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“All of our class size funding has gone directly to reducing class sizes,” she said

“Research has been clear that early intervention and setting up students for success pays off dividends later on. Focusing on K-3 is a wise investment of funding.”

But Hurdman said that in spite of its efforts, the CBE has only been able to maintain an average of 20 students per class in K-3 classrooms, according to the most recent 2016-17 data.

That’s slightly above the provincial guideline of 17 set by the Alberta Commission on Learning in 2003. But according to the CBE’s 2017 class size survey report, some elementary schools have as many as 24 students in K-3 classes.

And with provincial initiatives to reduce class sizes pared down from targeting K-6 classrooms from 2004, to only K-3 by 2011, critics wonder why the province continues to diminish what needs to be a higher priority.

Last month, auditor general Merwan Saher said the billion-dollar program to reduce class sizes hasn’t worked and that there are no processes in place to figure out why.

“Albertans, particularly parents, should be disappointed in that they’ve never had a full explanation of whether this investment of their money . . . made a difference,” Saher said at the end of February.

The program has received $2.7 billion since it began in 2004, including $293 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year.

But the education department doesn’t have any systems in place to figure out where exactly that cash goes, due to a 2008 change in which school boards were no longer required to report how the funding is being used.