Proletarianization and Teacher Professionalization in Alberta

Introduction: Neo-Liberal Reform and Alberta Education

In the 1990s, the Canadian educational system underwent a series of significant reforms. The province of Alberta, under the leadership of Premier Ralph Klein and the Progressive Conservatives, took a lead role in implementing these changes. The reforms were rooted in neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies and aimed at reducing costs for public education, maximizing economic returns, adopting the managerial structures of corporations for educational institutions, and increasing workload for teachers. These reforms were introduced mostly as top-down policy with little, if any, consultation with teachers and teacher associations. Alberta's teacher associations — the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) in particular — took a persistent stance, mobilizing teachers and struggling against the new educational reforms. This paper argues that the Alberta government's attempts to restructure the educational system may be explained by the concept of proletarianization, while the ATA and teachers' resistance to the reforms may be explained by the concept of professionalization.

Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism are ideologies that share much in common. They have become a guiding principle for the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada over the last three decades. For both ideologies, the market economy is a gospel to be defended at all costs. Both advocate corporate tax cuts and oppose large governments as well as welfare states. Neo-liberals and neo-conservatives advocate the pursuit of rigid free-market policies at home and abroad, though these policies are riddled with internal contradictions. For example, advocates of these two ideologies have often contradicted the principles they claim to adhere to by pressuring the governments of the U.S., the U.K., and Canada to interfere in the internal affairs of many developing countries in order to introduce market economies — policies that mostly benefited foreign investors (Harvey, 2005).

The reforms that began in Alberta under the government of Ralph Klein should be understood within the context of the political environment in Canada at the time. Neo-liberal and neo-conservative thinkers in Canada saw a crisis in the country's educational system and decided that the root cause of the problem was public education and the welfare state. Klein and other politicians argued that the cost of education in Canada was too high while Canadian students' performance was poor. In order to improve Canada's global competitiveness, Klein and his political allies argued, Canadian and Albertan educational systems should adopt the business principle of "doing more with less." The educational restructuring in Alberta, as Harrison and Kachur (1999) point out, was "ideologically driven," allowing the government to centralize authority and decrease "equality of student opportunity while opening market niches for private entrepreneurs" (p. xiv). Educational restructuring included, for example, adopting managerial practices of multinational corporations, greater fiscal austerity, and increased monitoring of school performance (Harrison & Kachur, 1999; Flower & Booi, 1999; Peters, 1999; Pocklington, 1999; Taylor, 2001). It should be noted that the Klein government's attack on public education was also an attack on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which upholds that children of Canadian citizens, including those of minority groups, have the right to receive education "provided out of public funds" (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

Proletarianization and the Klein Reforms

The educational reforms adopted by the Alberta government, among other things, significantly increased teacher workload and decreased teachers' autonomy by introducing various control systems and fixed regulations. Such a policy directed against teachers may be described as proletarianization, which is defined as "a process in which workers lose control over core aspects of their work, or one in which self-sufficient workers are replaced by employees in subordinate positions" (Wotherspoon, 2004, p. 155). Proletarianization occurs when workers are pressured by external forces to intensify their work while being subjected to increased monitoring and control by supervisors and administrators. Proletarianization tries to codify the technical functions of teachers, "such as designing lesson plans, grading students, keeping records of student attendance and progress, and following rules and procedures regarding student discipline" (Wotherspoon, 2004, p. 148).

Teacher Resistance and Professionalization

Most teachers in Canada did not share the vision of the Klein government. The Alberta Teachers' Association took a powerful stance against government-led educational restructuring, spending half a million dollars and participating in roundtables aimed at mobilizing the public against the government's austere measures (Taylor, 2001; Flower & Booi, 1999). The teacher stance against educational restructuring may be called professionalization, which is described as "a trend in which a particular occupation gains status and recognition through specific credentials, specialized knowledge, or access to specified rights and privileges" (Wotherspoon, 2004, p. 155). Professionalization is a struggle against external authority. In educational institutions, it has been especially important for women as a form of "female resistance to male authority, since in the past and present, teachers have been predominantly female and administrators, predominantly male" (Taylor, 2001, p. 173).

Professionalization is often used to describe recognized professions such as law and medicine. In comparison to these professions, teaching is characterized as a "semi- or quasi-profession that remains constrained by external forces such as other professions and bureaucratic school authority structures" (Wotherspoon, 2004, p. 128). But throughout the twentieth century, teachers in Canada struggled against external authorities by improving their professional status and successfully lobbying governments to better protect teacher rights. The fact that external forces try to undermine teacher authority does not mean that professionalization cannot explain the teacher struggle against educational restructuring in Alberta. In fact, the authority of medicine as a profession has also been threatened recently by government attempts to restructure the healthcare system. Professionalization is therefore an ongoing process in which members of a designated profession are in constant struggle to preserve their authority. In response to government-initiated reforms, the ATA in Alberta "has managed to maintain and even enhance its viability and vitality under particularly challenging political conditions," struggling "against oppression" and making "sense of what [was] happening' and 'work out ways of doing something about it'" (Bascia, 2001).

The ATA Report: Integration and Results-Based Curriculum

To see how proletarianization and professionalization operated in 1990s Alberta, it is necessary to analyze the ATA report from 1993, which discussed — through collaboration with teachers, educators, superintendents, and other administrators — eight major proposals made by the Department of Education at the initiative of the Klein Administration. The ATA report noted that most teachers were deeply dismayed at the fact that almost "everyone but the teachers had a hand in redesigning the education system" (ATA, 1993). The report was based on submissions by teachers and education administrators who offered a variety of views on educational restructuring, many in passionate and angry tones, though also expressing dedication and concern for their profession and for children. Some submissions agreed with the proposed restructuring, but many suggested that the reforms were motivated not by a desire to improve the educational system but by political goals of those who did not truly understand the value of education.

One of the government proposals teachers discussed was integration. The ATA Special Education Council defines integration as "the practice of educating children with special needs in the regular classroom in their neighborhood school with their non-handicapped same-aged peers" (ATA, 1993). Teachers mostly expressed support for this policy in principle but doubted the proposal was workable unless the government was willing to allocate more resources. Yet it was precisely cost-cutting that motivated local authorities to propose integration. Some teachers recognized that the real motivation was to intensify teacher workload while reducing the costs of educating students with special needs. "The idea of integrating special needs students into the regular classroom seems to be motivated by economics rather than by any real concern for meeting the educational needs of the majority of students in the classroom," one teacher wrote. "Certainly, placing special needs students into regular classrooms is cost effective in that special classes for these students are no longer necessary. The real costs of placing such students into the classroom, however, cannot be measured in monetary terms" (ATA, 1993).

Another proposal teachers discussed was the results-based curriculum. Results-based curriculum, which places heavy emphasis on educational results — student performance, high grades, achievements, and other "measurable" and "observable" factors — was obviously derived from a business concept that tries to maximize profit while exploiting the labor force to the maximum. One teacher pointed out that the integration of students with special needs was incompatible with the pursuit of a results-based curriculum. "The danger comes in assuming that the worth and the depth of an individual can be measured by comparing to a list of desired 'results,'" another teacher commented. "Results-based evaluation works quite well in measuring the value of a mechanical process, like an assembly line. If we are wise, we will leave it there, and not try to fit our wonderfully gifted, talented and varied children into such a simplistic pattern!" The ATA report summed up the concern of teachers who believed that "results-based curriculum was part of a larger process whose goal seemed to be to make education 'teacher proof,' to turn teachers into 'technicians,' and to deny them the right to make professional decisions in the light of their training, experiences and the needs of their students" (ATA, 1993).

Neo-liberal and neo-conservative thinkers in Alberta were so focused on the end results of educational policies that they proposed two other programs that differed little from results-based curriculum: program continuity and continuous progress. Many teachers could not fully understand what these programs were about. The Department of Education, for example, placed program continuity alongside "results-based, levels-organized curriculum." Program continuity envisioned that students would know what they needed to learn and what they could accomplish, with the curriculum accordingly geared toward achieving those goals. Teachers pointed out that imposing such expectations on students was at odds with the philosophy of allowing students to find their own comfort zones and levels of learning. Teachers also noted that these additional requirements forced them to work more, effectively turning them into working machines. What teachers resented most, however, was the "erosion of professionalism": "What I resent is that some are trying to take away my professional decision-making as to my philosophy, teaching style and even content" (ATA, 1993).

Conclusion: Education as Business vs. Noble Endeavor

Educational reforms adopted by the Klein Administration in Alberta in the 1990s were inspired by neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies. These ideologies aimed at cutting costs of the welfare program, increasing privatization, adopting business principles in running social programs, and centralizing authority — despite their avowed aversion to big government. The Klein Administration pursued these goals with respect to the educational system as well. As a result, the government proposed a series of programs whose purpose was the proletarianization of teachers. Teachers and teacher associations resisted the authority of the government by calling for professionalization of the teaching profession. For the government, education was a business project; for teachers, it was a noble endeavor.

References

ATA (1993). Trying to Teach. Retrieved March 4, 2011, from http://www.teachers.ab.ca/Publications/Other%20Publications/Pages/TryingtoTeach.aspx

Bascia, N. (2001). Learning Through Struggle: How the Alberta Teachers' Association Maintains an Even Keel. NALL Working Paper #44. Retrieved March 2, 2011, from

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Department of Justice Canada. Retrieved March 3, 2011, from

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