Nov. 09, 2011 - Issue #838: From farm to plate
Political Interference
Re-act
Lukaszuk brings the Education Act back for round two
Last week, Alberta's Education Minister, Thomas Lukaszuk, announced that he was pulling Alberta's proposed new Education Act, Bill 18, from consideration as part of this fall's legislative agenda. The reason he cited for the move was that he wanted broader consultation on the act, and in particular that he wanted to hear from stakeholders that "traditionally have not been included in consultation."
Given that the act was the result of three years of extensive consultation, dialogue and discussion with school boards, teachers, administrators, parents, students, academics and support staff, it is hard to imagine which stakeholders Lukaszuk is talking about.
As overarching pieces of legislation go, the proposed Education Act is fairly innocuous, with only a handful of significant changes from the existing School Act. Of particular note among those changes are an increase to the compulsory education age (from 16 to 17), and extension to 21 of the maximum age for participation in the school system, better defined roles for school boards, parents, schools and trustees, and an increase in the power and flexibility given to school boards. For the most part, however, Bill 18 as it stands follows the standard Conservative practice of passing broad legislation in the legislature, and then filling out the specifics through regulations passed in council.
With all of this in mind, there has been no hint as to why Lukaszuk has actually decided to pull this bill from the fall sitting. His press release announcing the move, and subsequent media interviews, give not even a hint of which sections in particular he wants to review, and what wording he is seeking to change.
Part of the answer might lie in the fact that he has promised to make some decisions soon on how to proceed with the Northland School Division, where all 23 trustees were fired by Dave Hancock in 2010. Those actions will certainly have some impact on the section of the act dealing with board powers and responsibilities, as well as how the act deals with First Nations students and communities.
Likewise, the ongoing dispute with respect to the availability of secular education in the Morinville area has implications for how the government defines and allows for the establishment of public and separate school boards in jurisdictions around the province.
Finally, Premier Redford's promise to reinstitute full-day kindergarten across the province within a year of taking office, and the desirability of enshrining that guarantee in the act could also be part of the reason for a rewrite.
Ultimately, and regardless of the actual reason, the decision to engage in another round of consultations and re-draft the legislation will provide one more opportunity for Albertans to engage with the act and perhaps influence some important changes.
For example, the act as currently written expands who may establish charter schools in the province and provides the ability for those schools to become permanent programs. Although this may seem harmless, examples from the United States and other jurisdictions show how the move toward charter schools is blurring the line between public and private education, and facilitating the provision of tax dollars to what would otherwise be classified as private institutions. The reconsideration of Bill 18 provides an excellent opportunity for a broad discussion on the rationale for charter schools and their long-term impact on public education in Alberta.
It also provides an excellent opportunity for Albertans to pressure the government to include provisions in the Education Act which would ban all public financing of private schools. With the public system reeling from decades of cuts and infrastructure neglect, there can be no justification whatsoever for the government to continue providing funds to these private institutions.
There are also many things that the government has thus far refused to include in the act which would go a long way to securing the future of the system. Why can't we include limits on the teacher-student ratio in the act itself? How about defining what adequate infrastructure consists of? Or limit the participation of private, for-profit businesses in the classroom? Enshrining these things in the Education Act would remove these decisions from the closed-door meetings of council and the political whims and budgetary fancy of the government of the day. Remember that the current version of the bill was introduced in the legislature in the same session where the government decided to take $107 million out of the province's education budget. Shouldn’t we have an Education Act that prevents this sort of hypocrisy?
What Mr Lukaszuk's decision has done is provide us with an opening to turn a document full of big picture good intentions into one that will actually contribute to a positive future for public education in Alberta. It is now up to Albertans to take advantage of this opportunity by demanding an Education Act that actually acts for education instead of one that just looks good on the shelf. Call the minister today and let him know you want to be consulted. V
Ricardo Acuña is the executive director of the Parkland Institute, a non-partisan, public policy research institute housed at the University of Alberta.
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