The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Albertans are the beneficiaries of a world-renowned public education system that has evolved over decades. It is a system often studied by other countries seeking to navigate the many complexities of preparing children and youth for a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous future.

Of particular interest to international researchers studying our public education system is our historic commitment to equity in Alberta, and the fact that we consistently rank among the top performers globally when compared to other private and public education systems.

Excellence within any education system is only ever achieved through a commitment to equity built on public confidence achieved through democratic structures and trust in the teaching profession, classrooms and schools that are confident and competent in their ability to respond daily to the complex needs of a diverse student population. The public’s confidence and trust in our education system have come to be known as “public assurance,” a characteristic built over time—daily in every school, and throughout the school year in the public interactions and news that engage the general public.

There is always a danger that civil societies can become ambivalent to their public systems (e.g., education, health care) and, in doing so, fall prey to the illusion of the permanence and stability of these strong, common spaces. Public education is fragile and depends on the support of all citizens, many of whom may no longer have children in K–12 schools. Ensuring that all of the Alberta public has confidence and trust (i.e., assurance) in the efforts of our public education system is important, especially at this historical moment when we are facing a period of significant educational change and development on a number of fronts, including

• new practice standards for teachers, school leaders and superintendents;
• curriculum renewal, including rewriting the entire K–12 program of studies;
• enhanced supports for early learning;
• high school flexibility initiatives that broaden the purposes of education;
• new legislation and commitments to making schools safe, inclusive and nurturing environments for all students; and
• an ambitious program of school infrastructure development.

As all of these structures underpinning the education system are renewed, the Association has been advocating for new approaches to public assurance that are more responsive to the growing diversity and complexity of Alberta classrooms. The current accountability framework, established in 1995, has become a mechanism of compliance for school board planning and reporting, with the monitoring mechanisms and measurement instruments delivering little value to the public and Alberta teachers as they work to support diverse student learning or foster more equitable and inclusive classrooms across Alberta. A new model of public assurance must be committed to bringing forward the best of the accountability structures of the past, such as the Teaching Quality Standards, into more responsive approaches that will enhance greater public assurance in the future.

The fundamental purpose of public assurance is to engage Albertans in an ongoing conversation that will create confidence and trust that the shared commitments and actions within the system are responsive and achievable, and accomplish the goals of education.

Alberta teachers know that public assurance is attained through an interplay between actions that occur daily in the education system and provincial supports that play out over the school year. Examples of daily actions are the various interactions that naturally take place involving teachers, students, parents, principals and superintendents. Examples of provincial supports that are necessary for public assurance are class-size funding, inclusion supports and school infrastructure.

To initiate this concept of public assurance, the Association has proposed a new framework that’s based on research and that could replace old accountability structures. This new framework contains five domains for public assurance that are unique but interconnected.

Five domains for public assurance

1. Student experiences
   Students’ interactions with friends, their participation in sports/activities and their home life
2. Teaching and learning
   Teachers, schools and the school system
3. System supports
   Equitable distribution of the resources needed to ensure optimum learning
4. Governance
   Processes by which policy leaders at the provincial, municipal and school authority level make decisions and monitor implementation
5. Responding to local and societal context
   Response by schools and communities to the distinct needs and interests of their students

To make this new model work, a variety of illustrative elements and actions would need to be agreed upon (and jointly communicated) by the education partners so that the public would know the system is working together for assurance.

In this entire dialogue, the public must make certain that senior policy makers engage regularly with Albertans, and the government with key education partners, thus avoiding the risk of moving forward with simplistic or narrow bureaucratic responses to the velocity of change and the growing complexity of our society and education system.

As this conversation on public assurance in our public education system evolves, the profession will need to engage in the research on public assurance and further reflect on the differences between standards and standardization; the impact of public trust and confidence on assurance in an age when “truth” seems to be constantly shifting; the importance of equity within a society (excellent education systems achieved through equity); what is accepted as evidence (measuring what matters); and the difference between accountability and the need for teachers and principals to have the ability to respond within more complex and diverse communities. For example, in terms of standards, standardization and trust, below are two questions that I have been pondering:

• Is the public assured that their K–12 education system is of high quality only if it is defined by low levels of standardization (high trust)?

• Is the public assured that their K–12 education system is of high quality only if it is defined by high levels of standardization (low trust)?

In conclusion, the success of any new model of assurance will depend on its ability to build support and confidence among the public that the entire education system can meet the learning needs of all students, and that this system is committed to helping each student reach their potential. Public assurance happens not by measuring what is easy to assess, but by measuring and reporting on what society deeply values.

Dr. Phil McRae is the associate coordinator of research for the Alberta Teachers’ Association.