Little ‘new’ in UCP panel’s education vision: critics
After nearly six months of work, the UCP government’s advisory panel on K-12 curriculum released a series of draft recommendations for what they are calling a “new vision” for student learning.
Highlights include a focus on work readiness, financial literacy, Indigenous knowledge and a move away from the much-maligned
Discovery Math curriculum, much of which is already happening in Alberta schools.
But education officials could not provide specific details on how the province’s “new vision” differs from what is already embedded in curriculum, suggesting that the work recently done by the former NDP government was a strong foundation.
“There is a very strong curriculum
and what was drafted is a good foundation to work on.
“But there is opportunity for further growth, for strengthening of the curriculum, and we really want to ensure we get it right,” Lagrange said.
She added that an online survey launched this week and available until Feb. 24 will provide the province with the right direction.
Neither the panel’s chair, Angus Mcbeath, nor vice-chair, Jen Panteluk, attended Wednesday’s unveiling, instead sending panel member Glen Feltham, CEO of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton.
Feltham also acknowledged the existing curriculum is strong, that former governments have done good work but, as in all things, improvements can be made.
“There was both an affirmation of things that were being done that were really strong but there was some broad restructuring. We did consider different frames,” Feltham said.
“And as we looked at broad structures, every aspect we found room for improvement, although the bones did make sense.”
Barb Silva, spokeswoman for the provincial advocacy group Support Our Students, said after months of work the panel should have come up with something much more specific, particularly as schools across the province struggle amid serious underfunding.
“Minister Lagrange evaded almost every pressing question about the details of the report by deflecting to the statement, ‘these are simply recommendations.’
“Considering the time and energy spent on this initiative, Albertans expect some concrete answers to specific questions about the recommendations. Alberta’s children have been operating with insufficient funds and outdated curriculum during this time.”
SOS Alberta has sent more than 6,000 emails to Lagrange since last fall, outlining concerns about underfunding, and not one has been returned.
Silva said Wednesday’s vague response from the panel is another example of ignoring Albertans during difficult times, adding that an online survey is not transparent enough and can be difficult to access through freedom-of-information requests.
NDP education critic Sarah Hoffman said while she was pleased the province admitted the former government’s work on curriculum improvement was good, Wednesday’s update was virtually about nothing.
“It was a Seinfeld press conference, really, especially given what a huge focus this had in the UCP’S election campaign and how hostile it was toward our efforts to update the curriculum.”
The former government was midway through a $68-million revamp of the provincial curriculum when the NDP lost the provincial election to the UCP last April.
The new government placed a “halt” on the NDP’S process, calling it secretive and politicized, and created a new independent advisory panel to re-examine curriculum starting last August.
But the Alberta Teachers’ Association has been critical of the new panel, which had no active teachers appointed, only educators who worked as teachers many years ago.
“This seems to be more and more of a pattern coming from this government, where they set up panels, they put their friends on those panels and the panels have prescribed outcomes,” said ATA spokesman Jonathan Teghtmeyer.
“We’re concerned there were no teachers on this panel, and nobody with any experience in this millennium.
“Our world has changed a lot in the past 20 years, our classrooms have changed a lot in the last 20 years,” he added.
“So having current teachers working with current students and those realities would have been an important voice but it just wasn’t there.”
Beyond recommendations of a “broad restructuring” of curriculum that embeds literacy or numeracy into all elements of learning, the advisory panel also suggested more standardized assessments for students in grades 1 to 5 in hopes of catching students who are falling behind earlier.
Teghtmeyer said the ATA is against increased standardized testing, which already occurs in grades 6, 9 and 12 across Alberta through provincial achievement tests and diploma exams.
But testing students as young as Grade 1 can be stressful and futile, he added, and will not necessarily reflect actual achievement.
“Assessment is best done by the people closest to the classroom and the students that have done the learning, and that is teachers. Standardized testing doesn’t always respond to what has gone on in the classroom and the needs of the students that are there,” Teghtmeyer said.
“You have to have a joy for learning, and standardized tests show a risk of taking that away from a very early age.”
The advisory panel will continue to work until March, and will consider feedback Albertans provide through the survey and revise their draft vision to reflect that.
The province would not say what the costs have been so far for the panel’s work.