Alberta teachers are on strike and nobody knows how long this strike will last. The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) claims public education is underfunded. During a recent news conference, ATA president Jason Schilling said teachers “care too much about it [public education] to stand by and watch it slowly erode and crumble from chronic underfunding.”

To support this claim, the ATA notes Alberta spends less per-student than any other province in the country. In 2022-23 (the latest school-year of available comparable data), per-student operational spending in Alberta was $12,847 compared to the Canadian average of $14,789.

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However, before opening the spending taps, it’s important to ask whether there’s any evidence that spending more per student improves student ac

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