Alberta Party supports gay-straight alliances

This was written by Greg Clark who is the leader of the Alberta Party. This post first appeared here.

by Greg Clark

The headlines ricochet around the world.

“Alberta MLAs vote against gay-straight alliance bill for schools”

“Gay-straight alliance bill for schools voted down in Alberta”

“Alberta Conservatives join Wildrose to defeat bill in 31-19 vote allowing gay-straight alliances in high schools”

These headlines, and the close-minded thinking that spawned them, are hurtful to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) teens in Alberta. They also perpetuate the outdated and flat-out wrong stereotype of Alberta as an intolerant place where only those who conform to some archaic notion of morality are considered acceptable.

The Alberta I know and love is a place not simply of tolerance, but a place of respect. Respect for all people irrespective of where they come from, the colour of their skin or who they love.

This reflects my Alberta, and I believe reflects the views of the vast majority of Albertans. It is also the right thing to do.

But there are still pockets of intolerance in the province and that’s why Motion 503 is so important. There should never be a barrier when students, in any school, of any faith, anywhere in the province, want to create a group proven to reduce bullying and promote inclusion. Gay-straight alliances are a powerful tool that provide a supportive environment for LGBTQ youth and their straight allies.

By rejecting Motion 503 the PC and Wildrose MLAs who voted against it (and the 36 MLAs –over 40% of the Legislature– who gave their tacit approval by choosing to be absent for the vote) sent a damaging message to LGBTQ teens, but also to the rest of the world about Alberta. An Alberta that desperately needs to attract people from around the world to drive our growing economy.

Defeating Motion 503 not only hurts LGBTQ teens. It might just hurt Alberta’s prosperity.

On the record, once and for all, the Alberta Party strongly supports GSA’s. It is completely consistent with our core values of inclusiveness, caring for one another and ensuring the safety of our most vulnerable, among which LGBTQ teens must be included. We believe that GSAs in school will actually save lives.

We have to ask, is there any reason that we would not want our children to feel safer in schools?

The Alberta Party represents an Alberta that is welcoming to all. It's the politicians that need to catch up.

Sir Ken Robinson: How to Change Education

Sir Ken Robinson wants education to get back to basics -- but his definition for "basics" may not be what you think. Take 24 minutes to ponder.



Here's my favourite quote from this video:

Bill Moyers interviews Diane Ravitch

The high cost of turning our schools into profit centres:

• Public education is one of the foundations of a democracy, and America's public education is under assault.
• Charter schools are booming and controversial. There are 6000 in the United States -- double from a decade ago. They are publicly funded and privately run.
• Wall Street is drooling over investing in for-profit education companies.
• Profit$ not pupils are driving Corporate School Reform.
• Profiteers and privatizers see a gold rush in American K-12 Public Education which pulls in over $500 billion in taxpayers revenue.
• Diane Ravitch's book Reign of Error is a must read. 
• The Department of Education, led by Arne Duncan, has become an enemy of American public education.
• If we continue down this path, many cities like Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, etc. will have no public schools. And if there are any, they will become a dumping ground for the children that the charter schools deem inconvenient or too expensive to educate. 
• American public schools are not broken and they are not failing. American public schools are dealing with some major challenges, including the fact that 1 in 4 children in the US live in poverty. Where there are public schools that are in trouble, there are communities that are in trouble.
• Charter schools were suppose to collaborate with public schools by seeking out innovations that the public schools could learn from but charter schools have become cut throat competitors, poaching public funds.
• If you make test scores the purpose of education, you don't want the children with disabilities,
  
  you don't want the children who don't speak English, you don't want the trouble makers, you don't want the children with low scores. You want to keep those kids out of your school.
• Not all charters are bad, but even the non-profit charters are typically owned by for-profit corporations. 
• Charter schools are not public schools, and in many states, charter schools are not required to hire credentialed teachers.
• The problem with turning over public education to the private sector is that they don't know anything about education.
• The American Legislative Exchange Council creates model legislation that states legislators copy to privatize public education, end collective bargaining, end due process for teachers, and merit pay for teachers.
• The assault on public education is a bipartisan effort.
• The Network for Public Education is a network of people who are fighting back against Corporate School Reform.
• Judging teachers via standardized test scores is wrong -- so there is now a mass exodus of people from the teaching profession.
• The Opt-out movement from standardized testing is growing and becoming main stream.

PART II

• The American Indian Model Charter School has been praised as one of the best charter schools in the country. In 2000, the school changed its demographics from predominantly Native American to Asian American. The change allowed the school to now brag about its test scores, which are some of the highest in California. They changed their student population to chase high scores.
• Some of the charter schools have CEO who are making $400,000 per year. 
• We are abandoning civic responsibility for consumerism. 
• Charter schools have select and conditional admissions which means they choose which children to admit or deny and which children to keep and expel.
• We should take billionaires advice for how to invest our money, and ignore their advice for how to teach and how to manage public education.
•  When Americans are asked about public education in general, they recite what corporate billionaires and corporate media tell them -- it's terrible. But when Americans are asked about their own public school, they say their public school is great.
• School choice is a synonym for segregation. The Charter movement is rolling back Brown vs Board of Education which led to the de-segregation of schools.
•  If we never change our mind, why have one? 

Wildrose and PCs vote against supporting Gay-Straight Alliances in schools where children want them

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Liberal MLA Kent Hehr's Motion 503 which called for schools to support the establishment of Gay-Straight alliances to help protect children from bullying and discrimination was defeated in the Alberta Legislature Monday.

The final vote saw the motion lose 31 to 19. Every Liberal and NDP MLA supported the motion with some PC MLAs. However, the majority of PCs and all Wildrose MLAs voted against the motion. (37 MLAs didn't show up for the vote)

I have four points:

1. Gay-Straight Alliances save children's lives by reducing bullying and suicide attempts. Gay-Straight Alliances create safe places for children to organize, empower, educate and protect each other from discrimination against their sexual orientation. They make schools safer for children. The Alberta Party has come out strongly in favour of Gay-Straight Alliances.  Watch PC MLA Sandra Jansen's remarkable speech on Gay-Straight Alliances:

2. Gay-Straight Alliances put children first. There isn't an MLA in Alberta who would disagree with putting children first. The PCs and Wildrose alike have boasted that they put children first and highlight the freedom to choose as a distinguished and important feature of Alberta's education system. 

The Wildrose specifically claim that they respect individuality and want to empower local autonomy. To be clear, Motion 503 only mandated Gay-Straight Alliances in schools where students want them. A vote for Motion 503 would have put students first by empowering them with the freedom to choose Gay-Straight Alliances. 

A vote against Motion 503 is a vote for the status quo where individual children who want Gay-Straight Alliances to protect themselves and others from bullying can and are rejected by centralized authorities.

When it comes to Gay-Straight Alliances, Education Minister Jeff Johnson claims that he doesn't want to interfere with school boards because he respects their local autonomy -- but when it comes to collective bargaining, he has no trouble hijacking school board's local autonomy with with legislation.

Alberta's Education Minister Jeff Johnson

3. Gay-Straight Alliances don't single out any single specific group of students any more than efforts to support First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) students. For the MLAs who defend their vote against Motion 503 because it unfairly singles out one specific group of students, I have one question:

Do you reject Alberta's recent efforts to specifically support First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) students because it unfairly singles out a specific group of students?

Of course not.

No one would say that they value all sports so schools should not give special attention to individual sports like basketball or that school should value all subjects so we shouldn't give special attention to individual subjects like math.

Sometimes people say they value everything so they don't have to take a stand on anything.

Voting against Motion 503 because you want to protect all students from bullying, not just some, might make some politicians look good because they won't tolerate any bullying -- but it represents a hollow promise to children who would be safer with Gay-Straight Alliances in schools where the adults won't allow them.

4. The Wildrose are still morally bankrupt. It's true that the majority of PCs voted against Motion 503 and they most certainly need to be challenged individually, but because every single Wildrose MLA voted against Gay-Straight Alliances, the entire Wildrose party needs to be challenged.

I can't help but remember Alberta's 2012 election when Wildrose MLA hopeful Allen Hunsperger spawned his comments about gay people burning in a lake of fire and that public education is godless, wicked and profane for putting into place anti-bullying policies to protect children from being targeted for their sexual orientation.

As shameful as Hunsperger's hateful comments are, I hold a special distaste for Danielle Smith's refusal to condemn her party's candidate. That Smith retreats to the party line that "the Wildrose will not introduce legislation on contentious social issues" is nothing more than silence as assent.

On Monday, April 7, 2014, the Wildrose's unanimous opposition to Motion 503 shows Albertans that nothing has changed with the Wildrose. 

The Wildrose are still morally bankrupt and intellectually indefensible.

Here are the math posts Wildrose education critic Bruce McAllister deleted from his Facebook page

When I shared my blog post on the nuances of the math wars on Wildrose Education Critic Bruce McAllister's Facebook page, he deleted it and blocked me.

I'm not the only one.

Dave Martin is a high school math teacher and he too had his math post deleted from McAllister's Facebook page. Dave has his masters in mathematics and blogs regularly about teaching math.

Why is McAllister and the Wildrose deleting and blocking math teachers comments from his Facebook page?

Of course McAllister and the Wildrose can choose to run their Facebook accounts in any way they like but it is dishonest to then say that they are listening to Albertans.

There are many more Alberta teachers who have written about math education, and you can check out some of those posts here. 

I can't share them with Bruce McAllister because he blocked me, but maybe you could.