Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling joins Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins to discuss education spending in the provincial budget.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Michael Higgins: You’ve had a couple of days now to digest the details from the budget.
It boosts K to 12 spending by something in the range of $426 million for the coming year.
How far do you expect that to go to keep pace with the rate of growth Alberta is experiencing, and how that trickles down into the classroom?
Jason Schilling: Well, this budget falls dramatically short of what we need in order to meet the needs of our students and our teachers in our classrooms.
We’ve been the least funded in terms of spending and funding here in Alberta from the provincial government for years.
We needed to see $11.53 billion in this budget in order to just be the Canadian average.
MH: That’s a significant difference.
JS: That’s how far behind we are in everything, and that’s reflected in our classrooms - in the largest class sizes we’ve ever seen, in the lack of resources that our students have in order to meet their needs.
I mean, we’re dealing with a crisis in public education right now, and the government’s theme of meeting the challenge for this budget falls short of what we need in public education today.
MH: What’s the number on that? Because the government is increasing spending 4.5 per cent.
JS: We would have needed to see about a 15.3 per cent increase just to be the Canadian average.
We’re not talking like the top three in the country in terms of spending and funding, just the Canadian average. We needed to see 15 per cent.
Interesting enough, private school education got an increase of 12.99 per cent - so there’s some discrepancies there.
MH: Can you be more specific in terms of the trickle down into the classroom - the fact that this budget is not keeping pace with growth?
JS: Well, it doesn’t keep pace with growth and inflation.
What we’ll see is larger class sizes. As new students enter the system, they’ll be in classes of 30 or 40. Our research shows that 40 seems to be the new 30 when it comes to class size.
In Alberta you have students and teachers who tell me stories about how they don’t have Chromebooks. I talked to a teacher who said we don’t have photocopy paper for a photocopier right now.
I can’t imagine doing my job day in and day out without the resources that I need in order to meet my students needs.
We need more education assistance in class. We need more support workers to help with students who have complex needs.
That’s lacking within the system right now, and not funding it moving forward the way it needs to be funded is only going to amplify the issues that we see now.
MH: You made the point that the private schools are getting an increase in funding.
What does that reflect to you - the fact that there is a disparity between what’s going into private schools versus what the public education sector is receiving?
JS: Well, 90 per cent of our students go to public schools and parents don’t have the option to go to a private funded school if they want to.
When I look at budgets, whether it’s our own Association budget or provincial budget, to me they’re also value statements about what we value in society.
Public education serves the public good. So we should be giving the same increases, or if not more, to public education than what we’re doing for private education.
I’m just wondering what the value is, or where the values are with this government, in terms of them increasing private education at a rate that is much, much larger than that of public schools.
MH: You feel that creates a disparity?
JS: They talk about choice in education, but choice in education doesn’t mean equity.
When a private school can spend up to $30,000 per year per student and a public school spends about $12,000 per year per student, that’s not fair. That’s not equity and that’s something that we need to address.
We’re an outlier in Canada on how much money we spend on private education with public dollars.
MH: More than 6,000 education workers are on the picket lines. Currently, it’s a labor dispute over wages. More could potentially follow because more strike votes are being taken.
What is the impact of the that on the education system? What’s it going to take to resolve that?
JS: It’ll take political will and some funding to address the needs of CUPE workers.
As an Association, we support the right that CUPE has to strike. Teachers recognize a lot of the same issues that education workers in CUPE are talking about. We’re talking about the same things.
We need to see government fund education appropriately so that people can make a living wage and that is one of the areas where we need to start from.
MH: What is the impact in the classroom as the strike continues?
JS: I just have been going around the province at teachers’ conventions and teachers who are affected by this do talk about the fact that it’s made already challenging work more challenging.
If I’m in a classroom and I’m used to having a teacher’s assistant with me, suddenly they’re not there with me. It makes things just a little bit more challenging. They miss them. The students miss them. And I know talking to CUPE members on the picket lines, they miss school as well.
We need to get the funding in place so that we can have everybody at schools doing the best that they can for kids.
MH: Where does collective bargaining for teachers with the province stand?
JS: Right now we’re in mediation and the mediator has put an embargo on any kind of communications during this process. So unfortunately I won’t be able to get into any more details with that.
MH: Maybe not specifics but what are you targeting in terms of what needs to be addressed in that next contract?
JS: Teachers have always talked about class size, complexity, wages that are fair, and other things that we need to see within our classrooms. That’s always been our standpoint moving forward.
MH: How confident are you that a deal will be reached and we will not see something with teachers like we’re seeing with CUPE now?
JS: We’ll have to see how it works out. I know that we’re in conversations, and we’ll have to just see how mediation goes. Time will tell.
