Alberta already allocates more tax dollars to education than any other province in Canada.

At $1,971 per Albertan per year, education spending in Alberta is higher than in New Brunswick ($1,700), Newfoundland ($1,553), P.E.I. ($1,548), Manitoba ($1,351) and every other province, according to Statistics Canada. And according to the B.C. Inter-provincial Education Statistics Project, the Alberta government spends $6,834 per student per year, more than B.C. ($6,809), Quebec ($6,761), Saskatchewan ($6,758), Ontario ($6,666) and Nova Scotia ($5,801).

Not only is Alberta's spending the highest in Canada, but the education budget has risen 59% since 1995, outpacing both an 8% enrolment increase and 23% inflation. How many Albertans have seen a 59% increase to their household budgets in the past eight years And somehow, we still manage to get by.

The bulk of Alberta's $3.8 billion annual education budget is paid to teachers, whose after-tax incomes are the highest in Canada. A first-year teacher in Alberta earns between $42,000 and $45,000, depending on whether she has four, five or six years of post-secondary education. Teachers with eleven or more years of seniority earn between $67,000 and $70,000. Teachers' salaries are based only on seniority and on whether the teacher went to university for four, five or six years. Talent, merit, competence, dedication and effectiveness have no bearing on how much an Alberta teacher is paid.

For some people, $3.8 billion just isn't good enough. Rather than urging the government to focus on better and smarter ways of spending tax dollars, they repeat a ridiculous complaint about "chronic underfunding."

Alberta's K-to-12 education system needs more accountability and more choice, not more money.

Unfortunately the recent report of the Learning Commission is silent about rewarding excellent teachers, or providing incentives for less effective ones to improve. The report recommends keeping the Alberta Teachers' Association in its conflicting roles as both a teacher's union and a professional organization. There are no concrete recommendations which would give Alberta's students and parents more choice.

The report also recommends giving school boards greater taxing powers.

Currently, Alberta's School Act forces school boards to explain and justify proposed tax increases, and to seek the approval of those who pay the bills in a referendum.

It's a shame that Albertans do not have effective taxpayer protection legislation at the federal, provincial or municipal levels. Politicians are free to raise taxes whenever they like, without having to justify the increase to taxpayers until the next election. The next election might be years away, it might be a personality contest devoid of issues, it might be dominated by issues other than taxes, or perhaps all of the above.

But Albertans do have real accountability when it comes to school boards. The current requirement for a referendum gives school boards a critical connection to their communities, which they would not have if they could raise taxes without taxpayers' approval.

In the next two months, Premier Klein's government will review the Learning Commission's 95 recommendations. Recommendations leading to more accountability and more choice should be adopted. Recommendations which lead to tax increases - like the suggestion to scrap the referendum requirement for property tax increases - should be rejected.