Distance learning phase-out will have minimal local effect, but advocate says move shouldn’t be trusted

By JEREMY APPEL on March 4, 2020.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel

Administrators from two local school boards say the impact of the government phasing out the Alberta Distance Learning Centre will not make much of an impact, but a provincial public education advocate says it’s an ominous sign of future developments.

The ADLC, based out of Barrhead’s Pembina Hills School Division, was established in 1997 to provide learning opportunities for adult students looking to receive their General Education Development certificate, in addition to those who live in remote areas.

According to a statement from PHSD superintendent David Garbutt, the Education Ministry informed him that ADLC’s funding will be getting phased out over the next two years, with it receiving $14 million for the 2020-21 school year and $7 million for 2021-22 before the service agreement’s conclusion.

Associate superintendent for the rural Prairie Rose School Division Reagan Weeks told the News in a statement that the board does use ADLC resources for its Beyond Walls Outreach School, “but not exclusively.”

“These courses are used on occasion when there is a particular program, such as forensics, that a student wishes to access. So while the changes to ADLC funding will have some impact in Prairie Rose, it will be minimal overall, and we should be able to adequately manage this transition as the program phases out over the next two years,” said Weeks.

Ditto for the Medicine Hat Public School Division.

“While the changes in the funding model for distance learning in Alberta will have some impact on our system, we are not concerned about our ability to respond to the changes,” says superintendent Mark Davidson.

Education Ministry spokesperson Colin Aitchison says the government is simply working “to provide equitable funding to all distance learning providers in Alberta,” of which ADLC is the only one of 32 to receive dedicated block funding.

He expressed confidence that “these changes will not prevent current Alberta Distance Learning Centre students from completing their high school diploma.”

“All of the funding will remain in the education system,” said Aitchison.

Barbara Silva, spokesperson for the Calgary-based public education advocacy group Support our Students, says the ADLC phase-out is part of the government’s broader intention to weaken the public school system and cannot be viewed in isolation.

She cites lifting a cap on charter schools and the inclusion of Miles Smith, the founder of a for-profit e-learning company, on the K-12 curriculum review panel as signs of the direction the government is moving in.

“What’s going to happen is that schools who are not receiving more funding to do things that are costly, like expanding into online education, is they’re going to outsource it to online charter schools that may or may not be for profit,” said Silva.

“It shifts the responsibility away from the government to provide equitable and accessible education, and puts it onto third-party private institutions.”

Silva calls ADLC “a lifeline for young pregnant women, for kids who’ve dropped out of school and for rural students.”

According to the ministry, fewer than 50 per cent of students in ADLC have finished their diplomas, with 46 per cent in 2016-17, 38 per cent in 2017-18 and 46 per cent in 2018-19.

Silva acknowledges this is a problem, but says the solution is to be found within the public system.

“These are all kids who have been disenfranchised, disengaged and alienated from the general pathway of public education,” she said, citing an outdated K-12 curriculum. “If this government is trying to solve a problem, it needs to find where the problem lies and invest there, but this government is doing neither of those things.”

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