By Letter to the Editor on October 10, 2024.
Dear editor, The Alberta Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides, recently advised of the government’s intention to change the funding model for K-12 education. This proposal should be viewed in the context of the UCP Annual General Meeting scheduled for early November. Much has already been said about the premier’s need to appease the Take Back Alberta (TBA) faction that now controls the UCP executive; the expansion of the Sheriffs as a “second police force,” the return to hand-counted paper ballots for elections, Alberta’s new Bill of Rights and the premier’s assurance that she will investigate chemtrails over Alberta. Danielle Smith needs to win the leadership confidence vote during the UCP AGM and will go to extremes not to emulate former Premier Jason Kenney’s road to oblivion. The premier has announced an $8.6-billion school capital building campaign over the next number of years. Perhaps Nicolaides’ proposal for K-12 is the recognition that operating expenditures must increase to match the capital spending? Unfortunately, politics would suggest otherwise. One of the key demands by the UCP base repeated since its inception, involves parental control over the education of their children, including “public, separate, charter, independent, alternative and home education programs” (UCP Member Policy Declaration 2021). The premier committed to funding the building of independent (private) schools as part of her capital expenditures, however she may need to do more to retain the premiership. At the 2019 UCP AGM the Lacombe-Ponoka Constituency Association recommended that the best process for achieving parental control over education would be to adopt the American approach known as educational vouchering. This topic has been broached ever since by the UCP, and in 2023 the Calgary-Edgemont Riding Association also called for the adoption of the educational vouchering system, though it was narrowly defeated in the general vote. However, education vouchering has been recommended for discussion by at least nine UCP Constituency Associations for the November 2024 AGM. Sixteen American states currently use a voucher system. The basic premise calls for families to receive a credit or voucher from the government for school aged children. The family may use this credit for public, private, religious or home schooling. Special needs students will potentially receive larger amounts of funding, however as experienced in the Arizona model, private schools are not obliged to accept special needs students or anyone requiring accommodations. Public schools in Alberta claim to be able to accommodate any and all special needs students despite the reduction of special needs and teaching assistants. As parental frustration grows over classroom overcrowding, unmanageable students and lack of resources, parents will seek alternatives to enhance their children’s educational opportunities. Currently Alberta has the lowest per-capita funding for education in Canada. One approach by school districts to mitigate the underfunding has been the creation of academies; sports, agriculture, avionics, science and technology. Academies allow school districts to direct bill families. As underfunding begins to show on the quality of education in Alberta’s public system, disillusioned parents will accept that a good education for their children may only be found in private institutions at increased costs. Meanwhile, the public schools will continue to be under funded while accommodating special needs as well as families with less disposable income. Public education should be a great social equalizer that opens opportunities for everyone, and levels the playing field notwithstanding a family’s financial wherewithal. As minister of advanced education, Nicolaides irrevocably damaged the post-secondary institutions in this province, and now he may well be targeting the K-12 system. Jim Groom Medicine Hat 19