October 6 - So it Begins - The Alberta Teacher Strike

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

Private and charter in general teach kids with lower needs from more wealthy demographics. These kids cost less to educate.

You've confidently stated this a number of times in this thread, and I wonder if you have a source for that, or if you're assuming? I only know a few kids in private schools, and they tend to be kids with higher needs from middle class families. (And I'm not talking "middle class" the way people with 2 high-end professional incomes use that word, more like tradesperson/part time hairdresser families).

The only data I could find comes from the Independent School's Association. While I acknowledge they're not an unbiased source, I doubt they're making things up. They note that 82% of students in independent (aka private) schools come from families with income at or below the provincial average ($92.5k).

Would it be better to use median? Probably. Is a family making $92k a bunch of plutocrats who don't care about money? Nope.

https://educatedchoices.ca/#edu-choice

You can use any source of money to fix public education, nerfing the private schools is the only source that comes with an influx of high needs kids. Given the overcrowding and complexity issues there's no way that's the right place to get that money.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Maybe, just maybe, those parents can put pressure on the government to properly fund the public system. Or they can, gasp, vote for a party that will.

So basically the kids who are currently getting differentiated special needs education at Janus, Calgary Academy, and First Third should have their educations sacrificed for politicsl reasons?

Because there's no way the current system can support those kids, and even if you doubled funding tomorrow to cbe it would take time to improve access.

But you're right - taking away the 70% of total per-kid funding that middle class parents get for their autistic kids would piss off those parents, so that's a win. Too bad about those special needs kids that have to go under the bus but sacrifices have to be made right?

Alberta's per-child funding used to be the highest in Canada. We should go back to that, it would fix this.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

So basically the kids who are currently getting differentiated special needs education at Janus, Calgary Academy, and First Third should have their educations sacrificed for politicsl reasons?

Because there's no way the current system can support those kids, and even if you doubled funding tomorrow to cbe it would take time to improve access.

But you're right - taking away the 70% of total per-kid funding that middle class parents get for their autistic kids would piss off those parents, so that's a win. Too bad about those special needs kids that have to go under the bus but sacrifices have to be made right?

Alberta's per-child funding used to be the highest in Canada. We should go back to that, it would fix this.

Not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying those kids should be properly funded and supported within the public system. That horse has left the barn so here we are. Now we get to figure out how to move forward, and in my opinion a properly funded public education system that supports ALL students is the way.

It's not about pissing anyone off, it's about getting people to recognize that if their priority is education, they should be advocating for it to their elected representatives who are in charge of the purse.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

...

You can use any source of money to fix public education, nerfing the private schools is the only source that comes with an influx of high needs kids. Given the overcrowding and complexity issues there's no way that's the right place to get that money.

It's not even about being the right (or wrong) place to get money - the point should be that redistributing the private school funding amounts to a meaningless increase to public student funding.

If the $500MM that goes to private school students stopped tomorrow and was reapplied to the public system, then each of the 700,000+ public school students (we can pretend that not a single private school student would need to re-enter the public stream - ha!) would receive an additional $714 per year... a whopping increase to per-student funding of 6.2%... which is still not enough to get Alberta to the second lowest level of per-student fundind in the country.

Defunding private schools is nothing more than a misguided, ideologically driven 'eat the rich' - it is not a realistic way to meaningfully increase funding for Alberta public school students.

Again, Alberta has the money. We could properly fund public education tomorrow and the only reason we're not is because the government is bad at their job.

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by you&me

...
Defunding private schools is nothing more than a misguided, ideologically driven 'eat the rich' - it is not a realistic way to meaningfully increase funding for Alberta public school students.

Again, Alberta has the money. We could properly fund public education tomorrow and the only reason we're not is because the government is bad at their job.

I don't even know that it's about eating the rich. I think it's more about hitting back at something the government clearly prioritizes and values.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

I don't even know that it's about eating the rich. I think it's more about hitting back at something the government clearly prioritizes and values.

Yup, when the government is committed to moving more public dollars into funding private education while drastically under funding public, it's very easy for people to say "well that's ####ing dumb, do less of that." The target was mounted on private schools by the UCP long before the strike. It should be no surprise this is the natural response people have.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

Not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying those kids should be properly funded and supported within the public system. That horse has left the barn so here we are. Now we get to figure out how to move forward, and in my opinion a properly funded public education system that supports ALL students is the way.

It's not about pissing anyone off, it's about getting people to recognize that if their priority is education, they should be advocating for it to their elected representatives who are in charge of the purse.

I agree public education should be better funded and voted with that in mind.

But my friends of moderate income have a severely dyslexic kid. He was basically not learning anything in public school, and they're struggling to send him to a specialized private option. I don't blame his public school teacher, who had too many kids and wasn't specialized for his needs. He doesn't need a 10 or 20% boost to funding so the teacher had 25 kids instead of 30, he needs a smaller class with specialized teaching. CBE isn't 1 or 2 years away from being able to offer him that even if they got the money - they'd need to build more buildings to have a chance which takes years.

So in the meantime what happens to him? His parents can't afford another $7k. He won't learn to read in public school. Is that a sacrifice you're willing to make to try and get his parents to vote a certain way? (His dad for sure voted NDP last time anyway...) That seems pretty punitive to a kid who didn't do anything wrong - he was born with dyslexia.

[Geraldsh]

We definitely need private schools, publicly funded, that teach specific skills to special needs children. Private schools catering to religious and/or ideology do not need public funding.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Geraldsh

We definitely need private schools, publicly funded, that teach specific skills to special needs children. Private schools catering to religious and/or ideology do not need public funding.

You could argue the religion kids are special needs or will be due to their parents.

[Looch City]

God I need to stop listening to QR 770. Too many dumb ####s living amongst us out there.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Looch City

God I need to stop listening to QR 770. Too many dumb ####s living amongst us out there.

I question your intelligence for listening to it in the first place. Troglodyte radio.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Looch City

God I need to stop listening to QR 770. Too many dumb ####s living amongst us out there.

and Ben Mulroney

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

But my friends of moderate income have a severely dyslexic kid. He was basically not learning anything in public school, and they're struggling to send him to a specialized private option. I don't blame his public school teacher, who had too many kids and wasn't specialized for his needs. He doesn't need a 10 or 20% boost to funding so the teacher had 25 kids instead of 30, he needs a smaller class with specialized teaching. CBE isn't 1 or 2 years away from being able to offer him that even if they got the money - they'd need to build more buildings to have a chance which takes years.

So in the meantime what happens to him? His parents can't afford another $7k. He won't learn to read in public school. Is that a sacrifice you're willing to make to try and get his parents to vote a certain way? (His dad for sure voted NDP last time anyway...) That seems pretty punitive to a kid who didn't do anything wrong - he was born with dyslexia.

He needs a smaller class with specialized teaching. I agree with that 100%. That should be available to every student who needs it. I would argue that the CBE is in fact closer than you think to offering that, since that is literally what people like me do every single day. It's disappointing that it's gotten to the point where this has happened to him and his family, it should never have been that way.

I disagree wholeheartedly that the CBE needs more buildings to teach dyslexic kids to read. They need trained literacy specialists working in existing elementary schools. Instead, guess what these trained literacy specialists are doing? Working in a general ed classroom with 28 grade 3's trying to hold it together.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I question your intelligence for listening to it in the first place. Troglodyte radio.

I like to listen to it so I know what I'm up against in society. This is, after all, how we got our current premier.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I question your intelligence for listening to it in the first place. Troglodyte radio.

Lol early morning and the news updates are not bad. But then comes Shane with the ridiculous callers and then the uber whiny voice of Ben. Ugh. Terrible.

[malcolmk14]

My school would have 8.5 more teachers if Alberta funded schools just to the national average. Not even the highest in the country. Currently we have 22.4 FTE of teaching staff to put that into perspective.

The teachers with advanced training like myself who are working as general ed teachers in classrooms could be working more specialized roles to get better and more efficient outcomes. My school alone has a math specialist and two early literacy specialists working in classrooms as General Education teachers who could be supporting students with specific needs. Teachers with less specialized training who are starting out their careers or 3-8 years in and thinking about embarking on a Masters or leadership could fill those classroom roles.

It's not just as simple as 1 classroom, 1 teacher, x number of students.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by you&me

Defunding private schools is nothing more than a misguided, ideologically driven 'eat the rich' - it is not a realistic way to meaningfully increase funding for Alberta public school students.

Funding private schools is nothing more than a misguided, ideologically driven "fund the rich" concept that comes out of most conservative governments as a way to create a tiered 'have' and 'have-not' system so that only the 'right people' can get a good education and the 'wrong people' can get left behind.

Not only does Alberta fund private schools more than any other province in Canada, Alberta also gives grants and one-off funding to private schools that are not tracked within the same budget line items making it harder to keep up with the degree in which private schools are syphoning off public money.

On top of that, Alberta is also the ONLY province to fund charter schools and is one of 3 provinces (and two territories) to still fully fund catholic schools.

That is a lot of ways that Alberta is taking money away from public education, which was forgivable when the government funded the public system much better and helped drive it to be one of the best public systems in the world. Now that the UCP is attacking the public education system it is time to rethink all of these methods of undermining public education. Personally, I think I would defund charter and catholic school before private but I do think reducing or eliminating private school funding with public dollars is the right move.

In the end though, the UCP is forcing this conflict and the petition to defund private schools is very clearly about fighting a corrupt government than "eating the rich" but if you want to misunderstand the situation and take it personally then that's your prerogative.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

My school would have 8.5 more teachers if Alberta funded schools just to the national average. Not even the highest in the country. Currently we have 22.4 FTE of teaching staff to put that into perspective.

The teachers with advanced training like myself who are working as general ed teachers in classrooms could be working more specialized roles to get better and more efficient outcomes. My school alone has a math specialist and two early literacy specialists working in classrooms as General Education teachers who could be supporting students with specific needs. Teachers with less specialized training who are starting out their careers or 3-8 years in and thinking about embarking on a Masters or leadership could fill those classroom roles.

It's not just as simple as 1 classroom, 1 teacher, x number of students.

I feel sorry for the 0.4 guy. Is it like a Magic Trick 'sawing a lady in half' gone wrong?

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by malcolmk14

He needs a smaller class with specialized teaching. I agree with that 100%. That should be available to every student who needs it. I would argue that the CBE is in fact closer than you think to offering that, since that is literally what people like me do every single day. It's disappointing that it's gotten to the point where this has happened to him and his family, it should never have been that way.

I disagree wholeheartedly that the CBE needs more buildings to teach dyslexic kids to read. They need trained literacy specialists working in existing elementary schools. Instead, guess what these trained literacy specialists are doing? Working in a general ed classroom with 28 grade 3's trying to hold it together.

I think we're coming at this from the same place (caring about kids who have struggles) and I definitely respect your career choice. If he had gotten a trained literacy specialist the outcome could have been different for him. (The CBE's plan was for him to not learn to read and use software/devices to read aloud for him, which I think is a bad idea in the long term)

But I really do think they need more buildings to make that work. The elementary school my kids attend already has a class in the library, one on the stage, and one in the old staff room (which got moved to basically a closet). If they added more teachers to reduce the ratio and provide specialized supports, there would be literally no additional space to host those new classes. They have a pad that fits 1 portable, so you could add that back (CBE in its wisdom removed it a year or two ago and converted the staff room), but that isn't enough. To make the system effective they'd need to add a couple of specialized teachers (math/literacy at a minimum) and send probably 1/4 of the students elsewhere to a newly constructed building, leaving the remaining 3/4 in the current building with the same number of classroom teachers and additional supports.

[woob]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I agree public education should be better funded and voted with that in mind.

But my friends of moderate income have a severely dyslexic kid. He was basically not learning anything in public school, and they're struggling to send him to a specialized private option. I don't blame his public school teacher, who had too many kids and wasn't specialized for his needs. He doesn't need a 10 or 20% boost to funding so the teacher had 25 kids instead of 30, he needs a smaller class with specialized teaching. CBE isn't 1 or 2 years away from being able to offer him that even if they got the money - they'd need to build more buildings to have a chance which takes years.

So in the meantime what happens to him? His parents can't afford another $7k. He won't learn to read in public school. Is that a sacrifice you're willing to make to try and get his parents to vote a certain way? (His dad for sure voted NDP last time anyway...) That seems pretty punitive to a kid who didn't do anything wrong - he was born with dyslexia.

If you're going to go with an angle of being punitive to kids who can't help what they were born with, I'm going to guess there's a far greater amount of kids who can't help what they were born with in the public system. But you're asking us to have empathy for a family that has the means to address this education challenge with their child? Rather than having empathy for ALL children/teachers within the public system who do and do not have education challenges.

Well we're saying we want to be able to help ALL childrean with education/language/etc. problems within the PUBLIC system. So if that means we tell all private schools you have to find your own funding now (even if it only makes up a 6.2% gain in funding), I'm fine with that.

Yes, it may be misguided, but this is kind of a we will take whatever we can get situation at this point, due to the years of mismanagement.