It’s been a busy stretch for me since the Legislature session ended, both in our great constituency, and also on the education front. I was in Edmonton recently, along with Wildrose leader Danielle Smith to release our education policy for Albertans. It feels good to focus on solutions; on our Moving Alberta Forward plan.
First and foremost, Wildrose is committed to building schools, and building them now. The PC government promised to build 50 schools and renovate 70 more this term. Here we are, more than two years into their mandate, and they haven’t broken ground on a single project. Shameful, isn’t it? A Wildrose government will build 100 schools in four years, and complete all projects announced by the PCs. We will do it by making school construction a priority and opening up the bid process to include small and medium-sized construction companies. We have been pressuring the government to abandon its P3 model for school construction. At the end of the day, this model is nothing more than a way for the government to hide debt, which we all know they are addicted to. Well, surprise, surprise. Last week, they finally did what we have been telling them to and abandoned the P3 model. Too bad they’ve set us back another year on the construction front.
We also committed to doing what Albertans want us to by focusing on mastering the fundamental skills in language, math, science and social studies. For the life of me, I can’t understand why the Minister of Education, and his educrats at Alberta Education, decided mastering times tables was a bad thing for kids. We have been telling them for months that they should reinstate times tables as well as standard algorithms into the curriculum. If students need multiple strategies to learn, give teachers that option, but don’t force them to teach the convoluted methods to mathematics. Well, low and behold, late on a Friday afternoon, the PCs slip out a press release calling for times tables, other basic math facts, and language changes to the math curriculum to stop disparaging memorization.
Time will tell if they actually plan on implementing these changes, as Wildrose has advocated for, or if it’s merely a case of a desperate government trying to quash criticism by bowing to public pressure. It should be noted, for some strange reason, they still haven’t included standard algorithms in the curriculum.
And here’s a novel concept for the government.
The next time 10s of thousands of parents sign a petition telling you there’s a problem in the classroom, and the next time the Official Opposition respectfully asks you repeatedly to address it, do your job and listen. It’s what you are elected to do. Being cajoled into doing the right thing is feeble.
In our Moving Alberta Forward education policy roll out we also called for percentage or letter grades to be given to students from grades 5 to 12. I have heard complaint after complaint from parents about report card changes from school districts right across the province.
School boards are doing what Alberta Education asked them to do by changing the assessment process.
If you would like to see our education policy in its entirety, please visit my website at BruceMcAllister.ca or check out my Facebook. See page 19 for related story.
