The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Turning around sliding math scores is the top educational priority of Alberta’s new government, said Premier Jason Kenney after being sworn in on April 30.

Kenney was sworn in at Government House in Edmonton along with a new cabinet that includes Education Minister Adriana LaGrange.

LaGrange is a first-time MLA elected in Red Deer North. She served as a trustee of the Red Deer Catholic Regional School Division for more than 11 years. She possesses a diploma in rehabilitative studies and has worked to help Albertans facing physical and mental disabilities. LaGrange has also owned a trucking company and has operated a family farm.

Following the swearing-in of his new cabinet, Kenney fielded a variety of media questions. Here are the two questions posed by the ATA News along with Kenney’s complete answers.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association has been critical of some aspects of the UCP’s education platform. Given this, to what extent are you willing to work with teachers to address their concerns?
“We are always willing to work with special interest groups, including the Alberta Teachers’ Association, but for us the most important stakeholders in education are students and parents.

As I’ve always said, we believe that parents know better than politicians what’s in the best interests of their kids and that’s why one of the fundamental values of the United Conservative Party and this government will be our belief in school choice. That is something that the ATA has a long history of opposition to and so on issues like school choice we will have to agree to disagree.

I respect our teachers enormously — my dad was a teacher, we have teachers in our caucus and we have a minister of education in Minister LaGrange who has served for several years as chairman of a school board and as president of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees’ Association, so we’re coming to that table with a minister who understands the challenges with real depth and with a platform that speaks to improving outcomes for Alberta students.

We already indicated during the election period that we’re willing to take a half-step back on a couple of our campaign proposals, including the 50–50 split on diploma exams and renewal of Grade 3 PAT tests. We heard expressions of concern from parents and teachers so I think we said that we’ll take a step back and consult. I think that’s an indication of the good faith with which we will approach educational change.”

What is your top priority in education?
“Top priority is getting math scores turned around, stopping the rapid decline in math proficiency which is setting a lot of our young Albertans up for failure in the future. This is as close to an education emergency as anything that I could imagine, where you’ve had a waterfall in terms of Alberta students’ math proficiency in standardized tests.

So with respect to curriculum reform and everything … we will be moving very quickly to repeal the ministerial order which made discovery–inquiry learning the norm in the system. We want to empower our schools to return to tried, true and tested teaching methods that get better outcomes in math and reading.”