The majority of Alberta’s school boards have declined to pilot the draft curriculum in 2021. If the government follows through on its stated intention to implement the curriculum in 2022, what position would you take on this, assuming the content is largely unchanged from the current draft?

October 5, 2021 locke.spencer@gmail.com

I do not support the new curriculum. I am all about open and transparent processes and the new curriculum did not do nearly enough consultation with the public, or schools and teachers. 

As soon as the curriculum draft was released, there were a lot of problems pointed out by members of the public, as well as school divisions and teachers. These issues were not limited to one or two subject areas but were identified across the board from music to history, from math to languages, and within science. The vast majority of school divisions rejecting the opportunity to trial the new curriculum speaks volumes.

Over the last decade in Alberta, K-12 curriculum has become highly politicized, and we really need to get the curriculum out of the election cycle and back into the hands of key stakeholders: the public, education and topical experts, parents, teachers, and school divisions. We cannot 

keep tearing up our curriculum every time someone new gets in office.  There are many simple elements of the past few iterations of the curriculum that should be updated that have stalled as political casualties.   On the whole changes to the curriculum need to be more informed by education experts and other stakeholders, with an iterative and meaningful public consultation process before being run in smaller trials, finalized, and broadly adopted.