CALGARY – The Calgary Board of Education's (CBE) board of trustees are disputing some of the claims of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta's Finances Reports and say maintaining current funding levels would further harm an education system that has been under fiscal restraint for the better part of a decade.

The CBE issued its response to the recommendations of the MacKinnon Report on Thursday, 23 days after the report was released, and urged the province to consider additional factors before decisions are made on education funding.

The panel recommended that government "work with education stakeholders to decrease the percentage of government funding that goes to administration and governance to a level comparable to British Columbia" and to "completely review and revise its current education funding formula to ensure enrolment growth is addressed and to provide incentives for sharing services and achieving better outcomes for students".

In the response, the CBE took exception with the claim that Alberta's spending on education was comparable to the averages of British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, pointing to the numbers within the report itself as contradicting the findings.

"The report shows that Alberta spends $11,121 per student on K-12 education, while the average of the other three comparison provinces is $13,028," said the CBE in its response. "This means that Alberta is actually spending 15 per cent less on K-12 education than the average of BC, Ontario and Quebec."

The CBE adds that any comparison of total education expenditures relative to increases in student numbers over the past decade should take inflation and whether spending was made to fulfill contractual obligations into consideration.

The board of trustees is encouraging the province to increase educational funding to address class size growth, assist with the increase in students with complex learning needs, and to maintain and renovate existing facilities.

"The education of Alberta' children is truly an investment in our current and future society," said the CBE board of trustees, "and needs to be recognized as such."

The MacKinnon Report is available here