The Alberta Teachers Association and the Fraser Institute, a right-leaning think tank, have both independently concluded that Alberta spends the least, per student, on public schools of any province. But StatsCan says calculating that is not quite as simple as they make it out to be.
Does Alberta spend the least, per-student, on public schools? Maybe not. But it's definitely down there | CBC News LoadedStudents at Ecole Percy Pegler School in Okotoks, Alta., are seen in this file photo from January 2022. You might not expect the Alberta Teachers' Association and the Fraser Institute, a right-leaning think tank, to agree on much.
That's because precisely calculating per-student funding for public schools across every province in a consistent and comparable manner is a trickier than you might expect. But officials with StatsCan told CBC News it's actually impossible with the available public-facing data to precisely calculate per-student funding for public schools and make truly accurate comparisons between provinces.lowest, but what we can say is it's among the lowest and there has been a general downward trend in education funding in this province.
While the ATA and Fraser Institute agree in their calculations that Alberta's per-student public education funding lags the other provinces, they disagree on what should be done about it."A lack of funding has resulted in record-high class size and insufficient resources to support student needs," reads one infographic from the campaign.
The ATA, for its part, notes Alberta's high average PISA scores are due to exceptionally strong scores from the top achievers, but that masks the fact that students at the low-scoring end are falling behind.last year. "In Alberta, the difference in math scores between the top and bottom 10 per cent of students is 257 points. The Canadian average gap is 244 points and every other province is below that.
Further complicating the spending-per-student calculations is the fact that fiscal reporting periods and enrolment reporting periods don't always match up.
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