ATA’s rationale for fees merits an F
Teachers’ union can’t see the obvious hole in its argument
The old joke about a man who kills his parents and then asks for pity because he is an orphan should be recycled for modern realities: There’s something off when a teachers’ union opposes reform of its members’ compensation and then complains that parents are gouged by school fees.
As reported by the Herald Friday, average school fees this past year amounted to $307, up from $295 in the year previous, this according to the Education ministry.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association president blamed a lack of funding for the out-ofpocket fees parents pay. ATA president Mark Ramsankar claimed such fees were the “result of ongoing unstable funding by governments.”
Facts are annoying things, but they should be introduced when a union president offers up a garbled explanation — “unstable funding” — as the reason parents pay school fees.
Here’s a fact: As former colleagues at the Fraser Institute demonstrated in a paper released this past spring, per pupil spending shot up dramatically in Alberta between 2001/2002 to 2011/2012.
After accounting for student enrolment and inflation, Alberta’s education spending per pupil rose by 55.3 per cent beyond what inflation in those years would demand.
For those who dislike the Fraser Institute, tough luck. Ad hominem arguments are of no use in critical thinking, or anything else, and the calculations are accurate.
Given that per-pupil spending zoomed past inflation, the next question is where did all the money go? That’s rather critical, given that the extra education spending obviously didn’t go to relieving parents of their bills for school fees.
Here, some background is helpful on pay and pension changes for the province’s teachers, starting back when Ed Stelmach was premier.
In 2007, the province negotiated a 2007-2012 deal that assumed liabilities in what’s known as the “pre-1992” teachers’ pension plan. By so doing, the province relieved teachers of a 3.1 per cent deduction for that item from their paycheques.
That, along with a separate 3 per cent salary hike in 2007, meant teachers were effectively awarded a 6.1 per cent increase in just one year, never mind additional increases after that year. Also, each teacher was given a lump-sum $1,500 payment in 2007 as part of the five-year deal with the Stelmach government. By 2012, the government estimated that contract led to increases in teacher compensation that were twice the rate of inflation over the same period.
No surprise then, that according to data provided by the B.C. Teachers Federation, Alberta’s teachers are the bestpaid in the country — $99,119 as of 2013/2014 for the top grid position in Edmonton and $98,938 in Calgary, compared with $81,488 in Vancouver.
Few reasonable people would object to a pay raise for teachers, as they too must deal with inflation. Or even dealing with the pension liability — though having taxpayers assume the entire pre-1992 liability was not the only option. But there, the teachers’ union has steadfastly opposed pension plan reforms that would make their plan less costly for taxpayers.
On costs to the treasury, taxpayers paid $891 million last year for both pre-1992 and post-pension contributions combined ($394.4 million through Education for new pension commitments and $496.3 million via Finance for the pre-1992 obligations). That is $109 million higher than in 2011 and a whopping $290 million more when compared with 2010. Compare the increased annual pension costs with the $92 million parents paid out of pocket last year in school fees.
The notion that “unstable” funding is to blame for expensive school fees paid for by parents is a dodge and incorrect. There has been plenty of education funding in Alberta and way beyond what increasing student enrolment and inflation would require. It’s just that much of it went to double-the-rate-of-inflation raises and to unreformed teachers’ pension plans.