Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
I find it strange that you seem to know how much money it takes to educate the children of Alberta. More funding, less funding.....doesn't matter. What matters are the results you get, and that the children are actually getting a decent education. And you don't get a decent education by simply spending more money. At some point you have to blindly stop throwing money at services, and actually sit down and talk about whether or not those services are being delivered as efficiently as they can be.
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Well I did run for the public school board here last year, so I have actually looked into this and am familiar with the CBE budget. I understand that you don't just "throw money" at education to get results. That being said its not free. If you want to have ratios for class size (which happens to be a goal of the province), then its pretty obvious that you need enough teachers to meet that ratio....or I suppose you tell a bunch of parents that their children can't go to school? The only other option is either not hitting the targeted ratio (which is due to under-funding) or playing with how the numbers are counted.
So while I can't tell you off the top of my head how much it costs, it is somewhat measurable. If you think I'm way off base then perhaps you could explain where the system can afford to become more efficient? Maybe the 17:1 ratio for K-4 is wrong and it should be 34:1. We could cut teachers that way and theoretically only need 1/2 the classrooms! At least balancing the budget would be easier....who really cares if the system produces functionally illiterate citizens who go on to a life of crime (that we're tough on!) right?