'Stop the excuses': Alberta Teachers’ Association president talks education funding and 2025 priorities

Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, discusses expanded assessments in schools, education funding, and the ATA’s priorities for 2025 with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Michael Higgins: In January, Kindergarten will join Grades 1 to 3 in a twice-yearly mandatory assessment of students reading, writing and math skills.

Those flagged as requiring intervention will be screened a third time at the end of the school year. The education minister says this will help educators determine which students need extra attention.

Joining us now to discuss that and more, Alberta Teachers Association president Jason Schilling. Let's start right there on expanded assessments. - I think that can be cut for length, as we know who the people talking are.

How valuable and necessary a tool is this?

Jason Schilling: Well, there's always room within the education system to test students who are struggling with reading and writing - but to blanket test every student in the system doesn't make a lot of sense to teachers.

Teachers, just by working with students in school, will be able to identify strengths and weaknesses and where they need to focus extra attention on students’ abilities.

Testing Kindergarten students on a curriculum that they haven't necessarily been exposed to, and the tests aren't related to the curriculum, doesn't make a lot of sense; because a lot of our little ones, they don't read yet, or they can't hold a pencil.

So teachers work with students in sort of play-based learning, building relationships with them, and these tests take out quite a bit of that instructional time that's really important for our youngest learners.

MH: Given the current process, is there a risk of students falling through the cracks?

JS: Well, teachers need time, right? This is what we've been talking about for the last several months - is that we have overcrowded classrooms.

We have a lack of resources and supports for students in our schools. The answer is not to test them.

The answer is to provide extra teachers, to provide EAs (Educational Assistants), to give the resources to teachers so that they can do the jobs that they're meant to do with students - not just a bunch of blanket tests to see how quickly kids are falling through the cracks.

Because we're not also seeing the supports coming from government to help these students after they've been tested.

MH: On that point of supports - government says in the current school year, it's budgeting an extra $10 million. How far does that go?

JS: Oh, it's a drop in the bucket.

I mean, we're talking about a system that is $1 billion short of being the Canadian average in terms of funding per student in this country.

$10 million to address the needs of students who are having difficulties in school right now is such a small amount of money - it's almost laughable.

They identified in their press conference that 80,000 students identified as having needs last year. $10 million for 80,000 students is not a lot of money.

MH: It breaks down pretty quickly, doesn't it?

On that point of funding, the government is currently engaging Albertans in pre-budget consultations.

You touched on it a bit. I know we've spoken in the past before. You're quite vocal on driving that message of chronic underfunding of public education in the province.

What priorities are you pressing the government on where pre-budget talks are concerned?

JS: I would press the government to make an investment in public education in this province.

It should be a shameful fact that we are the least-funded jurisdiction in all of Canada, in a province as wealthy as this.

MH: Can you be more specific in where those dollars need to go?

JS: Definitely. We could put money into hiring teachers, into hiring EAs, to reducing class sizes for our students.

We need new buildings - and they're putting some investment in there, but they've not talked about who’s actually going to work in those buildings.

There's not an extra investment into pre-service programs so that we can have teachers available to work in these schools.

Students need technology. They need textbooks. We have a new curriculum that's been implemented that doesn't have resources.

I mean, there's a lot of places where government could invest in public education to make the system not be in the crisis that it is right now, but they've chosen not to do that.

MH: How worrisome is talk of potential deficit dynamics to come with this budget, especially where the funding of public education is concerned?

JS: It becomes an excuse, right? We'll say to the government, 'Stop the excuses. We're investing in our future with our students.'

So when we hear about deficit talk, wWe've known from governments in the past that when there's deficit talk, the public services take a hit. So not only education, but health and advanced education as well.

MH: Since the last time you were on, a matter of weeks ago, the Alberta government conducted a mass firing, cleaning of house at AIMCO and installed new leadership, including former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in the position of chair of the board.

Four years ago ATA took the government to court over legislation to move teacher pension funds into AIMCO.

How are you reflecting on this changing AIMCO dynamic at the moment?

JS: We're very troubled and concerned about the development around AIMCO, but we know that our pensions are secure.

They're safe, and we have an investment management agreement - which was what the lawsuit was about with government - that gives ATRF (Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund) strategic control over our investments.

So we'll monitor, and we'll watch this very, very closely, and if we see anything that might jeopardize teachers pensions within this then we will act accordingly.

MH: What are you watching for in terms of pension policy that this government might move forward with?

JS: Like I said, ATRF has strategic planning or guidance over the strategic direction of investments for the pension.

So we'll look to see if there's changes in that investment management agreement that is between ATRF and government.

We'll have to just keep our sights on that and see just how they are investing with the public dollars in terms of pension and what that might do to contribution rates for teachers.

MH: As far as you're concerned, though, teacher pension funds are safe?

JS: Yes.

MH: Given how busy a year it has been in 2024 where government and education is concerned, what's on your radar for 2025 and how are you approaching the New Year?

JS: There's a lot of things that are on the radar. Funding is going to be a really big, important one.

We'll look at budget 2025 just to see if the government has made any moves on funding of our classrooms.

We're also seeing the government move on curriculum for Grades 7 to 9, and we’ll look at what kind of involvement the ATA will have in terms of voicing our concerns or giving input into the development of a new curriculum.

Because we know certain curriculum are not working that well; for instance, K to 6 math. There's a lot of problems there that need to be addressed, but government is not listening to those concerns.

I'm also going to keep my eye out in terms of where we're going around teacher recruitment and retention here in the province.

We know that class sizes are an issue - and trying to make sure that we have teachers in the system and that we're not burning them out and having them move on.

And we always need to have a conversation on inclusion as well. Government has a policy to include all students into our schools, and that's important, but we also have to make sure that we're funding it.