Posted by Staff on June 4, 2011
Tags: Alberta Education, budget, class sizes, research, school boards, teachers, transformation
Tags: Alberta Education, budget, class sizes, research, school boards, teachers, transformation
The following are Minister Hancock's remarks at the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta's Spring General Assembly "Designing Our Future: Surviving and Thriving in Permanent White Water". Check against delivery.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you once again.
I have no idea what the future holds for me or if I will ever address you in this capacity again. So I just wanted to start by thanking you for your commitment to the children of Alberta and the work you have done to make one our education system one of the best in the world. I also want to thank you for the work you are doing to help transform our education system into one that will meet the increasing educational demands of the 21st century. We have not always agreed on every point, but we have never disagreed on the value of education and the important role you play in ensuring our students are prepared for the world into which they will graduate.
I was struck by the "Designing Our Future" theme that you have chosen for this General Assembly. It has been my experience that the future can be shaped either by accident and default or by design and planning.
I'm not surprised that you see the wisdom in the latter approach. The approach you have chosen is significant because the leadership of boards has never been more important than it is at this juncture in our education history.
I know that last night, you had dinner with Gary Mar and that today you will hear from Rick Orman and Doug Griffiths. The more communication you have with leadership candidates, the better able the new leader will be to hit the ground running when it comes to continuing the transformation of our education system. It is important for all leadership candidates to have first-hand knowledge of the issues and challenges facing education in Alberta.
That includes the short term challenges we have today: budgets, bargaining, buildings and bussing. As I've said before many times, these are important issues, but they cannot be the totality of school boards' work. If we continue to spend our funding the same ways we always have, we won't see the improvements we want.
Some of you may have seen the blog I posted on Monday in which I made the observation that funding to education has increased 63 per cent in the past decade, but our student outcomes have barely changed. If you had had predictable sustainable funding over the past 10 years, would it have changed your board's work? More importantly, with a guarantee of predictable stable funding in the coming years, what would you do differently? What does Designing Your Future really mean?
It's important to realize that predictable, sustainable funding does not necessarily mean new money for new programs. For at least the foreseeable future, as government revenues remain tight, predictable, sustainable funding means only status quo increases to cover inflation and population growth. In a predictable, sustainable funding model, would you expect what you've had in the past decade: almost a six per cent increase each year? Population and inflation alone are not likely to be that much. So it's important to be conscious of what predictable, sustainable funding actually means.
And even if new money were available for education, new programs may not be the way to improve student learning. If the debate is only about money, then I doubt very much that students will see much improvement in the coming decades.
When I think about what I've learned about education as minister for over three years now, and compare that to what I proposed for education policy when I ran for party leader in 2006, I have to confess that five years ago I was quite naïve. In the past three years, I've had the privilege of learning from not just thousands of people in Alberta's education system, but from many of the leading experts on education from around the world. And from those people I've learned that in 2006, I focused on those things that were about money, and not nearly enough on how we change our practices and culture.
I often hear about why we should fund programs like junior and full-day kindergarten, more technology, smaller class sizes and so on. These programs are attractive because as politicians, we can all see physical evidence of what more funding can buy us--more classes, more teachers, more technology, and so forth.
But there are two compelling reasons that we should look beyond these oft-cited suggestions. One is that they are expensive, requiring investments in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions. The second is that their effects are relatively small. We can see that on class size--billions of dollars spent, with no appreciable effect. If you had an extra $10 million, would you really spend it on junior kindergarten?
We all face the challenge of limited resources, so it's not enough to argue that a particular approach has some benefit. What is necessary are the approaches that have the greatest effect for the money available.
And these are not the sorts of approaches that are attractive to politicians.
We know from research that some of the biggest predictors of student learning are:
- Feedback from the teacher to student, and student to teacher;
- Instructional quality, particularly pedagogical content knowledge (expertise in a subject area along with expertise about how that subject is learned); and
- Acceleration, so that students can move on when they've learned part of the curriculum.
Many of these factors depend on the teachers in the classroom.
And needless to say, neither you nor I can show up to cut a ribbon or otherwise take direct credit for these approaches when they're used. But the research is indisputably clear that these are the most effective ways to improve student outcomes.
I can't fault any politician--leadership candidate, trustee, or otherwise--for talking about those things that we've always talked about. After all, I used to be one of those politicians who talked about approaches to improving education that research and experience have shown are not particularly effective.
And things like class size and kindergarten are those sorts of things that are top of mind for the public when it comes to improving public education.
So politicians--you and I--have two choices. We can continue to pander to those beliefs, and ultimately spend millions of tax dollars for little improvement. Or we can set out to change those beliefs. That's not an easy task, but it is a necessary one. Influencing MLAs and leadership candidates is the least of our challenges. Because whoever becomes Premier this fall, and whoever becomes Minister of Education, will not be able make any difference if the citizens of Alberta do not have a strong understanding of what actually will improve our education system.
Some of you may have heard of the Premier's Council for Economic Strategy, an expert panel which recently published its report "Shaping Alberta's Future" about the next 30 years of our province. I urge all of you to read this report and consider the opportunities it sets out.
It speaks directly to the work we must do to transform the education system:
- Making real progress on Aboriginal student learning;
- Developing an effective early learning system which targets children in their first three years;
- And implementing the directions of Inspiring Action.
If there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that the public's interest in and engagement with education is fostered by tackling big, important challenges like these. We can, and do, get people interested and engaged in education when we have discussions about how much money we should have and where those dollars are spent. But that interest and engagement is fleeting, and that is not helpful for our students, our communities, our teachers, or you as trustees. So all of us collectively and individually have a responsibility to make sure that distractions are dealt with quickly and amicably.
I couldn't speak about distractions without talking about bargaining. I would suspect one of the things you would want to ask all leadership candidates about is providing stable and predictable funding for education, as has been done with health care. I understand why that is important to you and to those we all serve.
However, sustainable and predictable funding must be predicated on predictable costs. And the major cost for education is salaries, particularly teachers' salaries.
When I met with the ATA's Annual Representative Assembly recently, I asked if there was any willingness to accept fixed increases over a period of perhaps five years as a way of avoiding the challenges of unpredictable funding. It was just a rhetorical question that I asked, but it would appear there is some receptiveness to that approach.
It is important that you note I said "fixed" and not tied to something like the Average Weekly Earnings Index or the Consumer Price Index. As our experience has shown, tying increases to an index is fraught with problems when it comes to budgeting.
We attempted to go down the road of fixed increases during our tripartite discussions in order to prevent the fiscal situation we are currently in. I believe it was a good idea then and still is - the approach has real benefits for teachers, students and boards.
Labour peace in education has produced some tremendous results - in my view, more progress on real education policy than we've seen in years. Inspiring Education and the proposed Education Act are just two of the products.
And if we could continue it in the future, we'd be able to focus on building the expertise of our teachers, and supporting those practices that make the biggest difference to student learning. By removing the need for future labour negotiations, boards, the ATA and Education would be better able to work collaboratively at developing new approaches and policies that would ensure we truly provide Alberta's children with a 21st century education.
I also believe that without the need to bargain, boards would be better able to work at a professional-to-professional level rather than using an employer - employee model.
We'll never see the improvement we want if we don't focus on excellence in teaching. Graduating with a degree doesn't provide all the tools one needs to be an expert teacher. We need effective induction programs and meaningful, ongoing professional development to develop truly expert teachers. I think that approach would enable and empower teachers to make the professional decisions that are needed to produce the results a transformed education system will require.
That is exactly what is needed for a transformed education system in Alberta - the department, the profession and school boards working together toward a common goal.
The words are easy to say, but the successful doing of those things will be challenging. But if boards, the ATA and Education collaborate effectively, we can ensure that our children receive the best education possible well into the future.
It is true that you will be experiencing white water as we go forward with transformation, but it will be the white water of innovation, change and improvement.
Many of you will be at the ASBA Spring General Meeting on Monday, so I do not want to make you listen to the same things twice.
At the meeting, I will discuss more fully the impact of the proposed Act, as well as how I view a transformed education system.
But right now, I will be happy to answer any questions or take any suggestions you have for me.
Thank you.
Dear Dave,
None of us know what the future holds but I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your insightful leadership. Folks may not always like what you have to say but they can always count on you to tell it how it is!
Many (many) years ago, I won a speech contest at the United Nations, sponsored by the Odd Fellows and Rebeccas. We were asked to pick one of their primary values (Love, Truth or Friendship)to base our speech on.
Of the almost 500 kids that participated across two countries (Canada and the US), I was the only one who picked TRUTH.
I won that competition and have held that as my primary value ever since. Sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow but in the end, to coin a popular phrase, it is what sets us free.
I hope the educational organizations of Alberta can hear the truth, see what needs to be done to address issues and not slay the messenager in the process.
. . . just my meandering thoughts after working on future plans for our organization until the wee hours of the night!
Best wishes for a bright day!
Sincerely,
Diana Stinn
Thanks Diana. Also in the wee hours sharing a passion for a robust discussion on the most important public policy domain - even more important than Health. If we have open, frank and honest discussion the world will take care of itself. We do not always have to agree. The exchange of ideas, informed opinion, gut reactions even, will expand our knowledge and our outlook. Thanks for being there