What is Public School Education?

Leading Local Learning Communities:
The Public School System in Alberta in the 21st Century

Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Inclusiveness
  3. Organized to be the Best
  4. Leading Local Learning Communities
  5. Afterword

I  Introduction

The Public School Boards' Association of Alberta has a vision of the future of public school education in Alberta. Our vision focuses on the student and teacher working together to achieve the expected outcomes.

"Alberta's public schools will do the best job of preparing students to make choices; to act effectively as individuals, as workers, as members of a community, and as citizens; and to achieve their goals in the 21st Century."

While our vision focuses on the individual student, we intend to make the vision real for as many of Alberta's students as possible.

In order to succeed we must begin with a clear understanding of what is unique, valuable, and attractive about public school education.

II  Inclusiveness

The fundamental operating principle of the public school system is inclusiveness, from the classroom, to the boardroom, to the voting booth. Public school education is inclusive by design and as a matter of belief. Inclusiveness expresses itself in two equally important and inseparable roles:

  1. To assure the best possible education is available for all students and provide opportunities for both teachers and students to make the most of the learning experience; and,
  2. To ensure that the education of students is provided in a context which deliberately and consistently models the best characteristics of respect, leadership, and democracy.

By carrying out these two roles public school education enriches the individual and creates and sustains "the public".

From our perspective, the best possible schooling experience will be provided within a system of public schools because only public schools are founded on the principle of inclusion and:

  1. Guarantee, out of respect for the individual, that every child will have a place; and
  2. Are governed by a process open to every member of the community, regardless of religious convictions, racial origin, economic circumstances, or any other circumstances.

The best possible schooling experience – a public school experience – will treat every student, every parent, and everyone else with respect. The public school will work to draw the best out of every student by cultivating: imagination; knowledge; skill; convictions; and, character formation. The public school experience will promote harmony in diversity, among students and throughout the community, by fostering: understanding; capacities based on the traits of individuals; convictions; respect; and, humility.

Public schools can aspire to provide the best possible schooling because only in public schools do students with different outlooks, experiences, and expectations necessarily work together.

III  Organized to be the Best

For our vision to become reality, the provincial government would have to make an informed commitment to the public school system as the preferred and highly valued means by which to achieve important public policy goals.

The provincial government must establish the basic mandate and structure for a system which is:

  • Inclusive and universally accessible
  • Comprehensive
  • Portable
  • Democratic – adequately publicly funded
  • Founded on the acknowledged role of locally elected trustees responsible to the local community
  • Governed by a respectful partnership that balances the interests of the local community and the provincial community
  • Managed locally; and
  • Responsive to parents and the community as a whole

Public schooling should be an image of what the community as a whole hopes to be and to represent.

For the attainment of our vision certain conditions must exist across the province as a whole. These are the responsibility of the provincial government. There must be a commitment to, and a means of, ensuring that there would be:

  • A core of values, goals, standards and curriculum outcomes determined for and applied across the province as a whole
  • Periodic common external evaluation of student achievement compared to provincial, national and international standards
  • Equitable distribution of resources as required across the province; and
  • Widespread dissemination and exchange of useful information

The school board must complement the conditions established by the provincial government with values, goals, standards and outcomes that are important to the local community. The school board must ensure a culture within the school system that promotes the likelihood of everyone, and of the community, being the best that can be.

All of these must be widely known, well understood, and accepted. They are essential to achieving the public interest.

In order to accomplish our vision there must be a genuine and respectful partnership between the provincial government and the local community, represented by a locally elected board of trustees who are accountable to the people of the local community. Local control will be in balance with the interests of the province as a whole. Local control implies responsibility, control of the resources necessary to do the job, and accountability.

Public school jurisdictions must do all their work in ways which demonstrate respect and the principles of democracy and natural justice. This is true when relating to students, parents, employees and co-workers, elected representatives and all other members of the community. Three important examples are: the completely public status of data and information (except if confidentiality is necessary to the rightful privacy of individuals); decision–making that occurs in a public setting that is accessible and inclusive; and, the operation of safe and caring schools.

Staff, especially principals and teachers, should have more responsibility for satisfying students and citizens. Staff should be clear about the importance which the school board attaches to evaluation and accountability to the local jurisdiction

A global budget should be provided to school boards from which they would pay for all the decisions they make locally; including decisions about facilities, transportation, and programs.

The School Act should endow school boards with the same capacity as natural persons - to do anything they are not expressly forbidden by law to do. It would be appropriate to ensure that everything done by boards has a clear positive connection to the education of their students.

Locally elected school boards should have the capacity to provide, at their discretion, a variety of services related to schooling.

The public school system should be more receptive to, and should work with, learning in non-school settings, including:

  • Tutoring and coaching by subject and skill specialists
  • Various kinds of home and self-directed study
  • Other means

The public school system would have the right to manage other learning and social systems, at its discretion, and under contract.

The provincial government should implement revenue sharing with local school boards. The design and management of revenue sharing would recognize the partnership between locally elected public school boards and the provincial government. Revenue sharing would ensure that public school boards have the responsibility and discretion in the allocation of resources for public education in the local community, thereby assuring accountability to the local community.

IV  Leading Local Learning Communities

Public school jurisdictions are self-government and democratic communities, responsible to their citizens – all of them. They are also learning communities. (Public school jurisdictions are not commercial enterprises, and no one is a consumer of public education. School jurisdictions are not interest groups or stake holder groups. School jurisdictions do not exist to be lobbyists, although sometimes they will lobby.)

Public school jurisdictions are government: they are the dominant and vitally important seed bed of democracy. Public school jurisdictions must model the best that democracy is capable of.

Public school jurisdictions demand authentic leadership, characterized by: service; creativity; liberty; discipline; and, challenges. The necessary leadership binds the leaders and the community together in a commitment to a common cause, a commitment that results in purposeful, strenuous, and satisfying work. Leadership moves people to a condition in which both leaders and the community are genuinely better off, and it does this in ways which show respect. Leadership transforms the leaders and the rest of the community.

Within each community and across the province, trustees are leaders: so are superintendents and secretaries-treasurer. The leadership of trustees relates primarily to the community, but they certainly have a leadership responsibility to those who work in the public school system. The leadership of senior staff relates primarily to all the workers involved with the jurisdiction, but they certainly have a leadership responsibility to the community as a whole.

Trustees and senior staff must both accept that their primary responsibility is to lead; and they must lead as specialized members of a team. Each part of the team must accept that its leadership is primarily oriented toward different but complementary constituencies. Each must be a support for the other. The leadership of either does not detract from the leadership responsibilities of the other.

Trustees are not managers. Trustees must focus on:

  • Principles and values
  • The vision which the local community has for public school education
  • The establishment of strategic priorities
  • Securing and allocating scarce resources
  • Feedback, evaluation, correction, and continuous improvement related to vision, principles, values, and strategic priorities

In all things, trustees must seek to be aware and understanding of their community and the public school system, committed to the ideals of the community and the public school system, and loyal to both. Community and public school education are two faces of the same coin.

Afterword

The Public School Boards' Association of Alberta has a positive, imaginative, disciplined, and long term outlook. Our outlook proceeds from our commitment to students, and our work with them.

  1. We have confidence in the long term prospects of this province.
  2. We believe that we must look to the future, choose the future we want, and then make and act on decisions to create our chosen future.
  3. Among the important questions to ask are these: Will it be the community we prefer or the community we are resigned to living in? Will our young people be attractive, because of their education, to people and communities around the world?. A key to the answer to all of these questions, and others, will be found in Alberta's commitment to education, especially public schooling.
  4. The Public School Boards' Association of Alberta, involving trustees and administrators across the province, has a vision of the preferred future of schooling in this province. Our vision looks right through "the system" – to focus on the needs of students, the concerns of parents, and the requirements of the community.
  5. We invite Albertans to understand our vision, and why it is important to organize to be the best.

NB:  Bear in mind that Alberta's public school boards, their trustees and their employees, are committed to the best possible future for students, for education, and for the community. We are equally prepared to give up roles and responsibilities or to take on new roles and responsibilities – whatever best serves our community and the education of students. We are committed to working with you. We will act unselfishly and focus on contributing to the education of the student: we expect the same of all our partners.