As students and teachers head towards a well-deserved Christmas break, Premier Klein's government ponders the implementation of recommendations made by the Learning Commission.

On Thursday, Education Minister Lyle Oberg announced the province will adopt 84 of the 95 recommendations put forward.

Fortunately for taxpayers, among the recommendations scrapped was one that would have relieved school boards of the obligation to hold a referendum explaining why they want more tax revenue before increasing property taxes.

Last week's decision to keep the referendum requirement in place was a victory for taxpayers.

Unfortunately, for taxpayers though, most of the Learning Commission's advice boils down to "spend more tax dollars for more of the status quo."

If the other recommendations are implemented:

tax payers will pay $4.4 billion instead of $3.8 billion per year for Alberta's elementary and secondary school system;

The Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) will remain in a conflict of interest, trying to be both a union and the governing body of the teaching profession;
Teachers will still be able to go on strike;

The segregation of aboriginal students by way of separate policies and programs will continue;

Teachers' salaries will continue to be based only on seniority and on the number of years of university attendance, regardless of competence, talent or effectiveness.

According to the B.C. Inter-provincial Education Statistics Project, Alberta's education spending of $6,834 per student is the highest in Canada. That's not good enough for public sector unions, who will never be satisfied with the amount of tax dollars spent on education. But rather than spending even more, Premier Klein's government should introduce some real accountability into the education system, to get better value for tax dollars spent.

First, the ATA should be re-established as a professional body to set and enforce high standards for the teaching profession, in the interest of students, parents and the taxpaying public. This professional body should be separate from a teachers' union, whose primary purpose is to lobby for higher teacher salaries.

Second, principals should no longer be required to belong to the teachers' union. This is one recommendation in the Learning Commission report which the government should follow.

Third, as teachers exercise a monopoly over an essential public service, they should not have the right to strike.

Fourth, the government should empower parents with an education funding voucher which parents can use for the school or program of their choice.

Edmonton's public school system provides parents with a broad range of real choices, and has been described as one of the best in North America. This same principle, that tax dollars should pay for the schools that parents want, should be applied across Alberta.

Parents - not politicians and bureaucrats - should have the final say as to what kind of education their children receive. Expanding the number of charter schools is one way to provide students with more diversity and choice. Fifth, excellent teachers should be paid more than mediocre ones.

Under the current teacher "pay grid," a caring, dedicated and hard-working teacher earns exactly the same as another teacher who does the minimum to get by.

A recent study by the Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education (www.saee.ca) documents various systems of performance pay for teachers in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Colorado, California, Wisconsin, and other jurisdictions. Some merit pay systems focus on rewarding individual teachers for their excellent performance.

Other systems reward the entire staff of a school whose students have improved their achievement. Some plans look at the degree of improvement shown by students over the course of a year. Other plans look at the training and upgrading which teachers complete to improve their own teaching ability and competence. There are many models for Learning Minister Lyle Oberg to consider.

Certainly seniority and level of education should continue to be factors which determine how much a teacher is paid. But they shouldn't be the only factors.

A province-wide JMCK poll revealed that 71% of Albertans want additional factors to be added to the existing two.

As always, the government faces significant pressure from the ATA and other public sector unions. Premier Klein can throw more tax dollars at the status quo, where good performance goes unrewarded and poor performance goes unpunished. This would certainly please the ATA.

Or the Klein government can do taxpayers a favour, by introducing some real accountability and real choice into Alberta's education system.

Albertans who want better value for their education tax dollars should contact their MLAs.

Powerful public sector unions are making their pitch for more tax dollars to pay for more of the status quo.

Taxpayers remain silent at their own peril.