Re: "Wildrose would give more decision making to schools, leader promises," Medicine Hat News, Feb. 3.
I must admit that Danielle Smith is thinking progressively when she says that school boards need more money, the authority to hire more teachers and the flexibility to educate special needs students. I hope she is planning to provide the money needed to hire teacher assistants to support a special needs curriculum. She also favours more transparency when new schools are being built. These policies make sense.
Ms. Smith is mistaken when she suggests that parent councils should have more choice in deciding what to teach and how to teach it. Alberta has a provincial curriculum which under law has to be taught.
Teachers, like doctors, lawyers, engineers, automobile technicians and bricklayers are professionals and have been trained in their professions. Parents telling teachers how to teach is like me telling a carpenter how to frame a house.
Ms. Smith is playing politics and pandering to parents who are not qualified to teach.
Dennis Perrier
Medicine Hat