Former Alberta Education staffer warned that curriculum approach could tank international rankings

A retired curriculum expert who spent years working on Alberta's curriculum rewrite says she warned the government that its change in approach could spell disaster for Alberta's international test scores.

As she left the government's curriculum department last year, Joanne Neal handed over an unsolicited 40-page critique of the government's new approach. Her report said the approach would achieve the opposite of its goal to improve Alberta students' international performance.

"I knew the winds of change were coming, and I spoke my mind quite, I think, professionally and ethically and academically," said the former Alberta Education staffer. "I put my concerns not only verbally, but in writing."

Months before the province released its August 2020 ministerial order on student learning, Neal submitted her voluntary analysis to the minister's office, motivated by concern it could segregate students.

"The paradigm is built on the idea of winners and losers, and that you're weeding kids out as you go along," she said.

CBC News obtained the document last spring but only recently tracked down Neal, who confirmed she was the author. She said she's unsure if it was ever read by Education Minister Adriana LaGrange.

The former teacher and curriculum studies professor explained that if Alberta adopted this approach, which she dubs "perennialism," it would be a huge deviation from how other provinces and successful Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries approach curriculum.

"What does this education actually prepare students for? And are they going to be able to effectively compete to go into universities outside of Alberta?" she said.

"The Alberta universities do not seem to be changing their curriculum or their degree programming to match with this."

Neal said the perennialist approach believes primarily that things worth knowing are from the past.

"You need to study the classics, so Aristotle and Aquinas and so on," she said. "The textbooks that you're going to use are what's deemed to be the classics."

LaGrange was not available for an interview, but a statement was provided by her press secretary, Nicole Sparrow.

She said Neal's document provided one simplistic notion and is not the sole method for approaches to curriculum.

"This subjective document outlines a staff member's view on the approach taken by the previous NDP government during their secretive review of the draft K-4 curriculum," Sparrow said.