Four fights, one principle: the people who run Alberta's schools answer to the parents whose children sit in them.
Oversight
An Inspector General for Alberta Education
Alberta built a court for teacher discipline. It has no police. A $16-million abuse settlement at one Calgary school and a superintendent facing fraud charges, found by accident, show what happens when nobody is looking.
The proposalChild protection
End the Epidemic of Teacher Abuse
Canada catches about half of the sexual abuse of students by school staff. Chicago catches twice as much and clears the innocent faster. The difference is structure, not luck.
The evidenceThe profession
Reform the Alberta Teachers' Association
Membership is compulsory. Discipline has been taken away. What remains is a union with the powers of a regulator and the accountability of neither. A series of articles begins this season.
Follow the seriesTeacher supply
Make Teaching a Trade
An electrician is trained on real buildings by a master who signs off on her work. A teacher spends four years and $68,000 before meeting a classroom. Alberta trained teachers the first way until 1945.
The proposal