this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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It isn't that people don't want to be teachers at EAs. It's that they don't want to be teachers and EAs for shit wages with little to no support and huge classes. If you want people to become teachers giving them good working conditions, good benefits, and good pay.
It's really very simple.
You have to pay people what they think their work is worth or they won't work for you.
Its not 'simple'. Teachers generally dont get into the profession for the pay because its not terrible, but it does need a raise, they've fallen quite far behind inflation. Their benefits are actually pretty good - dental, health, massages, counseling, paid leave for medical, family, bereavement, etc, its pretty comprehensive.
And the job has a lot of security which many jobs dont. So that part's pretty good.
But the class size thing is anything but simple. A Kindergarten class with 22 kids is 22 kids. Likely a few learning issues in there but not really defined at that point. But then you get to senior high and now you have options. Might be 30 in an English class, but only 15 who are taking Band class. Or 10 in Biology but 25 in Chemistry, so how do you set a "class size" for senior high because not all kids take all the same classes.
And then comes complexity. Any teacher can tell you that a class of 30 kids who are all similar 'average learners' is far easier to teach than a smaller class with 20 students where 10 of them have individualized programs, 5 of them are new to Canada and dont speak much English and 2 of them have severe learning issues and need Educational Assistants because of extreme behaviour issues. So what's a good class size? 20? Or 30? It gets tricky and definitely not "very simple"
It is very simple. If you don't pay people enough or their working conditions aren't good enough they won't work for you. You may only think that the work is worth $X but if people won't work for anything less than $Y then you're going to have trouble getting people to work for you if you only pay $X.
The Alberta government could stop spending $30 billion on corporate welfare and instead spend that paying teachers what they are worth. Of course, ideologues like Smith don't like high quality fact based public education because better educated people tend to be more liberal.
You're framing this like its mostly a salary issue. Their pay is the lesser part of their complaints. They want a raise yes, but that's not the bigger issue: its about the increasingly complex challenges in the classroom. Even if they got a big raise those complexities would still exist and THAT is what makes the job hard to do. And that's the part that's not an "simple" fix.
You said that they needed more teachers and more EAs. That takes money. Being paid a lot more makes you willing to deal with a lot more. The old, "They don't pay me enough for this shit" refrain comes to mind. If they took the $30 billion they are handing out in corporate welfare and put it into education it would go a LONG way to solving the problem.
Where do you get this "30 billion in corporate welfare" figure from? Is that money that is taken from the provincial budget and given to corporations, or is that tax breaks? Big difference.
The Fraser Institute. That's just direct handouts. That's taking money that the citizens of Alberta paid into their government for things like healthcare and EDUCATION that are instead being given to for profit corporations. When you include tax breaks and other incentives it's likely much higher.
Thanks for the link. I will definitely do a deeper dive.
I like how you know that some classes are too big to manage. You list several considerations a teacher may use to determine what is and isn't a manageable class size. Then you turn around and use that to argue AGAINST class size limits.
You apparently oppose any class size limit because "it doesn't perfectly resolve every situation", leaving the teachers with no class size limits and no tools to resolve the very real issue of managing large class sizes.
This is a perfect encapsulation of conservative logic.
1.You see a problem you agree is real 2. You see someone's proposed imperfect solution to the problem which certainly would shrink the size of the problem but not perfectly solve it. 3. You oppose the solution because although it would shrink the size of the problem, it's imperfect and doesn't solve the whole thing all at once. 4. You don't propose or support any replacement. 5. The problem continues to grow unresolved, and you're satisfied having done a good job stopping any kind of progress whatsoever.
Where did I say I disagreed with class size limits? My entire post was about how its not a simple thing to measure. You've jumped to a conclusion and then put a whole lot more assumptions on me and on "conservatives".
They said this strike was about class size limits and you said the problem is too complicated for simple class size limits, disagreeing with the union position.
Do you really think the teachers asking for class size limits don't understand the nuance you pointed out? Do you think you're the only one who understands the complexity of the situation. And yet they're all asking for class size limits anyways, because although it's imperfect it's better than the current approach.
I don't see where you're confused. When you respond against a statement you're disagreeing with it, as I'm disagreeing with you. Stop pretending context doesn't matter and each of your statements should be taken and debated independently. That's nonsense!
It's weird, because the experts in the situation - highly-educated people with experience teaching classes - are right there in case you want to ask.
My sister-in-law left Canada because she wanted to teach but couldn't afford it here. She's retiring in Sweden soon as a full citizen with a family and great plans.
(Imagine a decent wage and a good retirement, but also in a country where things mostly still work and make sense)
I was explaining the issue for the NON educators here my friend. Im an ex teacher and a retired principal. My son is a principal. My wife is a teacher. Two of my daughter in laws are teachers. My father was a teacher. I GET IT.
I was trying to explain the complexity of the situation for those who've never been in a classroom and don't understand that you can't just say "Cap class sizes" and be done with it because it's not that simple.
I read what the ATA was proposing about class sizes and it was quite logical and reasonable in my opinion and they did propose doing it over time in a graduated way, so I'm not sure why the gov pushed back so hard, still trying to research the arguments on both sides.