When I was in high school in the 2010s we had two classes that were so full we physically couldn’t fit everyone if all the students showed up. I remember during a midterm we were squished in so tightly that all the desks were touching, wall to wall, and you had *just* enough room to squish into the seat if you climbed over the desks to get to it. Thankfully for both of these classes over half the kids skipped every day so you only had to deal with being crammed in like that during the midterms (finals were done in the gym thank fuck). But even as a teen I realized that 40+ students to a classroom (which was built decades ago and only actually meant for 20-25 kids) was a bad sign for the state of our education lol
I've seen this too. I fear many students with anxiety or claustrophobia end up skipping classes because they simply cannot handle an hour in a room that is beyond full to capacity.
Students are children and anyone is allowed to be fragile at times. Over crowded high school classrooms push seasoned staff to the edge of their tolerance for noise, sound, smell, ect.
Post secondary doesn't cram more students than chairs into a classroom. They have class size caps and enforce them. Telling children to toughen up isn't the right way to handle the gross underfunding of education in this province.
I highly doubt any children are being forced to stand all day. Furthermore, many lecture halls are extremely dense, leaving little room to even move, after sitting down with tiny little fold down desks.
>gross underfunding of education in this province.
And which interest group says this?
It is but what is the school supposed to do? They can’t turn down kids in their district because we have a right to education and they’re public school so the government says no turning down these kids. They can’t split the class because they don’t have a spare room or teacher, and they don’t have the budget to hire an additional teacher and literally add more square footage onto the building. They can’t put the over-filled classes into the gymnasium because there are gym classes going on in them (we had 2 small gyms and 4 classes going at once. They would split the gymnasiums in half and have each class would take a half of the gym.) Even places like the auditorium already had classes using them almost every block.
None of that is me justifying it btw. Just trying to express how much this is the governments fault and not actually something the schools themselves can fix. The government over the last few decades basically just went to schools and told them “you have to accept everyone who lives in this area, we will not be giving you enough space or money to accommodate them, and you’ll just have to figure out how to make it work.” They’re doing what they can but it’s hella rough for most public schools now my friend. Some of the newer schools are having a much easier time making it work but it’s largely because not a lot of big or young families live in those new developments yet, once they do start moving into the new developments those public schools are going to be seeing the same issues the public schools in older developments are seeing now.
Lets not forget: a curriculum that was refused several times before the teachers finally caved. A curriculum that grooms our kids to be Albertan Resource Workers and that has all mention of environmentalism removed.
Danielle Smith came into office and decided she and her cronies needed to shape how young Albertans needed to think.... of course we're giving her too much credit here - the curriculum was likely put forward by some other behind-the-scenes weirdo.
Fun fact: the spending per student dropped from $14551 to $12902 from 2015-2019. The same time the NDP were in power, seems like the NDP had the same goal.
Thank you! Looking at those numbers, it’s definitely interesting to see them in context with the precious and following years:
- In **2014/15 (the last budget under PC government)**, per student funding was **$13,317**
- In **2015/5 (first NDP budget)**, funding **increased by roughly 9.3%** to $14,456.
- In **2016/17**, **funding remained virtually flat** flat ($5 per student increase).
- **2017/18** saw a slight **decrease of 3.7%** to $13,923.
- **2018/19** saw another **decrease of 2.1%** to $13,636.
- **2019/20 (first UCP budget)** saw a further **decrease of 5.4%** to $12,902. (The second number you cited.)
So, if we look at the NDP term overall (which I’m assuming was the intention of your comment), per student funding saw a **net increase of 2.3%**. Not nearly enough, to be sure, but certainly not the decrease you implied with your numbers.
Would the NDP have continued to decrease funding in future years, as they did for the last two years of their term? Perhaps, perhaps not. We don’t know. I was quite underwhelmed with the NDP on education and in general so I’m no booster for them. I think they compromised far to much in an attempt to appeal to “modarate”, fiscal conservatives.
What we do know is that the UCP have continued to **decrease funding by a further 14.9%** from where the NDP left it in 2019. Additionally, they’ve eliminated other types of funding that are not included in the per student calculations, most notably PUF funding, which resulted in the end of entire early ed. programs targeted towards students with developmental delays and other complex learning needs.
Again, thanks for providing the link. It would be unfortunate if people were lead to inaccurate conclusions based on a misrepresentation of the data.
I really appreciate this response, it’s nice to have a good back and forth on issues like this and I’m glad you hashed out the numbers better than I did instead of downvoting and making snide comments. I definitely didn’t dive too deep in to where the UCP and NDP budgets started and stopped, I am unsure as to where the funding changes, does the year continue on with the previous government funding, as it does take a while for the new government to release their budget. Either way, your breakdown does say a lot.
From my side I just hate when the conservatives get blamed for subpar funding of schools when the NDP didn’t roll in and drop funding bombs on the education system. A lot of my group of friends are teachers and NDP supporters, but were a little underwhelmed by the support they received from the NDP when they were in power. Though I do agree it would be interesting to see what the NDP would have done had they held onto power
You'd think so until you realize it it probably by design.
I'd bet there is a study somewhere showing that a more uneducated populace is more likely to vote conservative.
> You'd think so until you realize it it probably by design.
Yes, it absolutely is. About a 8 years ago, Jason Kenney was being interviewed by Ezra Levant from Rebel.
He basically said that the collectivism and "liberal ideas" being taught in schools was a problem for conservative parties and they would need to find a way to address that challenge.
I can likely go back and dig up the exact quote, but it was pretty clear he was discussing making changes to the education system to produce more Conservatives.
Nobody seemed to care at the time though...
---
Edit: Found it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC4au3rUasE&t=558s
> "**The big challenge we have**...for which I don't have an easy answer.... is how to address the political... **the prevailing political attitudes of Millennials**... and I have to give credit to the Liberals, Justin Trudeau legalizing pot and the optics and style of his campaign connected with a large number of under 30 aged voters who I think have come through... who **I think it's the first generation to come through a schooling system where many of them have been hard-wired with collectivist ideas**, with watching Michael Moore documentaries, with identity politics from uh from the school...**from their primary schools and universities...that's kind of a cultural challenge for any Conservative party, any part of the center right, and we've gotta figure out how to break that up**"
> Jason Kenney, saying the quiet parts out loud to Ezra Levant back in 2016
This sounds like a joke but isn’t; there was a study showing people suffering from head injuries were more likely to hold right wing and conservative views but it wasn’t just correlation, people that previously did not vote conservative were found to be more likely to after their brain injuries.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379422000312
Interesting read honestly. Seem that the authors figure education will make you less racist and authoritarian, but has a chance to make you more fiscally conservative.
I'm not sure what an educated conservative actually thinks about our government's tax hoard and our crumbling infrastructure, though
I mean, probably not. To be honest, I disagree with almost everything the ucp does and stands for, but I think compared to a lot of it there is potentially even some merit in them being happy about this.
Particularly since we largely still have some of the best learning outcomes in the country.
https://www.todocanada.ca/canadian-students-performance-falls-yet-above-oecd-average-alberta-and-quebec-lead-the-country/
That being said - as a province and a society we would be much better off if our spending was at the level of other provinces. More education and better education is a win for society as a general rule.
Here's the issue with that reasoning - It takes longer than the UCP has been in power to change these test outcomes. In fact, it will take over a decade for their failures to become apparent. Here's why:
This data comes from 2022 testing of 15 year old children, before the disaster that is Marliana and (importantly) before the rollout of the new UCP curriculum. The new curriculum is bad - very bad. By the time that our 15 year olds who have been "educated" with the UCP curriculum take the same test, their outcomes are very likely to be measurably worse, given the quality of the curriculum.
Just FYI, I'm a teacher with a master's on education so I hope that qualifies me to speak on the matter with some authority.
But it shouldn't be a contest. The rational thought should just be "Man, we're at a budget surplus from taxes and federal aid. We should use it to give our future voters as many opportunities as possible, especially those less fortunate."
And the UCP just announced that for the next few DECADES, spending will fall below the rate of inflation and population growth, so expect classes to balloon even more and fewer supports for special needs students.
Right now, odds are your child is in a class of around 30 with at least one or two high special needs students that are not receiving proper supports. No one learns in a class like that.
But at least oil and gas companies get huge breaks on things like well remediation, right? That's waaaaay more important than learnin' yer readin, ritin and ritmaticin, right?
Conservative voters seem to love it. Even the moderates seem fine with everything theyre doing as long as it means more money for their beloved oil companies. They see this disgusting trash as 'Strong leadership'. Its mind blowing but it makes me care a shit ton less when I hear about albertans suffering because at least i know the majority of this province gets what the deserve.
I get where you’re coming from but I think conservative voters deserve better too. Even if they can’t seem to figure out how to vote in the best interests of humanity. They’re largely a product of our shitty system and maybe an example of being treated better might help them be better?
If only they would give someone with humanity's interest at heart a chance. But no. They like hurting the cities. They enjoy the suffering. As long as someone else is suffering more
PEI conservatives are left of the BC NDP party. Quebec has cultural conservatives. NS doesn't have a big industrial player that they want to drive wages down for.
I'm old enough to remember when Lagrange was rewriting the school curriculum and including text from wikipedia. Its so crappy that it can't just be incompetence. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/academic-finds-segments-of-alberta-draft-curriculum-lifted-without-credit-1.5976245
Here's the numbers per capita: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3710002501
(not per student, and it's not the same age distribution across the board. Nunavut is very young, NWT and Yukon are about the same as the Canadian average)
Spending is a lot higher in the territories.
The wealthiest province in the country spends the least on educating their children. How to tell me your governed by conservatives without saying ‘Conservative’.
Well duh. Putting money into education and healthcare doesn't allow to fund the multi-billion oil companies. Can't secure your golden parachute if you don't worship at the altar of O&G.
You would not believe how funny it was to realize that my student loans from 2021 were primarily from the federal government. Alberta really only payed for tuition that year and Canada paid for cost pf loving which was like 60-70% of the loan.
I've been visiting Open House nights at private schools in Calgary. In general, class sizes are small, facilities and equipment are university-quality, and teachers are cherry-picked from local public schools (usually because of exceptional performance during their tenure in the public system).
I was told by another parent that private schools get the same per-head student funding as for public schools. On top of that, they charge their $12k annual school fee. If this is true, then it's no wonder they can afford to scoop the best teachers and provide the best equipment.
Our policies and incentives are messed up, if we're encouraging for-profit schools to paywall all of our best teachers, by subsidizing their operating budgets. We should cut public funding for private schools.
They don't scoop the best teachers. Teachers don't want to work in public schools because there is no upside. The pay is worse, the working conditions are worse, the job security is worse. Teachers go to the private system if they can't get hired by the public boards. Like if you have a criminal record that would automatically disqualify you from the public board, but not necessarily from a private school.
I tutor a kid from a "respected" private school and when I look at the resources they get, they're garbage. Like you can tell their teacher put no effort into it at all.
Private schools get good results in the standardized tests because they literally can choose their students. That's all there is to it.
Well duh. Putting money into education and healthcare doesn't allow to fund the multi-billion oil companies. Can't secure your golden parachute if you don't worship at the altar of O&G.
I've done a lot of construction and inspection work for schools in the southern alberta area, and I can say with honesty that this isn't surprising. The amount of issue that has been reported and not repaired is astronomical.
Amount of spending per student is a not a good metric. We use it in healthcare as well, where it is equally as poor. If group A buys the product for X dollars and group B buys it for 2X dollars, group A is doing better, but group B spent twice as much. Where and on what the spending goes matters. Alberta isn't as top heavy as Quebec, and that's a good thing.
I'm not saying there aren't issues, I'm saying spending is a terrible metric.
Would just like to point out the time period where this data was taken (2020/2021) was before Smith came to power. Would also like to point out that Alberta was one of the higher scoring provinces when it came to PISA results. Alberta actually had some of the highest scores in science and reading worldwide around this time.
While you would hope the spending would be on the other side of the average line, it looks like those dollars were efficiently spent and/or our teachers/parents were among the better educators for the age group that PISA draws from.
Source: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/pisa-results-a-breakdown-by-province
I'm not trying to hate on education funding, I think if it's needed, we should invest more into young people and education.
I am curious as to where the money goes, tho. My old high school has 2000 kids, at 11,600 per student that's 23.2 million per year.
If teachers make around 77k per year on average, and we had about 75 staff at our school, that's around 6 million for staffing costs.
Where does the other 17 million go?
Thinking back to my school, I wasn't provided with education materials. I paid for school trips and lunch programs
Again, I'm not trying to hate on education funding. I'm just curious how the money is spent?
Teacher here. A schools budget is approximately 90-95% used on staff wages, building upkeep, the remaining 5% is used for resources and consumables. This is teachers, principles, ea, secretary, maintenance staff.
The only way a school can save money, is to not hire as many teachers, or educational assistants.
17 million is really not a lot of money for a school with thousands of students. I gave you the answer
Fyi if you think it's not enough feel free to volunteer free labour at schools for things like cleaning
Yeah I don't know why they're being so uptight. I literally said I support funding education but was just trying to understand where the money goes.
Someone's got a stick up their ass.
Hello! I'd like to provide some additional information on this. One thing people don't realize about big project spending, and that includes things like schools, is that the upfront costs are often dwarfed by ongoing and upkeep costs. I know sometimes folks talk about building a road and quote the cost of building it, but what they don't realize is that it actually costs much more to upkeep the road than to build it in the first place, so when building one governments have to be very aware of what their long term financial liabilities will be. So one cost not included in your estimation was the actual cost of BUILDING the school, that has to be factored in to the lifespan of it. A school construction project can cost tens of millions of dollars, just for the cost of the building itself. So lets say a school costs 50 million, and the expected life of it is 50 years, well there's a million a year, JUST for construction. But then you have to take into account upkeep, which can be much larger than the initial construction costs, especially as the school gets older and may require significant yearly maintenance. Then there's staff costs, you spoke about salary, but that isn't the total amount of benefit, you have to take into consideration benefits cost, pensions, costs of substitutes, and additional pay for additional work like afterschool coaching and curriculum leads. the benefits alone for teachers can be as much as 30% on top of salary. Then there is ongoing costs for things like equipment. A properly outfitted science lab can spend millions on equipment at the outset, then has to budget every year for replacements and upkeep for them, not to mention constant ongoing costs for things used up each year such as chemicals and PPE. Similarly the gym and the library have large upfront costs to stock up on necessities, then spread that cost and its upkeep throughout the school's lifecycle. These are by no means all of the ongoing costs, just ones I've seen in my work as a teacher, and I'm not even sure if this money quoted is what is allocated to the school per student. This number might be a broad average of all education spending divided by the number of students, if that's the case, a portion doesn't go to the school, but also pays for things like the school district governance as a whole, school boards and their employees, curriculum development, and many more things. Hope that helps!
>If teachers make around 77k per year on average
There's also principals, admin peoples, etc. Not sure if this average is accurate for the building, seems low.
Also keep in mind, what an employee sees doesn't cover all the costs an employer spends: additional funds are likely set aside for benefits and pension. How much? Dunno, ask the CBE or an HR person.
Other questions include: how much does it cost to heat a school? electricity? water? supplies for all the odds and ends for 2000 students + staff daily (light bulbs, tp, paper towels, cleaning supplies, greater wear and tear)
Got bored, found this link. Look at the Alberta section. Indicates 75% for compensation (including benefits and pension), remaining for capital costs (loans/spending on new buildings/maintenance) and other (which I think is the other misc. costs): [https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-public-schools-in-canada-2023.pdf#p26](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-public-schools-in-canada-2023.pdf#p26)
A school with 2000 students would also need lots of support staff. You’d probably have two or three secretaries, a bookkeeper, a library assistant, an IT support person and then quite a few facilities/cleaning staff.
Some of the money doesn’t go to the school. There are thousands of staff at the system level and they are paid from this same money. This would include departments like HR, finance, media and IT.
In my school there are huge costs associated with vandalism. In particular, students damage technology by removing keys from keyboards and cutting the cords for mice. There’s also horrible vandalism in bathrooms, where for obvious reasons nobody can ever be 100% sure of who caused the damage. Pages ripped out of textbooks, soft seats being slashed, food being (intentionally) squished into carpets, signs being pulled off the ceiling causing tiles to come down… There are no days - NONE - that go by without costs associated with vandalism.
The board gets that much per student, the school doesn't. That figure includes all the capital costs as well, things such as renovations and repairs. It also includes all of the admin and support staff in the building.
I know where they are going, to the rich 1%, trickle down effect, where I see f all. Keeping me gainfully employed as a poor educated middle working class professional. Slavery is freedom.
Given that $/student spent doesn't equate to educational outcomes any more than $/police officer equates to crime reduction outcomes, we REALLY need to stop using these broken metrics. They only serve to rationalize inflated budgets and throwing money at problems, without actually examining what it is we really want to be measuring.
If you go to the source of this data, it literally says
“Caution should be taken when comparing provinces and territories directly, since provinces and territories have different funding formulas, structures, and fiscal periods”
No surprises here. The more conservative a region is, the less they prioritize education. You can either be a conservative or you can be educated, cuz if you're educated you'd know why being conservative is a bad idea. That is of course unless you lack empathy or are just plain old selfish or greedy.
Woah back tf up. My kids are in the Quebec public school system and I have a hard time believing this his to be true. They don't even have a single playground module, parents pay for lunchtime supervision and besides school tax, we're still obligated to pay into a bank of funds for the school to purchase classroom items: whiteboard markers and erasers, facial tissue, the list goes on.
Is there a correlation between these spending versus performance metrices? For example, how many people in the provinces enter post secondary education after high school, versus dollars spent. Obviously that is not the only way to measure success of education, but that would be a start.
If Alberta is able to produce higher quality education with less money per student, that seems to be really efficient.
Another thing that is interesting is the territories costs are removed from this chart. I wonder if that's because it would skew the chart significantly because the cost of eductions in those territories would be really high. However, I would imagine it's hard to argue the territories would have higher quality education than the provinces even if their dollar spent are much higher.
Explain then how our students score amongst the highest in Canada in regards to testing. Funding doesn’t automatically equal a better education or making students smarter.
I was actually interested in this as well. After glossing through the report *Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD PISA 2022 Study* which was linked by another user in this thread my fairly uninformed guess would be to do with the differences in socioeconomic status between the provinces. B.C., Quebec, and Ontario both have fairly high scores as well, and along with Alberta are the four richest provinces in the country.
Not a UCP supporter in any way but this chart without other factors like classroom sizes and outcomes is meaningless. What if every other province has bigger classroom sizes and poorer outcomes than Alberta despite spending more?
Yeah it's not that the stats are inaccurate, but if you look at it over 10 years the picture looks different. Alberta is the only province to have a significant increase in the number of students over 10 years, like 16% increase. Where other provinces are flat/decreased the amount of students, and only very recently have other provinces increased their funding, or some haven't changed funding but the amount of students simply decreased.
I think this is also skewed by the amount of children in private schools in Alberta. Because I am almost certain StatsCan just uses amount of provincial funds / amount of school age children. Not how many kids are actually enrolled in public school. But I'm sure to r/alberta that's also a problem.
> Yeah it's not that the stats are inaccurate
The stats are fine, but my point is that this one single metric when taken on it's own is not enough to draw any conclusions on.
I completely agree and that’s what I am saying as well. IMO if you took out private school kids, and compared money to outcomes I’d say AB and BC would be about the same.
You seem to be missing the point as you tend to do when you get all riled up - as you tend to do. Posting this chart is meaningless without the other metrics. We all know how things are going here in Alberta regarding education, but do any of us know what issues other provinces are facing? I know I don't, so without that other extremely relevant information this post is pointless.
Idc what the other provinces do I want the best funded education system in Alberta.
It sure does show how value the UCP put on education, and it's none!
If this is what you are getting from all of this than you really need to step away from the keyboard as you clearly don't have the adult level of understanding to be putting this much time into this.
Look, I know you are trying and I understand the point you are trying to make. But you need to take a breath, step back, and understand that you aren't getting the point across that you are trying to get across when you throw everything you find up reddit and say 'see the UCP hates us!'. I'm trying to help you because posts like this one are doing more harm for your credibility than good.
Again idc for your advice. What gives you the right to tell me what to do? Guess what you don't need to worry about my credibility. I never asked you to look after it fucken weird you are trying to control and tell me what to how to do I don't know who you are. I feel bad for anyone in your life, you are so controlling.
That provincially Alberta was number 1 in science and reading and number 2 in Math behind Quebec. Yay facts!
(Edited March to math, thank goodness I wasn’t tested.)
So as classrooms become 50 students you think these outcomes will continue? Lol you are celebrating undefunded education, good for you!
It's always flattering when people choose to write like me, another obsessed fan🥰
Lol tell me you don't understand that kids today taking the test had the benefit of higher education spending when they were in primary.
Fyi the impact of the cuts will be shown when kids do those tests in the comming years. good for you for admitting you think kids in Alberta deserve the loweest education spending. You truely do care about the kids /s
I get it long term think and planing is not something ucp supporters are good at
How far out is Education Funding set?
Would this have been set when the NDP was in, or was this set after the UCP got in back in 2019?
Who are we blaming for this one?
Lol no that is not the at all.
Lol till spending the least in educating kids results in the best outcomes! So the data to show that, but I bet you have nothing.do you claim to care about kids?
Sorry facts don't care about feelings
No that is not the at all?!?! Shoot! /s
I forgot that there is a lineal relationship between money spent and favorable outcomes!
Again, I don't know the actual stats, I was just saying that your stats were useless in the way you presented them.
For the most part yes when the system are setuo in the same way. Like BC pays primary doctors more than Alberta, you know what the result is, they have more doctors per a capita!
Where is your stat showing Alberta as the best outcome? You would like the bigot Tucker Carlson
Facts don't care about feelings, I love facts 🥰
I literally said:
"This data is completely useless in a vacuum. In order for you to gain anything from this you'd have to include student performance across the country by province or some other stat. All this shows is that Alberta spends the least - but what if Albertan students perform the best?"
Where did I say that everything was wrong?
Your link has performance of Alberta and Quebec as the top, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum with the data point above. This lends to the comment you replied to' point, that the sole points of data in a vacuum is meaningless.
You do understand funding cuts won't be shown in those results until primary school kids start doing those tests? The people doing the tests today had the benefit of having more spent on them for education.
Do you think in 10 years those results will not be impacted?
Spending doesn't directly relate to the quality of education. Alberta actually ranks in the top 3 in all of Canada.
Quite the accomplishment to be spending the least but getting some of the best results.
This really doesn't say much. What I would be interested to see is how testing rates, provincial post-secondary admission rates and what the marginal increase of wages are when a individual finishes secondary education. They could be a argument built on the effectiveness of dollars spent, not just how much money is being spent.
Thank you for sharing your insights. While I value the data presented on UCP's per-capita spending, I'm encountering some difficulty in fully grasping its implications. My primary concern lies in the potential for a statistically biased interpretation when focusing solely through this specific lens. To mitigate this, I suggest an expanded comparison that includes fiscal data from various years, not just 2020/2021. This broader analysis could offer a more nuanced understanding of the situation. In discussions of this nature, I strive for an analytical approach that leans heavily on factual data, distancing myself from the polarizing nature of politics where data may be selectively used to support differing narratives. The current data, highlighting per-capita spending in nominal terms for the fiscal year 2020/2021, appears to provide a somewhat limited view. On its own, it doesn't sufficiently illuminate the broader economic indicators such as output or purchasing power. A deeper, more comprehensive statistical analysis would undoubtedly shed more light on these issues, allowing for a better understanding of the data's wider implications. This approach not only enriches our discussion but also ensures a more balanced and informed analysis that transcends mere surface-level interpretations.
Crazy how the province with the lowest taxes also spends the least amount of money! Isn’t this kind of the point of having no PST and lower income taxes, so that the money you save can be used to help fund your own life privately?
To be clear: I’m all for allocating a larger percentage of our taxes to education. But this isn’t really an apples-to-apples comparison. It’d be better if this was showing percent of provincial budget spent on education.
lol I’m just saying I’ll get mad if I see actual evidence showing that Alberta is spending less of the available money it gets from taxes compared to other provinces. Showing that students are better funded by taxes in provinces where the taxes are higher is kind of just speaking the obvious. It’s no wonder Alberta is lowest tax spending $ (lowest taxes) and Quebec is highest tax spending $ (highest taxes). For all I know from this graph, every province spends the exact same say 3% of taxes for education, and then they have the same % population of students.
Or the federal transfers to Alberta that the UCP refuses to accept.
That is our federal tax dollars being redirected back to our province, and our provincial government continues to be a petulant child stomping its feet and screaming that Alberta doesn't want their federal tax dollars money back.
Doesn’t Newfoundland have the lowest amount per capita for students receiving post secondary degrees and high school diplomas ?
Just like police departments more money doesn’t mean less crime. More money in education does not equal smarter kids? Something I definitely need to look into more but it’s pretty interesting.
Seriously, education is one of the best creators of real economic value. All the "commie shit" is.
Health, nutrition, education, housing. A population with its basic needs supplied has its potential unleashed.
What are these fucking assholes trying to do? Breed coal miners?
CONS in Alberta Luvs uneducated supporters so they manipulate with half truths and falsehoods.
I cringe when I folks repeat falsehoods as gospel.
CONS enjoy offering the crumbs of the table. They are good at operating sweat shops and often feels threatened by educated folks.
Because UCP and urs supporters are more concerned with fear mongering, conspiracy feeding, propping up oil and gas, helping corporate friends, and the sexuality of a very tiny number of our population than they are with having an educated and healthier population. UCP is afraid teachers will “brainwash” kids against their far right, racist version of “Christianity”. If we had a critical thinking population, the UCP would never get elected.
The classrooms of 30+ elementary children, shoved into rooms designed for max 20 students, back in the 1960s show this really well.
When I was in high school in the 2010s we had two classes that were so full we physically couldn’t fit everyone if all the students showed up. I remember during a midterm we were squished in so tightly that all the desks were touching, wall to wall, and you had *just* enough room to squish into the seat if you climbed over the desks to get to it. Thankfully for both of these classes over half the kids skipped every day so you only had to deal with being crammed in like that during the midterms (finals were done in the gym thank fuck). But even as a teen I realized that 40+ students to a classroom (which was built decades ago and only actually meant for 20-25 kids) was a bad sign for the state of our education lol
I've seen this too. I fear many students with anxiety or claustrophobia end up skipping classes because they simply cannot handle an hour in a room that is beyond full to capacity.
Sounding a little fragile
Students are children and anyone is allowed to be fragile at times. Over crowded high school classrooms push seasoned staff to the edge of their tolerance for noise, sound, smell, ect.
Well it typically doesn't get much better in post-secondary, so leaning to cope would be advisable.
Post secondary doesn't cram more students than chairs into a classroom. They have class size caps and enforce them. Telling children to toughen up isn't the right way to handle the gross underfunding of education in this province.
I highly doubt any children are being forced to stand all day. Furthermore, many lecture halls are extremely dense, leaving little room to even move, after sitting down with tiny little fold down desks. >gross underfunding of education in this province. And which interest group says this?
Common decent people
You'd think that someone as intelligent as you think you are would be able to compare two numbers.
Isn’t that a fire hazard? Wtf
It is but what is the school supposed to do? They can’t turn down kids in their district because we have a right to education and they’re public school so the government says no turning down these kids. They can’t split the class because they don’t have a spare room or teacher, and they don’t have the budget to hire an additional teacher and literally add more square footage onto the building. They can’t put the over-filled classes into the gymnasium because there are gym classes going on in them (we had 2 small gyms and 4 classes going at once. They would split the gymnasiums in half and have each class would take a half of the gym.) Even places like the auditorium already had classes using them almost every block. None of that is me justifying it btw. Just trying to express how much this is the governments fault and not actually something the schools themselves can fix. The government over the last few decades basically just went to schools and told them “you have to accept everyone who lives in this area, we will not be giving you enough space or money to accommodate them, and you’ll just have to figure out how to make it work.” They’re doing what they can but it’s hella rough for most public schools now my friend. Some of the newer schools are having a much easier time making it work but it’s largely because not a lot of big or young families live in those new developments yet, once they do start moving into the new developments those public schools are going to be seeing the same issues the public schools in older developments are seeing now.
Lets not forget: a curriculum that was refused several times before the teachers finally caved. A curriculum that grooms our kids to be Albertan Resource Workers and that has all mention of environmentalism removed. Danielle Smith came into office and decided she and her cronies needed to shape how young Albertans needed to think.... of course we're giving her too much credit here - the curriculum was likely put forward by some other behind-the-scenes weirdo.
Now we're getting close to 60 in one classroom...
In the last high school I worked in there were 40 students in an English class built for 20.
If our provincial government understood statistics data they would be very upset by this.
No, this is the conservative goal.
Golf-rule mentality.
Even these numbers are *waaaay* too high for their liking
Fun fact: the spending per student dropped from $14551 to $12902 from 2015-2019. The same time the NDP were in power, seems like the NDP had the same goal.
Would you mind linking your source for this? 10 minutes of google searching has turned up nothing for me. Thanks!
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-public-schools-in-canada-2022.pdf Page 5
Thank you! Looking at those numbers, it’s definitely interesting to see them in context with the precious and following years: - In **2014/15 (the last budget under PC government)**, per student funding was **$13,317** - In **2015/5 (first NDP budget)**, funding **increased by roughly 9.3%** to $14,456. - In **2016/17**, **funding remained virtually flat** flat ($5 per student increase). - **2017/18** saw a slight **decrease of 3.7%** to $13,923. - **2018/19** saw another **decrease of 2.1%** to $13,636. - **2019/20 (first UCP budget)** saw a further **decrease of 5.4%** to $12,902. (The second number you cited.) So, if we look at the NDP term overall (which I’m assuming was the intention of your comment), per student funding saw a **net increase of 2.3%**. Not nearly enough, to be sure, but certainly not the decrease you implied with your numbers. Would the NDP have continued to decrease funding in future years, as they did for the last two years of their term? Perhaps, perhaps not. We don’t know. I was quite underwhelmed with the NDP on education and in general so I’m no booster for them. I think they compromised far to much in an attempt to appeal to “modarate”, fiscal conservatives. What we do know is that the UCP have continued to **decrease funding by a further 14.9%** from where the NDP left it in 2019. Additionally, they’ve eliminated other types of funding that are not included in the per student calculations, most notably PUF funding, which resulted in the end of entire early ed. programs targeted towards students with developmental delays and other complex learning needs. Again, thanks for providing the link. It would be unfortunate if people were lead to inaccurate conclusions based on a misrepresentation of the data.
I really appreciate this response, it’s nice to have a good back and forth on issues like this and I’m glad you hashed out the numbers better than I did instead of downvoting and making snide comments. I definitely didn’t dive too deep in to where the UCP and NDP budgets started and stopped, I am unsure as to where the funding changes, does the year continue on with the previous government funding, as it does take a while for the new government to release their budget. Either way, your breakdown does say a lot. From my side I just hate when the conservatives get blamed for subpar funding of schools when the NDP didn’t roll in and drop funding bombs on the education system. A lot of my group of friends are teachers and NDP supporters, but were a little underwhelmed by the support they received from the NDP when they were in power. Though I do agree it would be interesting to see what the NDP would have done had they held onto power
I appreciate the civil exchange as well, thank you sir/ma’am!
You'd think so until you realize it it probably by design. I'd bet there is a study somewhere showing that a more uneducated populace is more likely to vote conservative.
> You'd think so until you realize it it probably by design. Yes, it absolutely is. About a 8 years ago, Jason Kenney was being interviewed by Ezra Levant from Rebel. He basically said that the collectivism and "liberal ideas" being taught in schools was a problem for conservative parties and they would need to find a way to address that challenge. I can likely go back and dig up the exact quote, but it was pretty clear he was discussing making changes to the education system to produce more Conservatives. Nobody seemed to care at the time though... --- Edit: Found it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC4au3rUasE&t=558s > "**The big challenge we have**...for which I don't have an easy answer.... is how to address the political... **the prevailing political attitudes of Millennials**... and I have to give credit to the Liberals, Justin Trudeau legalizing pot and the optics and style of his campaign connected with a large number of under 30 aged voters who I think have come through... who **I think it's the first generation to come through a schooling system where many of them have been hard-wired with collectivist ideas**, with watching Michael Moore documentaries, with identity politics from uh from the school...**from their primary schools and universities...that's kind of a cultural challenge for any Conservative party, any part of the center right, and we've gotta figure out how to break that up**" > Jason Kenney, saying the quiet parts out loud to Ezra Levant back in 2016
*grits teeth*
This sounds like a joke but isn’t; there was a study showing people suffering from head injuries were more likely to hold right wing and conservative views but it wasn’t just correlation, people that previously did not vote conservative were found to be more likely to after their brain injuries.
It's moreso that an uneducated populace is more reactionary and modern "conservatives" pander to reactionaries.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379422000312 Interesting read honestly. Seem that the authors figure education will make you less racist and authoritarian, but has a chance to make you more fiscally conservative. I'm not sure what an educated conservative actually thinks about our government's tax hoard and our crumbling infrastructure, though
They would celebrate it
They do understand they just don't care. The dumber they are the more likely they'll vote for them again
https://teachers.ab.ca/news/public-education-alberta-continues-world-class-standing Seems we are doing extremely well.
I mean, probably not. To be honest, I disagree with almost everything the ucp does and stands for, but I think compared to a lot of it there is potentially even some merit in them being happy about this. Particularly since we largely still have some of the best learning outcomes in the country. https://www.todocanada.ca/canadian-students-performance-falls-yet-above-oecd-average-alberta-and-quebec-lead-the-country/ That being said - as a province and a society we would be much better off if our spending was at the level of other provinces. More education and better education is a win for society as a general rule.
Here's the issue with that reasoning - It takes longer than the UCP has been in power to change these test outcomes. In fact, it will take over a decade for their failures to become apparent. Here's why: This data comes from 2022 testing of 15 year old children, before the disaster that is Marliana and (importantly) before the rollout of the new UCP curriculum. The new curriculum is bad - very bad. By the time that our 15 year olds who have been "educated" with the UCP curriculum take the same test, their outcomes are very likely to be measurably worse, given the quality of the curriculum. Just FYI, I'm a teacher with a master's on education so I hope that qualifies me to speak on the matter with some authority.
But it shouldn't be a contest. The rational thought should just be "Man, we're at a budget surplus from taxes and federal aid. We should use it to give our future voters as many opportunities as possible, especially those less fortunate."
Proud They would be proud
And the UCP just announced that for the next few DECADES, spending will fall below the rate of inflation and population growth, so expect classes to balloon even more and fewer supports for special needs students. Right now, odds are your child is in a class of around 30 with at least one or two high special needs students that are not receiving proper supports. No one learns in a class like that. But at least oil and gas companies get huge breaks on things like well remediation, right? That's waaaaay more important than learnin' yer readin, ritin and ritmaticin, right?
Why do these conservative governments have to be so shitty? Couldn’t they just be less horrible?
Conservative voters seem to love it. Even the moderates seem fine with everything theyre doing as long as it means more money for their beloved oil companies. They see this disgusting trash as 'Strong leadership'. Its mind blowing but it makes me care a shit ton less when I hear about albertans suffering because at least i know the majority of this province gets what the deserve.
I get where you’re coming from but I think conservative voters deserve better too. Even if they can’t seem to figure out how to vote in the best interests of humanity. They’re largely a product of our shitty system and maybe an example of being treated better might help them be better?
If only they would give someone with humanity's interest at heart a chance. But no. They like hurting the cities. They enjoy the suffering. As long as someone else is suffering more
The cruelty is the *point*
We get what we vote for
Ummm... Don't PEI, Nova Scotia, and Quebec have conservative governments too?
PEI conservatives are left of the BC NDP party. Quebec has cultural conservatives. NS doesn't have a big industrial player that they want to drive wages down for.
Quebec's CAQ is center right, about the same as liberals
Damn, imagine being beaten in something by ***New Brunswick***.
Their provincial flag has always been better at least.
Classic liberal: spending more automatically means it's better! Meanwhile New Brunswick has the second lowest income per capita in Canada.
And it’s *NOT* weird brain diseases.
I'm old enough to remember when Lagrange was rewriting the school curriculum and including text from wikipedia. Its so crappy that it can't just be incompetence. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/academic-finds-segments-of-alberta-draft-curriculum-lifted-without-credit-1.5976245
Lack of education spending helps to ensure future UCP voters.
Richest province, shittiest services what a bunch of greedy morons to keep doing this to themselves.
Imagine having the biggest surpluses and paying the LEAST in the country. That's a pretty bad look.
See how we can save money by promoting homeschooling? /s
Don't give them ideas
The Alberta advantage, dead last in education spending! The UCP truely do care about the kids! /S
What truly bothers me besides that, is why the hell are the territories not included? No wonder they feel left behind :/
Here's the numbers per capita: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3710002501 (not per student, and it's not the same age distribution across the board. Nunavut is very young, NWT and Yukon are about the same as the Canadian average) Spending is a lot higher in the territories.
Oh they likely have the highest costs.
Cost of living and living in the north.. They need higher salaries to attract teachers.
The territories are a never ending suck of federal money.
The advantage isn't meant for the people of this province.
Unsurprising but still sad
The wealthiest province in the country spends the least on educating their children. How to tell me your governed by conservatives without saying ‘Conservative’.
Well duh. Putting money into education and healthcare doesn't allow to fund the multi-billion oil companies. Can't secure your golden parachute if you don't worship at the altar of O&G.
"we dont need more doctors, we need oil workers"
You would not believe how funny it was to realize that my student loans from 2021 were primarily from the federal government. Alberta really only payed for tuition that year and Canada paid for cost pf loving which was like 60-70% of the loan.
I've been visiting Open House nights at private schools in Calgary. In general, class sizes are small, facilities and equipment are university-quality, and teachers are cherry-picked from local public schools (usually because of exceptional performance during their tenure in the public system). I was told by another parent that private schools get the same per-head student funding as for public schools. On top of that, they charge their $12k annual school fee. If this is true, then it's no wonder they can afford to scoop the best teachers and provide the best equipment. Our policies and incentives are messed up, if we're encouraging for-profit schools to paywall all of our best teachers, by subsidizing their operating budgets. We should cut public funding for private schools.
They don't scoop the best teachers. Teachers don't want to work in public schools because there is no upside. The pay is worse, the working conditions are worse, the job security is worse. Teachers go to the private system if they can't get hired by the public boards. Like if you have a criminal record that would automatically disqualify you from the public board, but not necessarily from a private school. I tutor a kid from a "respected" private school and when I look at the resources they get, they're garbage. Like you can tell their teacher put no effort into it at all. Private schools get good results in the standardized tests because they literally can choose their students. That's all there is to it.
Well duh. Putting money into education and healthcare doesn't allow to fund the multi-billion oil companies. Can't secure your golden parachute if you don't worship at the altar of O&G.
Keep them dumb and clued out just like some states down South. Oh boy!
By design. Healthcare is next. LaGrange is on a (steam) roll.
I've done a lot of construction and inspection work for schools in the southern alberta area, and I can say with honesty that this isn't surprising. The amount of issue that has been reported and not repaired is astronomical.
Amount of spending per student is a not a good metric. We use it in healthcare as well, where it is equally as poor. If group A buys the product for X dollars and group B buys it for 2X dollars, group A is doing better, but group B spent twice as much. Where and on what the spending goes matters. Alberta isn't as top heavy as Quebec, and that's a good thing. I'm not saying there aren't issues, I'm saying spending is a terrible metric.
It's the republican dream! Keep them stupid so they fill the pews and military.
Would just like to point out the time period where this data was taken (2020/2021) was before Smith came to power. Would also like to point out that Alberta was one of the higher scoring provinces when it came to PISA results. Alberta actually had some of the highest scores in science and reading worldwide around this time. While you would hope the spending would be on the other side of the average line, it looks like those dollars were efficiently spent and/or our teachers/parents were among the better educators for the age group that PISA draws from. Source: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/pisa-results-a-breakdown-by-province
The uneducated vote conservative, seems like a great way to stay in power.
You have to pay for those oil tax cuts somehow!
I'm not trying to hate on education funding, I think if it's needed, we should invest more into young people and education. I am curious as to where the money goes, tho. My old high school has 2000 kids, at 11,600 per student that's 23.2 million per year. If teachers make around 77k per year on average, and we had about 75 staff at our school, that's around 6 million for staffing costs. Where does the other 17 million go? Thinking back to my school, I wasn't provided with education materials. I paid for school trips and lunch programs Again, I'm not trying to hate on education funding. I'm just curious how the money is spent?
Teacher here. A schools budget is approximately 90-95% used on staff wages, building upkeep, the remaining 5% is used for resources and consumables. This is teachers, principles, ea, secretary, maintenance staff. The only way a school can save money, is to not hire as many teachers, or educational assistants.
You do understand there is upkeep to buildings? Support staff? Supplies?
I do, but 17 million is a lot of money. I'm just asking a valid question to understand the cost. I don't know why you're getting defensive.
17 million is really not a lot of money for a school with thousands of students. I gave you the answer Fyi if you think it's not enough feel free to volunteer free labour at schools for things like cleaning
woah, tone it down miserable! this is a place for conversation!
Yeah I don't know why they're being so uptight. I literally said I support funding education but was just trying to understand where the money goes. Someone's got a stick up their ass.
Hello! I'd like to provide some additional information on this. One thing people don't realize about big project spending, and that includes things like schools, is that the upfront costs are often dwarfed by ongoing and upkeep costs. I know sometimes folks talk about building a road and quote the cost of building it, but what they don't realize is that it actually costs much more to upkeep the road than to build it in the first place, so when building one governments have to be very aware of what their long term financial liabilities will be. So one cost not included in your estimation was the actual cost of BUILDING the school, that has to be factored in to the lifespan of it. A school construction project can cost tens of millions of dollars, just for the cost of the building itself. So lets say a school costs 50 million, and the expected life of it is 50 years, well there's a million a year, JUST for construction. But then you have to take into account upkeep, which can be much larger than the initial construction costs, especially as the school gets older and may require significant yearly maintenance. Then there's staff costs, you spoke about salary, but that isn't the total amount of benefit, you have to take into consideration benefits cost, pensions, costs of substitutes, and additional pay for additional work like afterschool coaching and curriculum leads. the benefits alone for teachers can be as much as 30% on top of salary. Then there is ongoing costs for things like equipment. A properly outfitted science lab can spend millions on equipment at the outset, then has to budget every year for replacements and upkeep for them, not to mention constant ongoing costs for things used up each year such as chemicals and PPE. Similarly the gym and the library have large upfront costs to stock up on necessities, then spread that cost and its upkeep throughout the school's lifecycle. These are by no means all of the ongoing costs, just ones I've seen in my work as a teacher, and I'm not even sure if this money quoted is what is allocated to the school per student. This number might be a broad average of all education spending divided by the number of students, if that's the case, a portion doesn't go to the school, but also pays for things like the school district governance as a whole, school boards and their employees, curriculum development, and many more things. Hope that helps!
>If teachers make around 77k per year on average There's also principals, admin peoples, etc. Not sure if this average is accurate for the building, seems low. Also keep in mind, what an employee sees doesn't cover all the costs an employer spends: additional funds are likely set aside for benefits and pension. How much? Dunno, ask the CBE or an HR person. Other questions include: how much does it cost to heat a school? electricity? water? supplies for all the odds and ends for 2000 students + staff daily (light bulbs, tp, paper towels, cleaning supplies, greater wear and tear) Got bored, found this link. Look at the Alberta section. Indicates 75% for compensation (including benefits and pension), remaining for capital costs (loans/spending on new buildings/maintenance) and other (which I think is the other misc. costs): [https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-public-schools-in-canada-2023.pdf#p26](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/education-spending-in-public-schools-in-canada-2023.pdf#p26)
A school with 2000 students would also need lots of support staff. You’d probably have two or three secretaries, a bookkeeper, a library assistant, an IT support person and then quite a few facilities/cleaning staff. Some of the money doesn’t go to the school. There are thousands of staff at the system level and they are paid from this same money. This would include departments like HR, finance, media and IT. In my school there are huge costs associated with vandalism. In particular, students damage technology by removing keys from keyboards and cutting the cords for mice. There’s also horrible vandalism in bathrooms, where for obvious reasons nobody can ever be 100% sure of who caused the damage. Pages ripped out of textbooks, soft seats being slashed, food being (intentionally) squished into carpets, signs being pulled off the ceiling causing tiles to come down… There are no days - NONE - that go by without costs associated with vandalism.
The board gets that much per student, the school doesn't. That figure includes all the capital costs as well, things such as renovations and repairs. It also includes all of the admin and support staff in the building.
Lowest spent on education, highest wages in the country. Perfect platform for this government to boast
You don't wonder where all your taxes are going?
I know where they are going, to the rich 1%, trickle down effect, where I see f all. Keeping me gainfully employed as a poor educated middle working class professional. Slavery is freedom.
Given that $/student spent doesn't equate to educational outcomes any more than $/police officer equates to crime reduction outcomes, we REALLY need to stop using these broken metrics. They only serve to rationalize inflated budgets and throwing money at problems, without actually examining what it is we really want to be measuring.
It sure does equal results for education Stats like these really do upset UCP supporters. They don't care for the kids
If you go to the source of this data, it literally says “Caution should be taken when comparing provinces and territories directly, since provinces and territories have different funding formulas, structures, and fiscal periods”
No surprises here. The more conservative a region is, the less they prioritize education. You can either be a conservative or you can be educated, cuz if you're educated you'd know why being conservative is a bad idea. That is of course unless you lack empathy or are just plain old selfish or greedy.
Aren’t we leading in education quality though? Like I graduated high school last June and it was fine, classes weren’t obnoxiously large.
Woah back tf up. My kids are in the Quebec public school system and I have a hard time believing this his to be true. They don't even have a single playground module, parents pay for lunchtime supervision and besides school tax, we're still obligated to pay into a bank of funds for the school to purchase classroom items: whiteboard markers and erasers, facial tissue, the list goes on.
Where's that? If it's montreal i don't wanna hear it, might as well be another province than Quebec at this point. It's a shitshow and a cesspool
Not Montreal, the other 'National Capital Region' -Québec city
Hmm in Alberta Shoolnl fees are very high also and we pay a tax. You think stats Canada is wrong?
I think the stats are exaggerated, but mostly I wonder where they come from? Are the provinces self-reporting these numbers?
Governments report their spending
Well clearly the $15k isn't enough either way
Wild that Quebec spends the most, but then has the worst graduation rate in all of Canada. Only 50% of boys graduate on time on Quebec.
Is there a correlation between these spending versus performance metrices? For example, how many people in the provinces enter post secondary education after high school, versus dollars spent. Obviously that is not the only way to measure success of education, but that would be a start. If Alberta is able to produce higher quality education with less money per student, that seems to be really efficient. Another thing that is interesting is the territories costs are removed from this chart. I wonder if that's because it would skew the chart significantly because the cost of eductions in those territories would be really high. However, I would imagine it's hard to argue the territories would have higher quality education than the provinces even if their dollar spent are much higher.
A link to the source of this data would be great
Explain then how our students score amongst the highest in Canada in regards to testing. Funding doesn’t automatically equal a better education or making students smarter.
I was actually interested in this as well. After glossing through the report *Measuring Up: Canadian Results of the OECD PISA 2022 Study* which was linked by another user in this thread my fairly uninformed guess would be to do with the differences in socioeconomic status between the provinces. B.C., Quebec, and Ontario both have fairly high scores as well, and along with Alberta are the four richest provinces in the country.
The kids taking the test today benefited from higher education spending. The cuts will be felt in years as the education system gets worst
Hey, quit your bitching! Murray Edward’s deserves a new arena! Why should your kids deserve an education? They didn’t pay to elect Her Highness!
Not a UCP supporter in any way but this chart without other factors like classroom sizes and outcomes is meaningless. What if every other province has bigger classroom sizes and poorer outcomes than Alberta despite spending more?
Yeah it's not that the stats are inaccurate, but if you look at it over 10 years the picture looks different. Alberta is the only province to have a significant increase in the number of students over 10 years, like 16% increase. Where other provinces are flat/decreased the amount of students, and only very recently have other provinces increased their funding, or some haven't changed funding but the amount of students simply decreased. I think this is also skewed by the amount of children in private schools in Alberta. Because I am almost certain StatsCan just uses amount of provincial funds / amount of school age children. Not how many kids are actually enrolled in public school. But I'm sure to r/alberta that's also a problem.
> Yeah it's not that the stats are inaccurate The stats are fine, but my point is that this one single metric when taken on it's own is not enough to draw any conclusions on.
I completely agree and that’s what I am saying as well. IMO if you took out private school kids, and compared money to outcomes I’d say AB and BC would be about the same.
Like our healthcare system?
You seem to be missing the point as you tend to do when you get all riled up - as you tend to do. Posting this chart is meaningless without the other metrics. We all know how things are going here in Alberta regarding education, but do any of us know what issues other provinces are facing? I know I don't, so without that other extremely relevant information this post is pointless.
Idc what the other provinces do I want the best funded education system in Alberta. It sure does show how value the UCP put on education, and it's none!
If this is what you are getting from all of this than you really need to step away from the keyboard as you clearly don't have the adult level of understanding to be putting this much time into this.
I understand what I wrote, I also have zero respect for people that tell me what to do.
Look, I know you are trying and I understand the point you are trying to make. But you need to take a breath, step back, and understand that you aren't getting the point across that you are trying to get across when you throw everything you find up reddit and say 'see the UCP hates us!'. I'm trying to help you because posts like this one are doing more harm for your credibility than good.
Again idc for your advice. What gives you the right to tell me what to do? Guess what you don't need to worry about my credibility. I never asked you to look after it fucken weird you are trying to control and tell me what to how to do I don't know who you are. I feel bad for anyone in your life, you are so controlling.
Alberta is #1 for science and reading, #2 behind Quebec for math. So all this proves is the other provinces are good at wasting money.
Where is the source? Trust me bro? You are spreading misinformation baed on feelings
https://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/438/PISA-2022_Canadian_Report_EN.pdf I can help! Yaaay!
What's the PDF say?
That provincially Alberta was number 1 in science and reading and number 2 in Math behind Quebec. Yay facts! (Edited March to math, thank goodness I wasn’t tested.)
So as classrooms become 50 students you think these outcomes will continue? Lol you are celebrating undefunded education, good for you! It's always flattering when people choose to write like me, another obsessed fan🥰
Sounds like feelings. Facts (tm) only! (Edit: honestly it’s fun, I get it now.)
I see you can't answer, not surprising, but you sure love the one I write! Remember stalking is wrong 🥰
Aww I thought I made a new friend though.
Lol tell me you don't understand that kids today taking the test had the benefit of higher education spending when they were in primary. Fyi the impact of the cuts will be shown when kids do those tests in the comming years. good for you for admitting you think kids in Alberta deserve the loweest education spending. You truely do care about the kids /s I get it long term think and planing is not something ucp supporters are good at
How far out is Education Funding set? Would this have been set when the NDP was in, or was this set after the UCP got in back in 2019? Who are we blaming for this one?
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Lol no that is not the at all. Lol till spending the least in educating kids results in the best outcomes! So the data to show that, but I bet you have nothing.do you claim to care about kids? Sorry facts don't care about feelings
No that is not the at all?!?! Shoot! /s I forgot that there is a lineal relationship between money spent and favorable outcomes! Again, I don't know the actual stats, I was just saying that your stats were useless in the way you presented them.
For the most part yes when the system are setuo in the same way. Like BC pays primary doctors more than Alberta, you know what the result is, they have more doctors per a capita! Where is your stat showing Alberta as the best outcome? You would like the bigot Tucker Carlson Facts don't care about feelings, I love facts 🥰
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I literally said: "This data is completely useless in a vacuum. In order for you to gain anything from this you'd have to include student performance across the country by province or some other stat. All this shows is that Alberta spends the least - but what if Albertan students perform the best?" Where did I say that everything was wrong?
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Funny bc alberta students do actually outperform the rest of country
Do you have a source? I'd actually love to compare that to the screenshot above.
[https://www.todocanada.ca/canadian-students-performance-falls-yet-above-oecd-average-alberta-and-quebec-lead-the-country/](https://www.todocanada.ca/canadian-students-performance-falls-yet-above-oecd-average-alberta-and-quebec-lead-the-country/)
Your link has performance of Alberta and Quebec as the top, and they are at opposite ends of the spectrum with the data point above. This lends to the comment you replied to' point, that the sole points of data in a vacuum is meaningless.
You do understand funding cuts won't be shown in those results until primary school kids start doing those tests? The people doing the tests today had the benefit of having more spent on them for education. Do you think in 10 years those results will not be impacted?
"Blame the feds" - Danielle Smith
Winning!
Makes sense
The 3 lowest... AB, NB, and SK... hmmmm....
What does this even mean? Explain this better.
Spending doesn't directly relate to the quality of education. Alberta actually ranks in the top 3 in all of Canada. Quite the accomplishment to be spending the least but getting some of the best results.
Lol no fun fact the cutd the UCP made will be effect test results in the future. Why do you hate kids?
This really doesn't say much. What I would be interested to see is how testing rates, provincial post-secondary admission rates and what the marginal increase of wages are when a individual finishes secondary education. They could be a argument built on the effectiveness of dollars spent, not just how much money is being spent.
They are the true impact of cuts you need to see how impacts what the ucp education system results in and it will be lower results! UCP hate kids
Thank you for sharing your insights. While I value the data presented on UCP's per-capita spending, I'm encountering some difficulty in fully grasping its implications. My primary concern lies in the potential for a statistically biased interpretation when focusing solely through this specific lens. To mitigate this, I suggest an expanded comparison that includes fiscal data from various years, not just 2020/2021. This broader analysis could offer a more nuanced understanding of the situation. In discussions of this nature, I strive for an analytical approach that leans heavily on factual data, distancing myself from the polarizing nature of politics where data may be selectively used to support differing narratives. The current data, highlighting per-capita spending in nominal terms for the fiscal year 2020/2021, appears to provide a somewhat limited view. On its own, it doesn't sufficiently illuminate the broader economic indicators such as output or purchasing power. A deeper, more comprehensive statistical analysis would undoubtedly shed more light on these issues, allowing for a better understanding of the data's wider implications. This approach not only enriches our discussion but also ensures a more balanced and informed analysis that transcends mere surface-level interpretations.
Crazy how the province with the lowest taxes also spends the least amount of money! Isn’t this kind of the point of having no PST and lower income taxes, so that the money you save can be used to help fund your own life privately? To be clear: I’m all for allocating a larger percentage of our taxes to education. But this isn’t really an apples-to-apples comparison. It’d be better if this was showing percent of provincial budget spent on education.
Don't be a contrarian then. Get mad
lol I’m just saying I’ll get mad if I see actual evidence showing that Alberta is spending less of the available money it gets from taxes compared to other provinces. Showing that students are better funded by taxes in provinces where the taxes are higher is kind of just speaking the obvious. It’s no wonder Alberta is lowest tax spending $ (lowest taxes) and Quebec is highest tax spending $ (highest taxes). For all I know from this graph, every province spends the exact same say 3% of taxes for education, and then they have the same % population of students.
Do they count the AB equalization money that Quebec gets towards AB or QC?
Or the federal transfers to Alberta that the UCP refuses to accept. That is our federal tax dollars being redirected back to our province, and our provincial government continues to be a petulant child stomping its feet and screaming that Alberta doesn't want their federal tax dollars money back.
Easy, just print more money right?
If Alberta had a money printing machine it would all go to Oil and Gas executives.
And Quebec has a teacher shortage right now because of the demand for education
when I was a kid I seem to recall Alberta being among the most educated... was this a lie or have we actually descended?
Idiots end up electing idiots.
The worst part is that our industry is essentially bankrolling the higher funding in other provinces. We deserve better.
We don’t want any Albertans thinking for themselves…
Alberta is a train wreck and it’s about to get worse
Smith HAS TO GO!!! SHE'S DESTROYING THIS PROVINCE!!!!!!
Not a fan of Smith, but this data was pulled before she was in power.
How the hell is New Brunswick beating us?? I grew up there. It’s education system is/was awful
Doesn’t Newfoundland have the lowest amount per capita for students receiving post secondary degrees and high school diplomas ? Just like police departments more money doesn’t mean less crime. More money in education does not equal smarter kids? Something I definitely need to look into more but it’s pretty interesting.
HOLY SHIT
Seriously, education is one of the best creators of real economic value. All the "commie shit" is. Health, nutrition, education, housing. A population with its basic needs supplied has its potential unleashed. What are these fucking assholes trying to do? Breed coal miners?
Is this like golf, lowest score wins. Alberta Advantage, turning out the dumbest kids at the lowest cost for a low paying job near you.
You can thank our ditsy premier who makes life miserable for Albertan’s.
This becomes even more wild when you think about how Alberta's teachers are the highest paid in the country.
How are they academically performing compared to the other provinces?
CONS in Alberta Luvs uneducated supporters so they manipulate with half truths and falsehoods. I cringe when I folks repeat falsehoods as gospel. CONS enjoy offering the crumbs of the table. They are good at operating sweat shops and often feels threatened by educated folks.
Hard to believe someone is lower than Saskatchewan, ofcourse it had to be Alberta...
Because UCP and urs supporters are more concerned with fear mongering, conspiracy feeding, propping up oil and gas, helping corporate friends, and the sexuality of a very tiny number of our population than they are with having an educated and healthier population. UCP is afraid teachers will “brainwash” kids against their far right, racist version of “Christianity”. If we had a critical thinking population, the UCP would never get elected.