The Alberta Government is changing the very nature of public education in the province. It is taking its lead from experiments conducted in England, the United States and New Zealand. This attack on public education has been fostered by the neo-liberal economic agenda of the Klein government and by, a public relations campaign by, special interest groups claiming that public education is failing Alberta students. The government and business agenda that has been driving education reform in this province is a direct threat to public education and to Albertans right to democratically control our educational institutions.

The first such change came last spring when the government declared a three year business plan for education. This included; the forced amalgamation of existing boards from 140 to 60, reductions in provincial funding to school boards, and the removal of these boards' abilities to locally raise taxes. These actions have severely limited the right of the public to local control of their school boards and schools. While the Separate, Catholic, school boards were able to opt out of this plan, the majority of public schools were not.

The forced regionalization of schools, like hospitals, has led to a new set of labour relations problems. Unionized school employees face forced amalgamation with non-union employees and staff associations. The later may out number unionized employees and the Labour Relations Board is allowing staff associations to become the bargaining agent for them. This is a real threat to the Labour movement in Alberta.

A further reduction in Early Childhood Education (kindergarten) grants left all school boards even more cash strapped.

With the centralization of education taxation now reverting from the municipal government to the provincial, the government has been able to introduce a wider tax base for education. While proclaiming loudly about 'no new taxes' the Klein government has actually increased Education taxes. Senior citizens, non-profit organizations, and business must now all pay education taxes, where before under the municipal levy they did not. There is no way of disguising it, this is a tax grab by the provincial government. The same government that has been systematically reducing its funding to schools for years.

KINDERGARTEN
The governments' reduction in kindergarten funding has been the most publicly controversial of its moves this past year. Widespread opposition to this has been mobilized by parents across the province. While most educators, in Canada and the United States, agree that the minimum time required for effective early education intervention is 400 hours. The Alberta government has reduced its funding to school boards to 200 hours. After several court challenges and public demonstrations this past year, the government has increased its funding in this area by only 40 hours. Ontario has just mandated 400 hours as the base minimum for a fully funded public kindergarten system. This has left school boards in the province to scramble for providing the extra 160 to 200 hours of schooling out of their already strapped budgets.

Some school boards have introduced user fees, some have reduced funding to programs in other areas, in order to provide adequate hours of kindergarten. Rather than a uniform approach giving access to everyone, the government has in effect economically privatized this aspect of public education. Since public access is the key to a good public education system there is a crisis in Kindergarten. The variety of access and cost deferrals differs greatly across the province. We can say that equal access to early childhood education has been effectively denied by this government.

VOUCHER BASED EDUCATION
The Governments seizure of the local tax base has given them the direct power over funding of schools, funding that they have been systematically reducing for the past ten years. Amendments to the School Act only allows, publicly elected school board, Trustees to raise extra cash through a plebiscite once every three years during the municipal elections. What local politician in their right mind is going to try to raise taxes while trying to get re-elected?!

The government further changed the funding allocation to schools from program based funding to student based funding. School board funding will now be a per pupil allocation based, not on courses taken or students registered in the fall but, on courses completed and per school registration of students both in the fall and at the end of the school year. While this form of funding has been justified as necessary to combat the drop out rate, it is in fact the beginnings of a voucher system for educational funding!

PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
The provincial government has introduced three more major changes to public education in Alberta. These are: School Based Management, Charter Schools and School councils.

SCHOOL BASED MANAGEMENT:
This system has been promoted widely in the United States as a boon to democratic or local control of schools and as part of the re-engineering of modern public management. It is in effect a TQM program writ large. It's democratizing of schools is more rhetoric than fact. In fact it is a downloading of responsibilities from centralized boards to local schools, forcing them to compete and be 'consumer' driven. All the key management words from TQM arise in any discussion of school based management.

The provincial government has now determined that all publicly funded schools in Alberta will be operating on a School Based Management model beginning in the fall of 1995. While this model gives lip service to local control and hands on management of schools by the parents and local community it fails to live up to the rhetoric.

The Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) has been using this model since the early 1980's. The EPSB has been in the forefront of school based management in the world. The reality of this has meant that, along with open borders (allowing students to go to any school they wish, rather than that which is closest to where they live), schools have had funding cuts downloaded directly to them, principals have become business administrators and schools are competing for students.

As CUPE Locals 474, 784 and 350 showed in their study of School Based Management, released in the spring of 1994; <[TAKE A LOOK, BEHIND THE SCENES AT EDMONTON'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS, A Report From Frontline Workers]>, that over a ten year period from 1984 to 1994:

• custodial, support and maintenance staff decreased by 8% while central administration grew by 28%

• budget allocations to facilities declined while budget allocation to central services increased

• uneven distribution of resources to schools produced a two tier education system
  

• schools allocated funds for custodial, support and maintenance staff in an uneven manner. From only 5% of their total budget in some schools to as high as 29% in others. There was no average, as a scatter chart showed, as each school allocated differently

• while new technology was introduced it was at the expense of staffing, while schools were forced into holding raffles, bake sales and appeals to charities for extra funding

• that the much lauded team approach, was cosmetic. Funds were allocated by the school board to each school and while staff were consulted, they were in effect told how much they were getting and asked to cut each others jobs. Thus pitting teachers against teachers aides, secretaries, custodial workers

• that funds to school facility maintenance had steadily declined, leaving schools to be repaired on a catch as catch can basis

• that with decentralization of budgets for custodial or maintenance staff going to each school rather than being distributed system wide left the door open to abuse. A common practice was not to allocate maintenance funds fro school repairs but rather to prop up a computer program or hire another teacher or teacher aide

• an increasing reliance on the use of volunteers in schools to replace support staff

• principals spending more time out of the school in meetings and acting as business managers/administrators rather than being on the job as part of the teaching staff

These problems have not declined but rather have increased as the government continues to cut funding to school boards. Now that this system has been introduced province wide, we can expect to see a major shift to have and have not schools, just as was experienced in Edmonton's public schools.

CHARTER SCHOOLS
These were originally developed in Thatcher's England and have become part of the Republican offensive against public education in the United States.

In Canada Charter schools have been promoted as part of the back to basics movement in Education, whose most outspoken proponent has been Dr. Joel Freedman from Red Deer. It has also been endorsed by various Business organizations such as the Chamber's of Commerce and the president of Syncrude Canada.

Charter schools were introduced as part of the Alberta governments sweeping reform of education. A policy paper was released in November outlining the governments implementation plan for these schools. Responses from the public were solicited for the period of one month! The policy is to be approved in March of 1995 and up to 15 schools will be 'chartered' as of September 1995.

There has been no real public input into this process. The government has a general plan on how to operate these schools, but it is lacking in specifics. Any public input into this process was restricted to the parameters set out in the Department of Education's policy paper on Charter Schools.

While restricting these private schools from being run by religious organizations, these are still private schools. Unlike existing private schools Charter Schools will be publicly funded!

Charter schools will be organized by non-profit societies. They can either approach a local school board for support or, failing to get that support, directly appeal to the Minister of Education.

They must offer a unique program or delivery system for education not currently available in public schools. They will be allowed to sign staffing contracts independent of the school board that sponsors them. Thus hiring their own teaching, custodial, support and maintenance staff or contracting these services out! They do not have to hire teachers who are members of the ATA! They will get the same student directed funds (vouchers) as the public and separate school boards.

They do not have to provide a school for classes, any building will do.

Currently we have several private schools operating in Alberta. We even have some integrated into existing school boards.

The difference is that private schools not integrated into existing school boards have to be funded directly and completely by the parents who send their children to them. Private schools integrated into school districts, must staff their schools with ATA member teachers, and use the staff and facilities of the boards they have a contract with.

The Charter Schools are not restricted as such, and will allow for further privatization of our public school system. It is a very real danger that smaller schools will look at becoming Charter Schools and taking advantage of contracting out all their services, while retaining public funding. This is what has happened in England, though the tradition of private schools existing parallel to public education is far more common. Charter schools in England that have opted out of the public system still retain some grants from the Government. After five years there have been no reliable indicators that they have had a better success with student achievement then their public counterparts.

This is the governments' way of appealing to the right wing ideology that tries to promote the idea that our public school system is failing our children. Despite evidence to the contrary, this belief is promoted by big business and their political allies to radically adjust our school system to meet their needs rather than the public good. Charter Schools are nothing less than an attempt by the Alberta Government to union bust and privatize public education.

SCHOOL COUNCILS; AN ANTI-DEMOCRATIC REFORM
In June of 1994 the Department of Education issued a paper on; Roles and Responsibilities in Education. They then mandated three MLA's to tour the province with a private management company, to get input on this policy paper. The roles of the Department of Education, superintendents of schools, Trustees, Principals, teachers, parents and other school staff were reviewed.

The results of this review were issued in the fall. Following the report of the private Management group, the government implemented its policy of School Councils. Again the Department of Education has asked for further input into this policy paper, and again they have restricted the time allotted for replying to their plan.

The government had no intention of listening to its focus groups or the input they provided. They had a plan and they were going ahead with it regardless of the input they received. This plan is a further step towards privatizing public education in the province.

In September of 1995 each school in Alberta will be mandated to have School Council. This body will run the school and oversee the school based budget/management. Like Charter Schools, the School Council will determine, funding allocations, staffing, and curriculum and delivery of services to students.

The School Council will be run by the parents of children attending the school. The principal and one teacher elected by the teaching staff will also sit on the School Council. Support, Custodial Staff and Students may have a representative on the Council or just be 'consulted'. There must be one community member elected per council; the government indicates that it preference is for a local businessman or church member!

If a School Council should fail to materialize as planned then the power of administrating the school reverts for one (1) year back to the Principal.

While this again appears to be increasing local control of schools and an appeal to direct democracy it is neither. It is elitist and limits democratic control of schools.

• Only parents with students attending the school will get to vote on parent representatives who will sit on the School Council. These same parents will approve who will represent the community on the School Council. There is no way for publicly electing members to school councils.

• Teachers in the school, not the ATA, will elect their representative to the School Council. Other staff may or may not have any say on the council.

• the government heavily promotes appointing business representatives to each school so as to 'partner' them for financial reasons. Real community representation, from Labour, Community Leagues, or any others are not precluded but they are not referred to either.

• 70% of those who pay education taxes are precluded from having any say in the running of the schools they pay for. The majority of taxpayers funding education do not have children in school.

• contrary to the governments plans for handing over administration of our public schools to School Councils

WHAT IS TO BE DONE
The Alberta Federation of Labour and its affiliates must oppose the Alberta Governments three year business plan for public education. We must work with the Alberta Teachers Association and parent organizations to clearly expose the governments plan to privatize public education. We must oppose school councils and charter schools as being undemocratic and a threat to public access to quality education.

The Federation should actively support those public sector unions involved in Education in their fight back against privatization and contracting out. With the changes and regionalization of school districts the Federation should cooperate with the Canadian Union of Public Employees in its organizing drive to maintain unionized positions and to unionize those who have come under the jurisdiction of staff associations.

We must oppose direct student funding as a form of voucher system.

We must oppose the public funding of private schools; Charter Schools.

We must demand that Labour and social activists, authentic community representation be present on all School Councils. Determined by the community not by the parents of a given school.

We must work to strengthen democratic control of school boards by electing labour as Trustees and advocating that these positions be full time, where they are part time. Municipal elections are this year and the Federation and its affiliates should take an active part in them.

We must educate our members and affiliates on the very real dangers this government poses to public education.

We must expose the changes in education happening in Alberta to other trade unionists across Canada and the United States to forewarn them of what can happen in their areas.

Finally we must organize to defeat this government at the next provincial election.

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