PC Leadership Race- Redford wins.

[Jacks]

We obviously see things entirely different. In the federal case the Liberals campaigned on cancelling tax cuts that had already been approved (with the Liberals help). Not the same thing at all.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

We obviously see things entirely different. In the federal case the Liberals campaigned on cancelling tax cuts that had already been approved (with the Liberals help). Not the same thing at all.

Really? Did you have a doubt that the budget would pass?

Anyway, its semantics. Bottomline is that the Wildrose wouldn't give enough funding for education for my liking.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

Really? Did you have a doubt that the budget would pass?

The tax reductions were passed in the previous budget from what I remember, the Liberals not only supported them but at they claimed they would cut them further.

If the Wildrose wouldn't be spending as much on health and education as you would like that is fine. Don't make it sound like they would be slashing spending in those areas though. The have proposed stable and predictable funding.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Slava

Really? Did you have a doubt that the budget would pass?

Anyway, its semantics. Bottomline is that the Wildrose wouldn't give enough funding for education for my liking.

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.

[Slava]

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.

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?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

The tax reductions were passed in the previous budget from what I remember, the Liberals not only supported them but at they claimed they would cut them further.

If the Wildrose wouldn't be spending as much on health and education as you would like that is fine. Don't make it sound like they would be slashing spending in those areas though. The have proposed stable and predictable funding.

Stable funding doesn't mean that it gets hacked because of economic turmoil...

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

And don't bring up an 'Infrastructure deficit' BS arguement many spendhappy wonks talk about. Take a trip to Ontario, Quebec, BC, et al and tell me their infrastructure needs are less on a per capita basis, in fact when you view their crumbling interchanges and bridges it might be apparent that their infrastructure needs are actually greater than ours.

So because other provinces have crumbling intrastructure, we should too? How about you try telling us why the infrastructure deficit is BS instead of name-calling. You can start by explaining why the province is building and expanding hospitals in Calgary if imploding and selling others did not leave us short.

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I am not saying it has merit because it is in writing, just impressed that they took the time to put their ideas down instead of standing up and saying we can do better (I am thinking of the federal liberals here)

You mean the party who actually did better than their conservative counterparts over the last two decades? I'm sure they're actually clueless.

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Nope, but it's quite easy to compare them and see when Alberta is spending double what some other provinces are and getting similar or less bang for the buck it begs the question why are we spending so much?

Well, having a hotter economy means the government as more competition from the private sector for workers (as well as materials for infrastructure). It also means house prices and cost of living are higher. As a result, salaries here are also higher, and hence, spending. Expecting to pay the same as the rest of Canada for comparable services is actually quite simplistic and unrealistic.

[bizaro86]

Part of the problem with class sizes has to do with priorities. One high school I'm familiar with offers all sorts of second language programs, which have very small class sizes. So even though the average might be 30 kids per class, the 5 kids taking Mandarin means a bunch of Math classes need to be at 40 kids per class. Incompetent scheduling at the school level isn't something that the provincial gov't can fix. It probably needs to be fixed by good people at the board level.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Part of the problem with class sizes has to do with priorities. One high school I'm familiar with offers all sorts of second language programs, which have very small class sizes. So even though the average might be 30 kids per class, the 5 kids taking Mandarin means a bunch of Math classes need to be at 40 kids per class. Incompetent scheduling at the school level isn't something that the provincial gov't can fix. It probably needs to be fixed by good people at the board level.

The High School situation is a little different, which is one of the reasons I used the K-4 as an example. In public school at that age there aren't a large number of streams and programs so its more of a pure number.

I do think that there should be changes to the education system (some of which would likely reduce costs), but thats another story. The reality of our school system is that we have a huge infrastructure problem, along with large class sizes and about a 70% graduation rate (for kids finishing with a diploma after 3 years from starting grade 10). At the same time though we know that we have a shortage of skilled workers and the demographics look even worse a decade from now.

Don't get me wrong, the education system really is excellent. Its just that the budget is not flush with excess and really needs more cash. Change to a system in that state will be incremental as well.

[MoneyGuy]

Slava would of been a great school trustee. Alas....

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Slava

I do think that there should be changes to the education system (some of which would likely reduce costs), but thats another story. The reality of our school system is that we have a huge infrastructure problem, along with large class sizes and about a 70% graduation rate (for kids finishing with a diploma after 3 years from starting grade 10). At the same time though we know that we have a shortage of skilled workers and the demographics look even worse a decade from now.

Don't get me wrong, the education system really is excellent. Its just that the budget is not flush with excess and really needs more cash. Change to a system in that state will be incremental as well.

There are definitely changes needed of the "more cash" and "spend it differently" type. Part of the infrastructure problem is that the schools are in the wrong places. We have too many schools too close together in older neighbourhoods, which are transitioning to childless couples/singles/seniors, and not enough in the suburbs.

This problem is exacerbated by the vested interest and NIMBYism of some of these neighbourhoods. Any school slated to be closed gets a huge response from the affected community. Maybe if those who have been waiting years for a school in their neighbourhood realized the province won't pay for new schools when a board has space they'd speak up.

Imagine how much something like Sunnyside Elementary would be worth on the open market. (Not to pick on Sunnyside in particular). Many inner city schools are underutilized, and would be hugely valuable redevelopment sites. Queen Elizabeth High School is especially bad, it's the designated high school for parts of the city that are very far away from it...

[SebC]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

There are definitely changes needed of the "more cash" and "spend it differently" type. Part of the infrastructure problem is that the schools are in the wrong places. We have too many schools too close together in older neighbourhoods, which are transitioning to childless couples/singles/seniors, and not enough in the suburbs.

Maybe it's not the schools that are in the wrong place, but the students. The schools we have now would be much better placed if we didn't subsidize low-density development at the periphery of the city.

[1stLand]

Maybe we would have more money for education and infrastructure if the province would quit funding Anti-Oilsands Documentaries.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by SebC

Maybe it's not the schools that are in the wrong place, but the students. The schools we have now would be much better placed if we didn't subsidize low-density development at the periphery of the city.

That's valid, although I'd point out that the city puts a significant number of road blocks in front of developments increasing density in the urban core, of the zoning/development plan variety. Many of those community associations are opposed to densification, and fight it successfully. If people are moving here, they have to live somewhere, and if the inner city can't grow any faster, it has to be the burbs.

And if we're going to build new suburbs, we should build schools at least near them. It's insane to subsidize all sorts of infrastructure for new neighbourhoods but not have schools in them.

Also, those small inner city schools are impossible to make efficient. Sunnyside school (again just for example, there are many like this) has a full time principal and office staff for its enrollment of 154 students. Comparatively, Olympic Heights Elementary school in Strathcona (suburb) has a full time office staff for 709 students. The savings from consolidating smaller schools on administrative overhead could pay for more teachers and smaller class sizes.

Personally, I'd rather our tax dollars pay for things like smaller class sizes than more school secretaries, since I think that makes a bigger difference to outcomes (reading, etc, like Slava mentioned)

[Knalus]

It will be cheaper for the city to add amenities that young families need in communities that currently have schools, and encourage these families to stop fleeing to the suburbs, than to build more and more schools that will eventually have the same issues of under utilization that the inner city schools currently face.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Knalus

It will be cheaper for the city to add amenities that young families need in communities that currently have schools, and encourage these families to stop fleeing to the suburbs, than to build more and more schools that will eventually have the same issues of under utilization that the inner city schools currently face.

Could you point me towards available for sale properly zoned land in the inner city suitable towards building 6000-8000 extra dwelling units of a size suitable for families? And that's just to replace the single family housing starts for this year. Next year you need another 6-8k sites, and the year after that, etc.

People on this site talk about inner city redevelopment like it's some sort of panacea that will solve every problem. I wonder how many of them have actually tried to locate and purchase suitable land and get a development permit for a multi family housing project in the inner city. Not the easiest thing in the world.

Inner city redevelopment is wonderful, but Calgary is going to need more new land. We should also focus on making new neighbourhoods functional (walkable, transit, etc) as well as on densification of the existing urbanized area.

Because numbers help:
7000 units * 1 hectare/148 units (most common multi-family zoning) = 47 hectares needed to replace the burbs.

A (large) inner city lot might be 50ft by 120 ft, or 557 m2, which is 0.0557 ha. Thus, it would take 843 50 foot lots zoned for multi family to replace the suburban building.

Note that that is in addition to all the land that is already getting converted to multi-family, and it would be required every single year. I actually doubt there is that amount of acreage in the whole city zoned MC that currently doesn't have a multi-family dwelling on it. Never mind that much available for sale each and every year. Also, family size units are unlikely to fit on parcels at 148 units/ha, as they're probably going to need to be bigger to fit a couple and some kids.

So for those who think densification can solve our problems, I have this question. Would you be willing to convert your neighbourhood into all multi-family zoning?

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by Knalus

It will be cheaper for the city to add amenities that young families need in communities that currently have schools, and encourage these families to stop fleeing to the suburbs, than to build more and more schools that will eventually have the same issues of under utilization that the inner city schools currently face.

To use the above example, what amenity is Sunnyside missing? I'd say the cause for the young family exodus to the burbs is the cost of home ownership.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Could you point me towards available for sale properly zoned land in the inner city suitable towards building 6000-8000 extra dwelling units of a size suitable for families? And that's just to replace the single family housing starts for this year. Next year you need another 6-8k sites, and the year after that, etc.

People on this site talk about inner city redevelopment like it's some sort of panacea that will solve every problem. I wonder how many of them have actually tried to locate and purchase suitable land and get a development permit for a multi family housing project in the inner city. Not the easiest thing in the world.

Inner city redevelopment is wonderful, but Calgary is going to need more new land. We should also focus on making new neighbourhoods functional (walkable, transit, etc) as well as on densification of the existing urbanized area.

You could always just tear down the old schools and build high density apartments...

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Rathji

You could always just tear down the old schools and build high density apartments...

But then there would be no inner city schools for all the new children that moved in...

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Byrns

To use the above example, what amenity is Sunnyside missing? I'd say the cause for the young family exodus to the burbs is the cost of home ownership.

Exactly. I wasn't trying to pick on Sunnyside. I love Sunnyside. If I could afford a family size dwelling there, I'd be a resident.