AlbertaTeachersAssociation
The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) has voted once again to proceed towards a teacher strike.
A neutral mediator had proposed a 3% pay increase retroactive to September 1st, 2024, another 3% increase on September 1st of this year, and another 3% increase in 2026.
She also proposed more generous sick leave, group health benefits, northern and remote allowances, and so on.
The mediator even proposed that each school division be required to establish a “Complexity and Inclusion Working Group” to address local class size and complexity concerns.
This proposal was rejected by the ATA and then they ratified their intention to strike.
Indeed, with most teachers in Alberta required by law to join and pay dues to the ATA, whether they'd like to or not, the ATA has every incentive to occasionally threaten or carry out strike actions.
Because there is no free market in teaching services, there is no way to find the correct wages for a teacher without the blunt instruments of strikes and threats of strikes, holding student learning hostage.
Not that this guarantees that teachers get what they deserve, either, since the government also has a very blunt instrument: they can legislate teachers back to work.
So, we have a system that ensures nothing like fairness, but does ensure families with kids in school, who don't get a seat at the table, are held in the balance from time to time.
And let's be clear, the cost to families and their students is substantial!
Studies of the impact of teacher strikes have found that they:
- lower immediate test scores,
- increase absenteeism,
- reduce the life-long education students attempt to receive,
- harm life-long earnings for students, and
- hurt immediate earnings for the family of the student.
School closures during COVID-19 were, at some times and places, difficult to distinguish from teacher strikes (including even some demands to abolish charter schools before teachers returned to the classroom).
Sure enough, a flurry of research all over the world confirms the same harms applied in these recent school stoppages, as well.
The major difference in a teacher strike is that they are unlikely to offer remote schooling (for the little good that did).
If a student's school is closed, the money should follow that child to any education their family chooses to fill the gaps!
Then their school would have an incentive to cater to the needs of the families who actually pay the salaries under dispute and entrust our most precious children to their supervision.
Importantly, the government would also lack a perverse incentive to keep wages down and endure occasional strikes, in which they don't spend money educating your kid.
Instead of being caught in the crossfire of regular labour disputes they are not a party to, families and their students should have an Education Continuity Allowance.
These could be used towards a school that is open and willing to take the child, tutoring, temporary home education materials, an online course, hands-on training in a profession, or any combination of these.
With the money that would already be spent on a given child, families should decide how best to replace the education opportunity torn away from the child by squabbling adults!
We're calling on the Government of Alberta to strike-proof Alberta students by introducing an Education Continuity Allowance.
If you agree, sign our petition to Strike-Proof Alberta Students today:
Putting Children at the Center of Education, Not Just the Middle of Education Disputes,
Although I don't agree with everything the Alberta Parents Union writes, does or stands for, I post the emails I receive from them because I think they deserve to be heard.
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If the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) just read our emails, they could have had a 7 month head-start.
Back in August, we told you that the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) was using some fuzzy math when it comes to education funding.
The ATA were claiming, as they often do, that Alberta spends the lowest amount of money per student on education out of all the provinces.
We pointed out that they were wrong for a number of reasons, including the fact that the figures they were using were incredibly misleading.
Well, now, 7 months later, the CBC have written a fact-check of the ATA’s claims on the exact same grounds as we already did!
(We’ll forgive them for being 7 months late in reporting this - they do only have a billion dollars of taxpayer funding for their reporting, after all.)
This development is all the more surprising because, as you probably well know, the CBC usually just repeats the ATA’s claims without question.
How bad must the ATA’s claims have to have been to warrant a CBC fact-check?
Let's take a look!
“Trickier than you might expect”
The central disagreement is around the data being used to calculate the per-student funding.
In the CBC’s fact-check, reporter Robson Fletcher explains how the ATA claims they are simply using Statistics Canada (StatCan) data.
However, StatCan themselves actively went to the public broadcaster to say that the ATA was twisting StatCan’s numbers to make their argument:
“But Statistics Canada, itself, urges caution when interpreting its data in this way.
That's because precisely calculating per-student funding for public schools across every province in a consistent and comparable manner is a [sic] trickier than you might expect.”
We thought that seemed familiar, so we went back to our email titled “The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark” and here’s what we wrote in August:
“But what StatCan don't do is simply divide one set of numbers by the other, to give the 'average amount of money spent per student' in each province.
And it's important to understand that StatCan don't do this, because they know that there are many differences and variables across all the provinces.”
Indeed, as the CBC summarizes the statistical nerds’ own warnings:
“But officials with StatsCan told CBC News it's actually impossible with the available public-facing data to precisely calculate per-student funding for public schools and make truly accurate comparisons between provinces.”
We were a little more blunt, but said essentially the same thing:
“There are probably dozens more reasons why merging these two datasets makes no sense, and any 'average' resulting from doing so is complete nonsense.”
Apples to Apples
The basic reason the ATA - or anyone else - cannot simply divide one StatCan table by another, is that the result will not be comparing apples to apples.
The CBC explained the ATA’s error like this:
”StatsCan says it uses a 'consolidated spending' approach to look at a 'holistic version' of education expenditures, including those at the school board level as well as 'direct expenditures by provinces and territories.' (The ATA, by contrast, used a dataset that includes just school board expenditures.)”
We explained the same thing with more words, but less jargon, like this:
“For example, in some provinces, the government pays for more things directly, and pays for fewer things via school boards, whereas in other provinces, the school boards are left to make more of the purchases.
In other provinces, including Alberta, there are simply fewer students going to schools managed by school boards and more students going to charter schools and other alternative types of schools.
Alberta is the only province with charter schools.
Charter schools are not governed by school boards, so their funding is transferred directly to the school rather than to a school board, meaning that funding doesn't show up in one of the datasets.”
ATA “Mistakes” Are Ideological
A hint as to why the ATA can't be trusted to handle these numbers carefully lies in a quote from the CBC story:
“The [StatCan] methodology, which includes private-school spending, also aligns with international standards, and StatsCan reports its results to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.”
This is because much of the rest of the world has choice in education, so private-school spending has to be included to make them match.
The ATA is setting out to prove that public schools are underfunded, and deliberately designing calculations that will result in that answer, even if they make no sense.
Thankfully, the media are now finally paying attention, and the ATA’s claims are being at least somewhat tested on this one point.
But, imagine if we could challenge the ATA on every single one of their claims?
Imagine if we could push back on each and every misleading statement they make about Alberta’s education system.
Well - there’s no need to imagine.
That’s exactly what the Alberta Parents’ Union is trying to do.
We’re trying to build a movement of thousands of parents that can get the truth about our education system out there far and wide.
So, tell your friends to sign up for the Alberta Parents’ Union and get tomorrow’s news today!
The more members and supporters we have, the wider we can spread our message.
We're now into the second week of Edmonton Public Schools support staff strike and as you would expect the ripple effects are being felt by many. Students and families, especially special needs students and their families may feel it most. Diana Halabi’s twelve-year-old daughter Zahea is non-verbal and requires help with everything from the minute Zahea gets off the school bus until she gets back on it. Zahea can’t attend school in person because there is nobody to support her.
Both CUPE Local 3550 President Mandy Lamoureux and Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling say they have heard similar stories from others. Lamoureux said the union got word Tuesday morning that the school board wants to return to the bargaining table as early as Thursday.
Its no secret that the ATA has informed its membership that a strike may be what it takes to bring the reality of their concerns to the Province and people of Alberta. Don't be surprised if, in the weeks and months ahead, we see and hear more from the ATA. In the meantime and while waiting, the Journal article below is a good introduction to what may be coming our way.
The new school year will be starting soon and with the new school year will be new policies regarding the use of cellphones in classrooms. President Jason Schilling of the Alberta Teachers’ Association says there is some confusion regarding the role of teachers in implementing the policies come September 1st while school divisions have until Jan. 1 to put their own policies and procedures on the books.