
On the national stage, Joe Clark's minority Conservative government of 1979 to 1980 was defeated by Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government, which remained in power until 1984. The Liberals undertook major constitutional reforms, including the patriation of the Canadian constitution, through the Constitution Act of 1982, and the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As institutions governed by provincial legislation, schools in Alberta were required to comply with the human rights provisions of the charter.
Oil prices rose dramatically at the beginning of the 1980s, threatening Canada's economy but boosting Alberta's. In 1980, in an effort to ensure oil sufficiency for Canada, Trudeau enacted, as part of the federal budget, the National Energy Program (NEP), a federal initiative that Albertans, two decades later, still painfully remember as an attempt to seize provincial resources. The NEP precipitated a serious disagreement between the federal government and Alberta over oil pricing and revenue sharing. By 1982, when the world price of oil started to fall, the reason for the federal intervention disappeared. The federal Progressive Conservatives, led by Brian Mulroney, came to power in 1984 and moved quickly to dismantle the NEP.
Another landmark event in the economic and political realm occurred in 1988 when Mulroney and Reagan signed the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
On the world scene, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 symbolized the end of world communism. West Germany and East Germany moved toward unification. The Cold War, the struggle between democracy and communism that had shaped world affairs since the end of World War II, came to an end. By the end of the decade, a different worldview was emerging. With communism no longer a threat, free enterprise became the ascendant ideology. Globalization took world stage.
In Alberta, Don Getty became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party when Peter Lougheed retired in 1985. Premier Getty won provincial elections in 1986 and again in 1989.
The early and mid-1980s were a time of economic downturn for the province. Highly dependent on resource royalties, provincial revenues fell along with the declining price of oil. Alberta entered the bust phase of its boom-and-bust economic cycle. Efforts at diversifying the Alberta economy by, for example, drawing investments into forestry development, were not particularly successful, and the provincial economy remained tied strongly to oil, gas and agriculture. The province began to practise fiscal constraint and to experience its painful effects.
Developments in education during the 1980s must be seen in the context of this economic situation. In 1980, the minister of advanced education and manpower announced the creation of the Alberta Heritage Scholarship Fund, to be implemented in the fall of 1981.
A strike by teachers in the Calgary Board of Education in 1980 occasioned the Kratzmann Report, which was submitted to the minister of labour in December 1980. The report, subtitled A System in Crisis, contained the results of a fact-finding investigation into the working conditions of Calgary teachers as well as recommendations for resolving conflicts that had led to the strike. The report clearly pointed to some strains in Alberta's public education system.
In 1981/82, education was the second-largest single program commitment in the provincial budget (Tupper, Pratt and Urquhart 1992, 49–50). Throughout the 1970s, government programs had regularly enjoyed budgetary increases. In contrast, most of the 1980s was characterized by budget restraint, which took the form of a freeze in government funding. The exception was 1982, which was marked by a generous election-year budget. Efforts at financial restraint began in earnest following the election.
The province's economic hard times coincided with the appearance of public concern about declining educational standards and grade inflation (Zachariah and O'Neill 1990). For some time, business groups and employers had been expressing dissatisfaction about the skills of high school graduates, concerns that were subsequently picked up and reported by the media. In the early 1980s, Minister of Education David King announced that the government was considering reinstating grade 12 examinations, a proposal that was part of a wider, long-term effort to evaluate teachers, school systems and programs (Zachariah and O'Neill 1990). The Alberta Teachers' Association, the Alberta School Trustees' Association, the Conference of Alberta School Superintendents and the Edmonton Public School Board all expressed opposition to the proposed changes. Nevertheless, the minister's proposal to reinstate high school diploma examinations was implemented—in slightly modified form—in January 1984.
The 1980s was a period of financial restraint that affected the funding and structure of both elementary and secondary education. The province's loss of resource revenue had far-reaching consequences for education. Over the course of the decade, provincial expenditures on education gradually fell as a percentage of provincial revenue (Decore and Pannu 1991). At the same time, education costs began to shift to municipalities as some school boards raised municipal taxes to maintain per-student expenditure at the previous levels. To gain more control over expenditures and to temper school board operations, Alberta Education introduced the Management and Finance Plan in 1984.
By the late 1980s, Alberta Education was advocating a basic core curriculum that would have fewer options and would, therefore, be less expensive to deliver.
At the same time, Alberta Education was attempting to assure the public that student performance was not deteriorating. In 1982, the government introduced an achievement testing program, which, by 1984, had become routine at the grades 6 and 9 levels. Also in 1984, Alberta Education reinstated grade 12 departmental examinations. In 1989, Alberta Education announced that, in 1992, achievement testing would be extended to the grade 3 level, a development that many teachers found particularly objectionable (de Luna 1989). The Alberta Teachers' Association cautioned against embarking on such an approach, arguing that, without procedural safeguards, the tests would be open to abuse. At the heart of teachers' objections was the sense that their collective professional expertise was being ignored in the formation of educational policy and practice.
For some educators, the events of the early 1980s are still too close to be seen in perspective. Words such as retrenchment, downsizing, budget reduction and fiscal restraint entered the educational vocabulary. Teachers pondered ways of mitigating the effects of cutbacks on their classrooms (Porat 1987; Koran 1988). Schools began focusing on financial considerations. The financial and administrative implications of Alberta Education's Management and Finance Plan, which was implemented at the time, have been extensively documented by Duke and Fenske (1985). Richards (1985) describes the intricate dynamics of financial decision making by school boards in the mid-1980s.
During the 1980s, the federal government became more involved in public education, constitutionally a realm of provincial jurisdiction. The federal government had traditionally been involved in such matters as native education, postsecondary funding and funding for university research. However, with the passage of the Constitution Act in 1982 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which came into force in 1985, people in Alberta, as elsewhere in Canada, became more conscious of their legal rights as citizens. As a result, they began demanding that schools become more tolerant and inclusive, particularly with reference to the provision of minority-language rights and equality rights.
Section 23 of the Charter guarantees minority-language rights. In Alberta, the government was compelled to establish francophone programs, schools and even school boards "where numbers warrant." Section 5 of Alberta's (1988) School Act provided the legal basis for such francophone instruction within the province.
The equality provisions contained in section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave additional impetus during the 1980s to the mainstreaming of special needs students in Alberta classrooms. A broad range of handicapped children who had previously received little education or had been educated in private schools was now integrated into the public education system.
Also during the 1980s, the equality provisions in section 15 of the Charter made people more sensitive to women's issues and to discrimination on the basis of gender. Nixon (1984), for example, described the barriers experienced by women endeavoring to become school administrators. Despite longstanding efforts to redress inequities, males continued to dominate the educational workplace during the 1980s (Nixon 1984).
Tolerance for diversity was also manifested in the growth of multicultural programs in schools. The federal government had begun in the 1970s to adopt multicultural policies that supplemented its initiatives with respect to biculturalism and bilingualism. Efforts were undertaken to make schools more democratic and egalitarian by ensuring that they accepted students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and faiths. Just as bilingualism had paved the way for accepting the French language in schools, multiculturalism furnished a rationale for introducing into schools programs for such other heritage languages as Cree, Ukrainian, German and Polish (McAndrew 1987). Alberta passed a Multiculturalism Act in 1988.
Another indication of the growing focus on rights during the decade was the passage of the federal Young Offenders Act in 1984, which set out the rights of 12- to 17-year-olds accused under the Criminal Code of Canada. This legislation could sometimes be a source of anxiety for teachers when the courts chose the so-called alternative measure by deciding that a young offender should attend school rather than be punished for an offense.
In general, the Charter focused the awareness of Canadians in the 1980s on human and citizen rights. Alberta was the stage for a number of public debates about the monopoly of the public school system.
One issue was whether private schools should be allowed to exist and, if so, whether they should receive public funding. In the 1980s, a number of religious groups in Alberta lobbied for increased funding for private schools. Private schools in Alberta were financed chiefly by fees and by donations. Although the government provided some operational funding for private schools under certain conditions, it neither allowed private schools a share of the property tax nor provided them with any money for capital expenses. Many private-school supporters argued that they should receive more support from the province.
The private-schools debate illustrated that at least some Albertans were not satisfied with the prevailing practices in public education. Their objections reflected a general lack of confidence in schools and the educational establishment. Other Albertans felt that they were paying too much for an educational system not of their choosing.
Public education was no longer perceived simply as something good. People were asking questions about schools. The increasingly critical mood of Albertans may have been prompted by the various education reforms happening in the United States. In 1983, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Americans discussed a proposal for educational reform entitled A Nation at Risk, which lamented the mediocre quality of much American education.
In Alberta, Dr Joseph Freedman (1995), a radiologist from Red Deer, and Andrew Nikiforuk (1993, 1994), a Calgary columnist, rose to prominence as critics of public education. Supposedly on behalf of parents unhappy about their children's education (Taylor 2001, 22), Freedman and Nikiforuk questioned the quality of education available to children and promoted a return to a more traditional pedagogy.
Freedman became an outspoken advocate for charter schools, which had already appeared in Great Britain and New Zealand and were now emerging in the United States. Charter schools were driven by the marketplace notion that parents should have a choice about where their children are educated. Charter schools also received an impetus from employers and business groups dissatisfied with the quality of graduates from the school system. The rights of private schools remained a matter of considerable contention in Alberta during the 1980s (Bergen 1981, 1982, 1986a, 1986b).
Many arguments have been advanced in support of, and in opposition to, private schools (Bezeau 1989, 190–92). Supporters of private schools argue that such schools should be allowed to exist because they are an expression of religious freedom, something that should be fostered in a pluralistic society. Critics of private schools argue that, in a democracy, public schools are essential to give students the shared experience necessary to assume their roles as citizens. The proliferation of private schools undermines the consensus necessary for public schools to operate effectively.
During the 1980s, private-school supporters in Alberta used the argument of religious freedom to make their case for the existence of private schools. Some parents went so far as to argue that they had the right to provide private schooling for their children and that they should be able to claim education-related expenses as tax deductions.
In 1978, a group of Holdeman Mennonites had withdrawn their children from the local public school and established a private school. When challenged by the province under the compulsory-attendance provision of the School Act, the defendants took their case to court and won. In 1980, the case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the parents' right to send their children to a private school. As a result, the province established a new category of unfunded private school.
The debate over private schooling occasionally became acrimonious (Wagner 1995). In 1984, the Department of Education contracted Woods Gordon Management Consultants (1984) to investigate the issue, an investigation that resulted in the publication of A Study of Private Schools in Alberta.
Another important case in the debate over private schools during the 1980s was that of Pastor Thomas Jones, a fundamentalist Christian charged with operating a private school without seeking permission to do so (Bezeau 1989, 128). Jones claimed on religious grounds that he was not obliged to ask for such permission. The case dragged on in the media for some time before Jones and Minister of Education Nancy Betkowski came to an understanding on the matter. Eventually, in 1987, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against Jones.
During the tenure of Education Minister David King, the government of Alberta provided some funding to private schools. Later in the decade, the province increased its funding to private schools to a level equivalent to 50 percent of the provincial per-pupil grant. By the end of the decade, the School Act (Alberta 1988) had been amended to provide ample legal basis for the existence of private schools.
During the decade, more and more parents began schooling their children at home. Some parents did so in an effort to keep their children safe from the allegedly harmful influences of the school environment. Section 23 of the School Act provided legal justification for this course of action.
During the 1980s, a related controversy surfaced over the provision of alternative programs. In late 1983, newly elected trustees on the Calgary Board of Education decided to end agreements with two religious groups that had been allowed to offer religious alternative programs under the auspices of the school board (Porat 1983, 1984). The trustees made this decision on the grounds that Calgarians did not support such programs. Alternative-school supporters viewed their exclusion as unfair and discriminatory.
By the end of the decade, the School Act was amended (Section 16) to allow for the inclusion of alternative programs in the public education system. The distinguishing feature of such alternative programs was that they used a different approach to content or method than did the regular program of studies.
From 1983 to 1985, the province was embroiled in a case involving a high school social studies teacher by the name of Jim Keegstra, who was dismissed from his position in Eckville for failing to teach the prescribed curriculum. Keegstra was subsequently accused of teaching anti-Semitism in his classroom (Hare 1993), and his teaching certificate was withdrawn. All the major players of the educational establishment—the Department of Education, the Alberta School Trustees' Association and the Alberta Teachers' Association—were embarrassed by the Keegstra affair. The government responded by establishing a committee on tolerance and understanding, chaired by Ron Ghitter. In its final report (Ghitter 1984), the committee recommended that the curriculum be evaluated to ensure that it met certain standards of tolerance and understanding.
Education Minister David King created the Council on Alberta Teaching Standards (COATS) to replace the Board of Teacher Education and Certification. Significantly, COATS was empowered to investigate cases of alleged teacher incompetence, a matter that had previously been up to the employing school board.
Talk of government cutbacks came and went throughout the 1980s. For a while, the implications of the hard financial times for education remained unspoken. Many hoped that cutbacks and retrenchment would just go away. Increasingly, however, public education was coming to be seen both as a big business and as expensive (Strathcona County Retired Teachers' Association 1999, 197). In 1987, the government, under the leadership of Don Getty, introduced cutbacks to education. By the end of the decade, the province was preoccupied with resolving its financial problems.
Alberta was not the only part of the country to experience cutbacks in education in the 1980s. British Columbia, its western neighbor, shared in the painful experiences of educational retrenchment (Jacobson and Kuehn 1986).
In 1988, Minister of Education Nancy Betkoswki introduced a revised School Act, which clearly articulated the twofold nature of public education in Alberta by conferring comparable prominence on both public and separate schools (Carney 1992, 17). The preamble to the School Act (1988) referred to "one publicly funded system of education in Alberta whose primary mandate is to provide education programs to students through its two dimensions, the public schools and the separate schools." This statement emphasized the fact that both the public and separate school systems were tax supported.
Summary
The story of public education in Alberta during the 1980s is difficult to summarize. In many ways, the beginning of the 1980s was a time of business as usual in Alberta. Apart from the fury surrounding the National Energy Program, many Albertans hoped that the good times of the previous decade would return and continue more or less indefinitely. Many expected that the government's funding problems and financial restraint would be temporary.
However, the decline in provincial royalty revenues led gradually to financial constraints in provincial expenditure. In education, the constraints at first took the form of budget freezes in which the education budget either remained the same or increased by very small amounts. By the end of the decade, the government was cutting back the education budget. It also attempted to control educational spending by introducing evaluation measures designed to assure the public in general, and the business sector in particular, of the quality of public education.
During the 1980s, public education was subjected to much criticism, a situation that tended to undermine public confidence in education. Unchecked, the criticisms entailed potentially devastating effects for schools, school boards and teachers and, inevitably, for students. Lack of public support eventually left public schools vulnerable to sweeping changes.
The federal Constitution Act of 1982 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms made people more aware of human and citizen rights. As a result, public education was forced to evolve during the 1980s to become more egalitarian and to meet the needs of those who had been deprived of the benefits of public schooling. For example, handicapped students who had previously been largely shut out of the public education system were increasingly mainstreamed into regular classrooms.
During this decade, much debate occurred in Alberta about whether private schools should be allowed to exist alongside public schools. The rights consciousness engendered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms resulted in demands for more tolerance toward private schools and home schooling. Arguing that a pluralistic society should foster religious freedom, private-school supporters lobbied for more public funding for their schools. At the same time, an increasing number of parents began to home-school their children. The debate over private school increasingly centred on the issue of choice.
Although new public attitudes surfaced in Alberta during the 1980s, few people questioned the need for sustained substantial investment in public education. Generally, the route taken was to try to improve the public education system and to render it more inclusive. Despite expressions of dissatisfaction, a general confidence prevailed among most Albertans in the 1980s that the public school system could handle the many issues confronting it. Little thought was given to dismantling the system.
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