WHAT IS BEHIND THIS POST ON HAPPINESS AND COMMUNITY EDUCATION?

By 1990 in Alberta, support from the Alberta Community School Programme by the Department of Education was eroding. Senior leadership in the Department civil service was starting to take on the colouration of their political masters, despite the long established principle that the civil service in governments which had their roots in the British tradition be politically neutral. Community schools espoused the value of both individuals and community. The government at the time in Alberta was placing far greater value on corporate and individualistic interests than those of the broad community.

This article was written to reinforce the interdepartmental nature of the community school programme, which had suffered its first cutbacks in 1986 by a unilateral decision of the Department of Education.

At a 1986 meeting of the Government Priorities Committee it was proposed by the then Minister of Education, Nancy Betkowski, that the entire Alberta Community School Programme be eliminated. The Treasurer, Dick Johnson, turned to the Premier, Don Getty, and said, “Mr. Premier, this is going to affect Steinhauer Community School.” The Premier replied, “The programme will be saved, but with fifty percent funding.” Unbeknown to Mrs. Betkowski and the seniors officials of Alberta Education was that the wives of the Treasurer and the Premier were volunteers at Steinhauer Community School! Also, Mr. Getty used to hold his constituency meetings at Steinhauer .

The ensuing public reaction to the fifty percent cuts to the community school programme across the Province was the largest the Department had ever received since its inception in the late 1800s. The Department got over five thousand letters and calls over the community school cutback action. The result was that the funding was restored, but no new Designated Community Schools were to be added to the Programme.

The decision to freeze growth of the Alberta Community School Programme was also critical to its demise. Designated Community Schools were receiving a great deal of positive publicity throughout the Province. Some principal teachers in nearby schools were feeling pressures to undertake the demanding, participatory process to get designation as a community school. Some complained that they were doing just as much as community schools without the added resources available to Designated Community Schools. However, it was possible to point out to them that they too could take advantage of the provisions of the Programme. That opportunity was a reality test for those principals who were not sincere in their desire to achieve Designation status. Once the opportunity was denied for schools to become Designated Community Schools, critics were free to criticize without consequences.

In the early nineties also, so-called “Management,” middle level public servants, who did all the policy development work and who often implemented programmes that resulted from that work, were totally ignored when highly important decisions were made about the future of those programmes. (“Managers manage, leaders lead!)

Truly democratic organizations greatly value all of their members and see them as a vital contributors. If it were actually needed to do some belt tightening within government, it would have been far wiser to use a participatory process involving leadership staff, support staff and the community in the process. It can takes years for many programmes within government to be established in democratic countries, even those with a real social conscience. They are developed and implemented in an organic way like plants appear in an ecosystem. Provided governments take democracy seriously and use participatory planning effectively, the same process can be used should downsizing actually be called for. Such good process was not used in Alberta in the nineties!

This article appears in this space because it includes a Government Bill to re-establish Designated Community Schools and community education at a time when such are needed more that ever. If, “History is in a race between education and catastrophe,” it is becoming more and more evident that catastrophe is winning.