HANNAFORD: No, it's not more money Alberta teachers need, it's a good look at how and what they teach

If you pay teachers more, does your kid learn more?Or is that just what you would expect a teachers’ union to say?We could not help noticing the lament published this week by the Alberta Teachers' Association, asserting that Alberta has the “lowest funded public education system in Canada.” They continued that “as a result of underfunding, parents should expect program cuts, resources cuts, insufficient supports and even larger class sizes next year.”A recent Fraser Institute report indicates that on a per capita basis, other provinces do indeed spend more. But, this is not necessarily a bad thing. One might just as well say that the productivity of our schools and teachers is greater than those of free-spending Ontario, or the profligate Maritime provinces. Those wishing to say that could also point out that measured by results, Alberta students get a better education than the rest of the country, so go Alberta go.(The latter needs to be asserted cautiously: in the last 20 years there has been a national deterioration of standards that sucks some of the satisfaction out of still being the best.)Anyway, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, by the way, says that over the next three years, the Government of Alberta will spend an extra $1.2 billion to "address classroom complexity and enrolment growth," and will hire 3,000 more teachers.But for the purposes of discussion, let’s say we accept the ATA's point.Such a statement is obviously intended to generate fear among parents… to spur an anxious mother to post an anguished rebuke to Nicolaides on Instagram — something the ATA would no doubt applaud.But telling people we’re not spending enough on schools rests on one assumption. It is that the more one spends on education, the better that education will be.That is only somewhat true.Certainly, it is hard to teach science without a laboratory. Labs cost money. So if you don’t have one, you’re not really teaching science. Same for phys-ed, and everything else for which you need hard assets. So you have to spend something.But two things need to be acknowledged.First, facilities and services are not actually where most of the money goes. Nearly 80% of what Alberta spends on its schools goes to staff compensation. Only five percent goes to capital and the rest to unspecified costs.So when the ATA says the Government of Alberta isn’t spending enough on education, is their assumption that Alberta’s schools would be better if 80% of any funding increases were directed to staff compensation?To acknowledge the ATA’s legitimate concerns, contract negotiation is an ongoing process. And at a time when a six-figure household income is not enough, it pays an Alberta teacher ($94,000 after 10 years) to marry well.However, from us-the-buyer’s point of view, you don’t necessarily get higher performance by paying people more money. People tend to do what they do and outside the extremes of forced labour and over-achieving piece-workers, it is generally true of all professions that performance varies more with aptitude and attitude than according to remuneration.That’s why, without denigrating the work done in the public system, the learning outcomes are usually nevertheless better at schools outside Alberta’s public system. Their systems are geared to do more with less.That is, when staff believe in the mission they tend to try harder. Also helping is that they are not distracted by the public schools' habit of monitoring what sex (or species!?!) the seven-year-olds are identifying with this week. And parental involvement is welcomed in private schools, wheres public schools aren't happy when parents have questions about curriculum.Second, the real indicator of how well a child has done at school comes from standardized testing.And it is to the Government of Alberta's standardized testing, with its attendant aura of professional accountability, that the ATA most deeply objects. For one thing, it may reveal some under-performing teachers. Again, to be fair to the ATA, they argue that teachers already know how students are progressing and who might need additional help, so they don’t need testing to identify what they already know. Perhaps that is so in some cases.And, ATA President Jason Schilling argues that time taken for testing is time taken away from learning and that the answer is smaller classes. (It is the only answer of course, and coincidentally has more teachers paying dues to the ATA.) This however, is disingenuous. Time enough to argue that, after social engineering has been removed from the curriculum and the core 'three-Rs' are relentlessly and effectively forced into little heads.When reporting politics, we call these things ‘lines,’ things people say to deflect awkward questions.And the awkward question for Alberta’s public education union is this. If standardized testing reveals that after all due allowances have been made for ESL students and those with learning disabilities, other teaching models produce smart, well-informed Grade 12 grads for less money, what changes would you make?At a time when Albertans are pulling their children out of public schools in record numbers, the ATA should be thinking about this, not about how to chisel more money out of the Government of Alberta.And, they would look more credible if they were not at every election trying so hard to elect a party whose leadership would happily get rid of home and private schools altogether — or indeed any type of schooling that makes the ATA look bad — and in doing so make the children effectively wards of state.Just sayin’. .This is what the Western Standard is up againstThe Trudeau government is funding lies and propaganda by directly subsidizing the mainstream media. 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