Public education is an extremely important part of a strong democratic society. The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation choose not to invite the New Green Alliance, Saskatchewan's Green Party, to participate in this issue of the Bulletin. By this action the people who made that decision are attacking the main foundation of any democracy, the right for voters to be informed of all of their choices. It is an acute embarrassment to the entire professional group of teachers to have its own leadership impose such blatant censorship on ideas and legitimate electoral information. We might understand the decision to exclude the views of a group that will not be part of the election choices of teacher readers of the Bulletin, but the New Green Alliance is a properly registered political party in Saskatchewan, and the majority of Saskatchewan voters will have the ability to vote for an NGA candidate. Saskatchewan teachers deserve much better from their elected leadership! One must ask what motivates such censorship of political expression.

As this issue focuses on our current electoral choices I felt it important that teachers have the opportunity to educate themselves on all of Saskatchewan's political parties. As teachers we understand the importance of gaining an appreciation for all the perspectives that relate to the issues we teach and discuss in our classrooms. As a candidate for Saskatoon-Nutana and the President of the New Green Alliance I will take this opportunity to briefly explain our position as they relate to publicly funded education in Saskatchewan.

The New Green Alliance believes that educational decision-making must occur at many different levels including provincial, board and school. We would mandate the creation of democratically-formed Councils for each Saskatchewan school that would have funding and authority to make appropriate school-based decisions. Such Councils would have distinct mandates and access to financial resources to carry out these mandates. Funds would appropriately be handled through Board of Education accounting and would not require any new administrative structures.

We do not see a direct relationship between local decision-making autonomy and the ability to raise education funding at the local level. The New Green Alliance supports a significant shift away from property-based taxation for education to a general revenue source. School councils will play a significant role in the maintenance of decision-making that takes into account the diversity of needs of students and teachers in schools throughout Saskatchewan.

If we remove education funding from property taxation, as well as reduce property taxes as the New Green Alliance proposes, we need to reform other elements of our taxation system. It is the conviction of the New Green Alliance that resource extraction industries and larger corporate entities are under-taxed, while small property owners (most homes and farms included) are over taxed. A simple shift from property taxes to income taxes will add some degree of fairness to the system, but more is needed. A graduated system of revenue taxation should replace the education portion of property taxes for businesses. If this were done businesses would pay taxes that reflect the revenue they generate from being part of the Saskatchewan economy, rather than being based on the assessed value of land on which they are situated.

Another way of addressing taxation revenues from lands that have experienced capital gains would be to tax the capital gain more effectively rather than to tax "assessed values" annually when that assessment has little or no bearing on income generated from that property.

The New Green Alliance also believes that in order to fulfill the stated goals of Schoolplus, communities will have to be engaged by individual schools in a collaborative effort to educate our children. Local school councils with the participation of students, teachers and the community will be an excellent foundation for the philosophy of Schoolplus to be implemented.

Finally the New Green Alliance will ensure the implementation of an "Ecological Literacy" curriculum, which has practical application components, in all Saskatchewan schools.

The New Green Alliance also has policies and platform that relates to post-secondary education, and these, like the points raised above, arise from the founding Principles of the New Green Alliance. Since the Bulletin decided to withhold critical information from teachers, we encourage teachers to find out for themselves by visiting our election information website at: www.votenga.ca

Neal Anderson

President

New Green Alliance

1. Please outline your party's philosophy and policy on publicly funded education within Saskatchewan. Define your party's position on the role of private and charter schools within the province.

The New Green Alliance believes that education is the responsibility of society as a whole. It is for all members of society to contribute to the education of young people and adults. A number of our party principles speak directly to the importance of publicly funded education including our belief in social and economic justice. We believe that every member of our society should have access to education and that we also have the responsibility as a society to support those citizens young and old in their daily needs. We know that students are much more successful when they live in healthy communities and healthy families. The New Green Alliance is committed to a society where cooperation and mutual aid are central aspects to our common lives. Public education plays a central role in striving to ensure that all citizens are able to participate in helping enhance the "civil commons". That is the metaphorical location that we are all able to provide citizens with "goods" that benefit all such as public education, clean water, accessible health care, protected wilderness and access to recreation.

The New Green Alliance also believes that quality education must be provided for all students no matter where they live, be that in remote rural Saskatchewan, Northern communities, Indian Reserves or inner city neighbourhoods, and that responsive and responsible local decision-making can best address the variations in education needs.

The New Green Alliance believes that we must return power and responsibility to individuals, communities and regions. We must encourage the flourishing of regionally based culture, rather than a dominant monoculture. We must have a decentralized democratic society with our political, economic and social institutions locating power on the smallest scale that is efficient and practical. We must reconcile the need for community and regional self-determination with the need for appropriate centralized regulation in certain matters. The New Green Alliance would not support any school movement, such as charter or private schools, that were detrimental to the common good of all students in Saskatchewan. We do call for the creation of a school council for every school in Saskatchewan that would be provided with the funding necessary to make local decisions.

2. How adequately is public education currently funded to provide the necessary resources and supports to ensure quality education for ALL students?
Please outline your position on the following
- the increasing need for resources to support instruction in the classrooms
- The need to reduce class size
- the importance of recruitment and retention of Saskatchewan graduates, through incentives such as forgiving student loans/ providing income tax breaks/ increasing teacher salaries
- the right to teachers to take job action when deemed necessary
- the appropriate balance between provincial and local funding for education

The New Green Alliance believes that the current model for funding education is not appropriate to our population demographics nor is it appropriate to a system of fair taxation. We support a significant shift away from property-based taxation for education to a general revenue source. If we remove education funding from property taxation and reduce property taxes, we will need to reform other elements of our taxation system. The New Green Alliance believes that resource extraction industries and larger corporate entities are under-taxed, while small property owners (most homes and farms included) are over taxed. A simple shift from property taxes to income taxes will add some degree of fairness to the system, but more is needed. A graduated system of revenue taxation should replace the education portion of property taxes for businesses. If this were done businesses would pay taxes that reflect the revenue they generate from being part of the Saskatchewan economy, rather than being based on the assessed value of land on which they are situated. The New Green Alliance will reform Saskatchewan's taxation system so that it is more just and effectively supports the development of local communities (including public education) and sustainable, self-sufficient local economies.

The New Green Alliance believes that local communities and schools are in the best position, with collaboration from student, teacher, parent and community, to make decisions with regards to resources and class size. We think that appropriately funded School Councils will make the best decisions regarding these issues.

The New Green Alliance is interested in working with all members of society to make Saskatchewan an attractive place to live. We believe that a healthy people and healthy communities will be a great incentive for young people to stay in Saskatchewan and others to move to our province. The New Green Alliance would offer tax incentives for students who have graduated from post-secondary institutions to stay in Saskatchewan. We also plan to eliminate tuition fees for publicly-funded post-secondary education for Saskatchewan students studying in Saskatchewan.

We believe strongly in the process of collective bargaining and will move to strengthen the Labour Standards Act to protect workers and the collective bargaining practices, including the "right to strike" and legislation that would prevent others from doing the work of striking teachers and other workers.

3. What does SchoolPLUS mean to you? What needs to happen in order to make it possible for school division to support schools to implement the vision and philosophy? How committed is your party to maintaining and expanding SchoolPLUS initiatives across the province?

The SchoolPLUS philosophy is to engage a wide diversity of society in the education of our children and youth in Saskatchewan. Under the direction of this plan schools will become centres that deliver a variety of services to the community. The New Green Alliance feels that this model fits with our goal of decentralization and that of mutual aid and cooperation. In order for SchoolPLUS to become a reality teachers and other service providers will need support to implement this philosophy. The Department of Learning, School Boards, and School Councils all play a role in providing these supports.

4. Have you any additional information that you would like to share?

The New Green Alliance considers the earth and its resources to be held in trust by current generations for generations as yet unborn, and that our care for our earth must reflect that understanding and that responsibility. As such the New Green Alliance is committed to responsible stewardship and responsive communities.

For more information about the New Green Alliance please visit our election information site at www.votenga.ca

Neal Anderson