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Principles that would guide my actions as Premier include
1. Enabling Albertans to succeed by ensuring they have opportunities for advancement and education.
2. Seizing the Advantage Today, by investing some of the surplus revenues being accumulated as a result of high oil and gas prices into long-term infrastructure projects such as schools, colleges and other educational facilities in the province.
3. Strengthening Communities by giving local government and school boards greater control over tax dollars collected in their jurisdictions. For instance, this will mean leaving the provincial portion of the property taxes paid by homeowners in Alberta to local government and school boards to utilize to fix schools and invest in other local priorities as needed.
4. Renewal: it is essential for any province, even one as wealthy and successful as Alberta, to renew itself on a regular basis in terms of leadership, vision and action. Part of the renewal process is to reaffirm Alberta’s commitment to providing choice for all of its citizens in the major decisions they face in their life. Whether it is a health care decision or a decision about how best to educate their children, Albertans should have options to choose from. As Learning Minister, I was a strong proponent of choice as an excellent tool to stimulate success and ensure that the education system in Alberta remains competitive.
Our learning system is in good shape now because of the plurality in the system, the quality of instruction and the degree of choice that parents currently have to place their children in different types of learning settings. As Premier, I would reaffirm the basis of choice in education and extend the plurality and fairness in the system by levelling the playing field between all educational facilities and approaches in Alberta.
Parents would have the ability to choose what education approach best fits their child and their child’s needs. To this end all operational funds would follow the student to the system of their choice. The concepts of excellence, choice and accountability would be the overarching philosophy governing the learning system.
Alberta needs to encourage and reward innovation and excellence in education to remain competitive in the world economy. That means retaining the basic testing mechanisms set out in the provincial achievement tests, because despite the fact that individualized curriculums may benefit certain individual students, it is also crucial for us to accurately measure our progress toward academic achievement.
An Oberg-led government will examine the feasibility of instituting a full school voucher program for K–12 education in Alberta. Parents would be given a lump sum, based on the per pupil student grant in the form of a voucher redeemable at any public, private charter school or home schooling environment of their choice in Alberta. This would create greater choice, competition and innovation within the K–12 education system.
An Oberg-led government will prepare a 10-year plan to guide the K–12 education system in Alberta, and present that plan to Albertans by December 31, 2007. One of the essential inputs of this plan would come from an expert panel composed of superintendents, teachers, and parents, who would report on the progress made towards increasing the quality of the K–12 education system, including development of performance criteria.
An Oberg-led government will also reassess those unimplemented recommendations from the Alberta Commission on Learning with a view towards implementing any unimplemented recommendations by December 31, 2007.
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