Thursday, January 06, 2011

My Kid, My Choice!

Alberta is getting attention for it's education system, from California to New Zealand to the UK, educators and politicians are looking towards Alberta as a model of success. Take a bow Alberta!

Ontario parents can only wish they had Alberta parents choices for the education of their kids, but McGuilty effectively killed any chances of that happening last election by demonizing choice for parents.

Take the province’s approach to education. School officials in Oakland, Calif., have admired it so much, they’ve tried copying it there. Management texts have been written about it. They’ve praised it in New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, New York City and Chicago. And now, the U.K.’s Education secretary, Michael Gove, is hailing the Alberta education model as the prescription to fix his country’s ailing state school system.

Funny how other nation's can recognize Alberta's superior education system, but provinces won't adopt it. The Alberta Advantage is at work again!

Canada, meantime, ranked sixth overall in the 2009 PISA report, behind Shanghai, Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore. But Alberta students did most of the heavy lifting to get it there: In the past three PISA reports, Alberta has handily beaten every other English-speaking region in the world.

“Alberta has been the number one province nine or 10 times out of 12” assessments, says Peter Cowley, education policy researcher at the Fraser Institute.

“Why don’t the provinces doing poorly just emulate Alberta, why don’t they buy the Alberta curriculum?”

He suspects it is because with education being an area of provincial responsibility, each one thinks they can do it better than the rest, even if results suggest otherwise.

I suspect the problem is powerful teacher's unions who want to maintain control over our kids, and do not want any competition allowed. BC is too busy adding eco-friendly and gay material to their curriculum to be bothered with math and English. Ontario teachers unions are too busy bashing anything non-Palestinian to care about what the kids are actually doing.

I actually don't care what happens in Ontario, because my kids are able to get the quality education they need to excel in the world. If other provinces are happy with math and English illiterate kids, so much better for my kids! HA! Just kidding.

Parents need to take control back of their school systems and demand the education their kids need. Push, and push hard to make sure that YOU decide where your kids go to school. The funds in Alberta follow the students, who can go to any school in the system, and standard testing ensures that no matter which school kids go to, they all get the same basic education.

Life is good here in Alberta for our most precious resource, our kids!

Source: Thanks Sandy, I meant to link to it.

8 comments:

Robert McClelland said...

The Alberta advantage: "Alberta's high school graduation rates are among the lowest in the country"

Simply put, Alberta's record is distorted by the fact that, for lack of a better term, more of the dumb kids drop out. That's why nobody is rushing to adopt their flawed model.

Archie said...

The Alberta school system is primed to explode, also the teachers have a gag order placed on them, with the threat of being fired if the complain about anything. The classroom size get larger and the amount of teacher aids has decreased by half and every day the Province and School Boards place more of a work load on the teachers. Their more worry about stats then the teaching and welfare of the students

West Coast Teddi said...

I call BS on Robert MCC. Please READ the article that you quoted (from 2008 quoting stats from 2000+). It's in the INCREASE that is important as to WHY the Alberta Advantage is WORKING.

hahahahahahahahaha

maryT said...

OT, but seems someone has issued a memo saying all emergency vehicles in Edmonton must obey all traffic laws, stop at red lights, speed limit etc.
Police on Dave R now saying they will not issue tickets to said vehicles caught by those photo radar traps.

Anonymous said...

Hunter -- I just posted a link to this article. Could you give me a link to your source? (Sandy Crux)

Anonymous said...

Hi again. The source is from Kevin Lubin's National Post column titled "Alberta Schools Apple of U.K.'s Eye. Found here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/m/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/06/kevin-libin-alberta-schools-apple-of-u-k-%E2%80%99s-eye

hunter said...

Thanks Sandy, I meant to link to it, I have corrected it now (on lunch!)

Anonymous said...

Hunter, if you are interested, my post is here:
http://crux-of-the-matter.com/2011/01/07/alberta-education-system-success-what-choice-is-all-about/