What has happened to education in Alberta?
By Letter to the Editor on August 29, 2018.
In the 1990s and into the early 21st century the Alberta education system was recognized as one of the best in the world. It was so successful that other provinces and countries sent delegations to see how they might replicate this model in their jurisdictions. Parents and newly formed parent councils can take much credit for the success. They were informed and demanded public schools provide excellent programming that could compete with reputable private schools. And they looked for comparable curricular enrichment and high academic results. Parents were the driving force behind the emergence of charter schools. Public schools hurried to offer alternative programs, before parents exercised their option of increased choice and open boundaries. Students were the beneficiaries: More focused learning, improved academic results, a province wide level playing field allowing unbiased access to post secondary financial assistance, and a preferred entrance status to post secondary institutions across Canada. Alberta students consistently ranked among the highest achievers in math and science worldwide! What has happened? Whereas one and two decades ago parents were not only demanding higher educational and academic standards for their children, they were citing curricular expectations and objectives where improvement was needed in their schools. Today, parent councils and parents in general seem to have succumbed to their board and department of education ideologies that have reduced curricular outcomes to a social/emotional manifesto. They have not questioned the almost meaningless provincial assessments that inform about student academic results. They have been lulled into debating the status of bathroom equity, rather than the relevant knowledge content of subject disciplines. Ask any university faculty, outside of education and the humanities, and they can relate their frustration about the poorly prepared Alberta student, while they watch ever growing percentage of foreign-trained students legitimately being selected for research and innovation grant positions. It seems our Alberta society has become so overwrought with the “social/emotional equity” ideology, that we have disadvantaged our students in an increasingly competitive global economy. We would rather teach our children to be self taught happy feel-good unique individuals, than teach the effort and knowledge it takes to successfully compete in a callous world. In our pursuit of equality we have lost our balance of goals in Alberta schools. To gain some insight into this growing imbalance, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron” (1961), should be mandatory reading by all parents. It is 2081, every citizen is fully equal, meaning that no one is stupider, uglier, weaker, or slower than anyone else. The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced. Vonnegut suggests that total equality is not an ideal worth striving for, as many people believe, but a mistaken goal that is dangerous in both execution and outcome. To achieve physical and mental equality among all citizens, the government in Vonnegut’s story tortures its citizens. Has the minister of education become the “Handicapper General” of Alberta? Richard Dietrich Medicine Hat 9-8
