The move to greater parental choice goes hand-in-hand with the issue of greater funding for private schools. A trustee with the Calgary Board only half facetiously comments on the increasing desire of parents to differentiate their children: "If who you're going to know is important then I'd better get my kids to go to school with, who they're going to [have to] know. We'd better decide on where we're all going to go to school so we can all know the right people." The move toward the privatization of education is arguably a part of the increasing interest of (particularly) middle- and upper middle-class parents in giving their children a "competitive edge."

Expanded Testing

The business plan for education also expands the provincial achievement testing program for grades 3, 6, and 9 students, and outlines other measures that will be used to determine the "efficiency and effectiveness" of the education system. The incursion of business language into discussions of public , education is obvious. It propels the drive towards competition and at the same masks the inevitable correlation of students as : commodities, to be quantified and assessed.

A teacher writing in the Edmonton Journal suggests that the rhetoric of global competition and the increasing influence of business in education has affected graduation requirements: "Now most university-bound high school graduates are as likely to have as many as 35 credits in science and 20 in math -- as compared with 15 credits in English or Social Studies." A member of the Status of Women Committee in Calgary comments on the increased math and science: "It's going to disadvantage the female students. Because they can't get out of there fast enough, some of them." While the shift in emphasis is not overtly part of the recent restructuring efforts by the province, the growing importance of these subjects clearly fits into the provincial focus on quantifiable, results-oriented reporting in education. It also fits well into an emphasis on producing graduates who meet the needs of businesses in Alberta and who are able to improve the province's competitive position in the world.

But increased public reporting of school results could have a number of negative consequences. It will disadvantage schools with greater numbers of ESL or "special needs" students, particularly if these students are made to compete at the same level as others their age. There are also ongoing concerns about "teaching to a test," and the cultural/gender biases of many tests.