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Over the past 100 years our public education system here in Alberta has been referred to as “the great equalizer.” All students of the public system, which in Alberta includes Catholic and francophone education, have been provided opportunities to dream and the chance to work to achieve their dreams.
Our system has evolved to be one of the most comprehensive in the country and possibly around the world. In this issue, David Berliner writes about reasons that other areas of the world push for charter and private schools, but that is not the case here in Alberta. By providing many varied options within the public system, we take away the arguments that some of the wealthy use as a disguise for the segregation of their children. From academic academies to schools focused on sport or language, Alberta’s public education system provides children from all socio-economic backgrounds an environment where they can learn together and create bonds that will help blur the class lines of family income and power.
We have seen where jurisdictions that go the other way, towards privatization and charter schools, have weakened public schools through lack of government support until they flirt with no longer being a viable option. I’ll share an example from my own experience in my community of Fort Saskatchewan.
The Fort is the location of the western Canada operations of Dow Chemical, which regularly moves its executives around. One of the transfer locations is Houston, Texas. When families that have been transferred to Houston are being shown their new surroundings, the schools that are toured are private, as the starved-for-funds public schools are not considered viable options for children of engineers or project managers. The split is often around racial lines, and students are denied the opportunity to experience diversity as they would here in Alberta.
Also in this issue, Russell Cobb, a professor at the University of Alberta, shares the Oklahoma example of how boom-and-bust oil cycles affect government budgets across the board. This is a very familiar story for us in Alberta, and we need to heed the lessons that Oklahomans learned in a very hard way. Teachers in this predominantly Republican state stood up and changed the thinking in areas of the state that were strongholds for market models—truly a lesson for us as we move forward. We have long argued for stable funding to buffer us from the cyclical nature of world resource markets. The advocacy group Public Interest Alberta has an entire campaign on revenue reform to address the inequities of our present model. We are not alone, but we must be prepared to commit to the struggle.
One of the by-products of a market system in education is that of managerial models. School leaders are seen to be not instructional leaders but “bosses,” keeping budgets and employees in line. The perceived economies of one-size-fits-all take away from teacher autonomy in the classroom and create winners and losers among our students.
Our association has advocated for increased professionalism for teachers, and will continue to do so. It makes us stronger. While we are already one of the most recognized teacher organizations on the planet in terms of professional functions, there are still gains to be made in the areas of certification and universal membership. We serve our students best when we, as professionals, make the educational decisions for the kids in our classrooms.
Gains that have been made or moved toward in the last two years strengthen our position as one of the leading jurisdictions worldwide. We have not rested on our laurels and, working with government, have three new practice standards to insure high-quality teaching and learning. We are also well down the road of one of the most comprehensive rewrites of curriculum in history. This long overdue work has been in partnership with the ministry and has involved input from more than 300 Alberta teachers as well as post-secondary academics and ministry officials. The rollout will be at a pace that works for classroom teachers, beginning with voluntary field testing.
Public assurance will be monitored throughout the process but must evolve from standardized testing to a belief that what we have in Alberta is high-quality public education delivered by the most professional teaching force on the planet. Assurance relates to trust, and we must continue to nurture and grow that public trust in the work we do as we prepare for one of the most significant elections in the history of our province. There is much to be done and the stakes are high, but I believe we are up to the task.
