Is the Premier planning to eliminate elected school boards?
Calgary – Harry Chase, Alberta Liberal Education Critic, says that Albertans have provided visionary guidance to the Stelmach administration in the Inspiring Education report. But reading between the lines of the report shows that the Premier might eliminate elected school boards. 

The report refers to “governors,” people responsible for local control of public education. Page 10 of the report says “governors could be elected, appointed or recruited from the community.” In the 1990s, the Tories stripped school boards of their ability to raise revenues, hampering their ability to do their job; now it seems that the Tories are contemplating doing away with elected school boards altogether.

“First this administration gets rid of the health regions and puts decision-making in the hands of a central bureaucracy. We’ve seen how well that’s worked. Now it looks like they’re contemplating doing the same thing to education,” says Chase.

The report comes at a time when school boards are still reeling from the Education Minister’s funding claw back.

“How can parents, students, teachers and trustees have any faith in the government’s future direction given the administration’s recent betrayals?” Chase asks. “Calgary is facing the loss of over 300 teachers and nearly 100 other full-time personnel. Edmonton public school boards have a $12 million deficit and must consider layoffs and class size increases. Other school boards are seeing their reserve funding depleted to critical levels; some are compensating by cutting back on essential supplies or music and physical education programs. The current state of public education is far from inspiring – only two-thirds of our students complete Grade 12 – and the responsibility lies with this Tory administration.”

Chase says that stable funding is the key to providing students with the education they need and deserve. Restoring fiscal autonomy to school boards would be a good start.

“Cornerstone public services such as health care and education absolutely require stable, adequate funding in good times and bad,” Chase says. “An Alberta Liberal administration would really inspire people who care about public education by keeping school boards as democratically elected bodies and giving them back the ability to do their jobs. None of the excellent work done by the Albertans who contributed to this report will mean anything unless there’s a government in place with the ability to follow through with sensible policy and better management.”

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