The provincial budget has been revealed and an election is in the offing. Now we get to listen to the annoying array of ‘public service’ messages that pit one group or another against the ‘tight-fisted Tories’ and another set of rebuttal messages from the government saying that funding is adequate. Perhaps you have not heard any of these radio station gems yet?
Let me give you a synopsis of what I believe to be two of the worst to pollute the airwaves.
The first is an offering by the Better Way Alberta campaign that attempts to have us ponder current tax revenue spending and restructuring. So, to suggest that Alberta has a struggling education system we hear the voice of a child who is allegedly singing the alphabet. During this less than lovely cacophony comes a disjointed assembly of letters, numbers and colours. Seriously, it goes sort of like this: “A B C D … seven, blue X J P red” ad nauseum. Any educator should be offended by this. Really, although intended as hyperbole (or at least I hope it was) the classic jingle is jangled so badly that it’s more of a slap in the face for our education system, which in my humble opinion does an excellent job with the resources provided.
Would we benefit from more, sustainable funding? Certainly! But this radio advert misses the mark completely. The Better Way Alberta spot about tax revenues buying 13 or so golden Calgary Towers … now that makes a point. Maybe we could by more Alphagetti and Alpha-Bits cereal to help those struggling alphabet singers?
Next is the government’s rebuttal which comes via, you guessed it, another spelling commercial. It goes a little like this: Look everyone, not only did I get a hippopotamus for Christmas with this new provincial budget but I can also spell h-i-p-p-o-p-o-t-a-m-u-s! But wait, there’s more. I got another A-plus paper for the fridge.
OK, so there is an increase in spending for education. Great! We certainly appreciate this. But what is missing in this instance is any form of relevancy to current curriculum and marking schemes. Other than in university or college, we don’t give letter grades anymore. We haven’t for some time. Spelling tests are also fading away to more recent 21st century modalities of learning.
So there’s some more money — guest what, there are going to be almost 10,000 new students in Alberta in September 2012. This means more staff needed, more schools, more resources. This means that most of the increase is going to pay obvious bills.
So, in this new era of transparency and openness, I feel it important to express my gladness for this glasnost. It is prudent and responsible to show the taxpaying public where our education dollars are coming from and going to. As a parent of school-aged children I want to know how I can optimize the learning experience for my children. As an educator I want to ensure I have every reasonable resource available to engage learners and provide the best learning environment and experience for students. As a taxpayer … I would really rather hear some public service announcements that actually serve the public.
Let’s face it, when travelling from A to B or Z, it’s much more pleasant to be in tune with the times.
Tim Cusack is a teacher who has never won a spelling bee but did get stung as a child.
