Funding grants for class sizes aren’t working: Education minister

EDMONTON (660 NEWS) – Alberta’s Education Minister said throwing money at the problem isn’t helping to reduce overcrowded classrooms.

Adriana LaGrange released the results of an independent audit Friday that looked at the government’s class-size initiative funding.

It found over the past 15 years, $3.4 billion has been invested in the fund, but it’s done little to change class sizes.

“This has not met its objective,” said LaGrange. “We have continued to throw ever-increasing dollars, $291 million alone last year, and we have not moved the needle at all in terms of addressing the class size issue.”

The report said since the 2003-2004 school year, class sizes decreased an average of 1.4 students.

Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes averaged 20.4 students in the 2018-19 school year, compared to 21.8 in 2003-04.

The report has already been criticized with some saying the audit came to the wrong conclusions.

“The government’s conclusions are completely wrong based on their own analysis,” said Joel French, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta. “The problem was not that funding could not make a difference. It was that the government decided three years into the program to remove reporting requirements for where the funding was spent. Once the accountability from school boards for the funding was removed, it was sometimes no longer used for that purpose, but appears to have been used to address other serious challenges in the classroom related to children with complex needs.”

When asked what the future of this initiative would be following the report, LaGrange could only say the UCP is not cutting funding to education.

“We are maintaining education funding because our government believes the investment in education is key. There are complex needs in our classrooms that aren’t being addressed, and we need to address them.”

French did agree that these complexities need to be addressed.

“It is well-known that both small class sizes and robust supports for children with complex needs are necessary to develop the full potential of every child. The provincial government needs to provide sufficient funding to address both of these challenges, as Alberta’s student population continues to grow and students’ needs are more complex than ever before.”

LaGrange wouldn’t comment on what will happen to the class size funding initiative, only saying the government will maintain current funding levels.

Alberta Teachers Association spokesperson Jonathan Teghtmeyer says that’s not good enough to address enrolment growth.

“We’re going to have 15,000 more students in our classrooms this school year compared to last year, and those students need to have their education funded.”

He also calls the audit a political position paper.

The report was based on reviews of school board plans for spending the grant, interviews with school board and leadership staff, a comparison of student and board-level outcome data against class size funding, and a literature review of studies on class size impact on student success.

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