It was with great anticipation that I visited the Alberta Education website after the announcement today that the Inspiring Action on Education Discussion Paper was available to read. It can be found here. It is a pdf file which you may want to save on your computer to read at your leisure.

Well, then - here is my initial impression after reading the discussion paper once. I know that re-reading it will shed more insight, but first impressions are interesting.

It seems to be written by academics, for academics. I ran some paragraphs through a Flesch-Kincaid reading level analysis and from two different sources it ranged between 17.8 to 20.7 (grade level) with a Reading Ease of -.6 to 12.1 (a higher score indicates easier readability; scores go from 0 to 100).
The following scores were based on this paragraph:
"Education partners including government, school boards, schools, students, parents, teachers, post-secondary, business, industry and increasingly mobilized communities will need to develop and enhance relationships to support young Albertans. Focusing less on the system and the school and more on the student and their education will be achieved by learning partners recognizing and understanding the importance of student needs and the student voice. Partners will actively engage the student voice in further developing innovative and creative opportunities to optimize student success. This will involve developing new models and approaches to identifying student needs, developing flexible learning opportunities and supports, and creating responsive policies and enabling structures. Traditional learning approaches will be enhanced to incorporate emerging learning and teaching approaches, expanding learning contexts and enhanced learning experiences."

The Gunning-Fog Score was 20.90, the Coleman-Liau Index was 22.40, the SMOG (Simple Measure of Gobbledygook) Index was 15.40, the Automated Readability Index was 21.70.

The "discussion paper" seems to be aimed at teachers and government workers but not necessarily the stake-holders and partners, including parents and students. To reach the most number of people it seems to me that the score or index should be 12-14. Perhaps it could be re-written with that in mind.

I believe most parents reading it would just throw up their hands and say BS. Most of the items mentioned seem to be forgone conclusions and decisions made. I think it is called a discussion paper because people could provide input on the little, tiny details which won't matter much in the long run. The section about teachers was an interesting read. When will there be enough teachers to pull this knowledge-enhancement off, and where are they going to get the time to do it? Considering that right now school boards are considering layoffs because of budget constraints, this grandiose plan is a bit in cloud heaven.
Ah, but this is a plan for the future, right? Well, when is the future?

Is it possible that enabling legislation will be passed and the policy and procedural details will be worked out later? And, who will be doing that? The ones without a reality check - heads in clouds - making decisions which may not make sense? Or is it that the "public" will be "engaged" to "help" with input to the decisions or plans? With facilitators to help guide the public responders in an appropriate direction? I sure hope not.

So I am still hoping that some good will come of this next "engagement" process. But, after all the "feel good" and hope from last year and then to be presented with this "discussion paper", I'm starting to wonder.

You know, I am not normally negative about things. So I will re-read the paper and try to find some good in it and update this blog when I do.

To all you teachers, students and parents, I hope (yes, still hope) that your education future will be bright, thoughtful, meaningful and helpful, with incredible learning opportunities for all.

Good teaching...Good learning...

Cheers - Mike

PS: more related light reading for you...
Inspiring Education, Alberta Education, the School Act review
Anticipating Alberta's Inspiring Education Report as a Game Changer
inspiring education in alberta. | daveberta.ca
Braid: Alberta's education vision collides with hard reality‎
Alberta Education report is recycled edu-babble‎
Report may spark reform in Alberta schools

And finally;
Get with the times by Dave Hancock