Thank you to the BC Ministry of Education for providing me with such a convenient opportunity to present the facts to my readers. The following table (the parts in black) was posted on the Ministry websites. Most of what they have presented as fact is simply made up. The REAL facts are in red.
British Columbia Teachers’ Federation Claim | FACT |
700 fewer Special Needs teachers | Government propagated MYTH: 2,100 additional special needs teaching assistants in B.C. classrooms. FACT: Although assistants are important, in the time between 2001 and 2007 over 600 special ed. TEACHERS were lost. At the same time the numbers of special needs students increased by over 1400 students. Since 2006 , 174 more special needs teachers have been lost and over 1,000 more special needs assistants have been added. |
Ninth-best paid in Canada | Gov propagated MYTH: B.C. teachers’ salary plus benefits is fourth-best among provinces. FACT: When comparing categories of equal training and experience BC teachers range from 6th to 9th depending on category. The facts are clearly shown in the BCTF documents found at http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/BargainingContracts/U102-SalaryDocument.pdf |
Seniority eroded under Bill 22 - Education Improvement Act | Gov propagated MYTH: Seniority remains key factor but qualifications also considered. Math teachers teaching Math; Science teachers teaching Science. FACT: This is a made-up problem. All teacher collective agreements contain within their seniority language a provision that qualifications trump seniority. The government proposal is that seniority comes after principal’s choice which opens the door for all kinds of discrimination which would be difficult to prove. i.e. nepotism, cronyism, applicant too active in the union, too fat, too feminine, too masculine, of child bearing age. Who knows? Seniority is NOT a key factor in the BCPSEA proposal and for their information qualifications are already considered in collective agreements. |
Contract demands are reasonable | Gov propagated MYTH: A 15 per cent wage increase at a cost of $2 billion is completely unreasonable, given the current economic reality. FACT: It is reasonable to ask for a cost of living increase. And since BC teachers are so far behind colleagues across the country, it is reasonable to propose a small catch-up, which by the way is only a tiny fraction of the actual gap. This is also our opening position. Unfortunately BCPSEA has not offered even one counter to our opening position. Furthermore, BCPSEA continues to play a mug’s game with their costing. The BCTF costing of all of our proposals is $535 million dollars. It’s a little odd 15% increase to one account (which comprises between 40 – 50% of the total budget) within a total budget of 4 – 5 billion $ would increase the total budget by nearly 50%. Hmmm...Some monkey business going on with those calculations. |
Wage increases are modest | Gov propagated MYTH: Teachers’ union demands would cost $2 billion, which would raise taxes on all B.C. families. FACT: The BC Liberals have made some serious mistakes in handling taxpayer money. They are now choosing to make the workers of BC pay for their mistakes. They have other options which they refuse to take. They could rescind some of the tax breaks they have given to the wealthiest corporations. Currently BC has the lowest corporate tax rates in the G8. I am not talking about incorporated small businesses here. I am talking about extremely wealthy companies, many of whom over charge and underpay. Talk about favouring the 1% over the 99%. |
Eliminated class sizes | Gov propagated MYTH: Class-size caps on all grades with exceptions made by principals and superintendents. FACT: And how are principals and superintendents going to make class sizes reasonable without adequate funding? The consultation with the teacher, the person who best knows what will work in any given classroom, is also no longer required. |
Reject net-zero wage mandate | 130 net-zero contracts signed. 25,000 CUPE employees signed net zero contracts. FACT: That is a decision for other unions to make. Labour unions are in support of the BCTF struggle for a fair and reasonable deal. They recognize that this is an assault on all of them, not just teachers. |
Teachers have not been fairly compensated | Teachers received a 16 per cent wage increase; $3,700 signing bonus for their last contract. FACT: And yet teachers have gone from 3rd in Canada to as low as 9th. But what is even more egregious is the insistence on stripping the collective agreement of long held rights. Furthermore the government has ignored the Supreme Court ruling by Judge Griffin regarding class size and composition, teachers’ working conditions and students’ learning conditions. Bill 22 is an all out assault on unions and the government is starting with teachers. It is also an assault on students and the education system in general. |
12,000 overcrowded classes | Gov propagated MYTH: Of 65,000 classes, fewer than 1,500 have more than 31 students. Fewer than 600 have more than 33 -- most of these are band, choir and theatre. FACT: Overcrowding is more than that. What about classes that pose a health and safety problem because children are being crammed into labs that are only made for 24 students? What about classes of 28 with 8 special needs students? Are those not overcrowded? Here is the BCTF brief on Education Funding to the Select Standing committee on Finance and Government Services which clearly indicates the true extent of overcrowding in our schools: |
Thank you for doing this!!
ReplyDeleteGreat article Kathy, the smoke and mirrors on all this is incredibly thick and you've blown a lot of the smoke away. I'm amazed at how little people actually know about the situation, how the government cleverly words things to mislead, and the number of political yes people that exist in the twitter sphere that help promote the spin. But that's what the government's game is all about - politicking & spin.
ReplyDeleteWant to know what's wrong with the judicial system, ask the judges they know. Want to know what's wrong with the education system ask the teachers and students, they know. Students spoke up loud and clear on Friday. I think they've had enough of the problems that a generation of underfunding have caused in BC education system. It's quite insidious. You don't see the tragic affects of deep underfunding on education despite the watchman's cry, for years. That's why they can get away with it, until it becomes such an apparent problem that the majority are affected. It's a sad legacy that the BCLiberals are leaving for BC as they exit the political scene. And will take many more years to fix. I have to confess, I worked hard to get the BC Liberals elected 12 years ago. I was a founding organizer for the Have you Had enough Rally's in the North. Hosted meetings to bridge the Reformers and Liberals. Back then it was necessary to get rid of the NDP. They were where the BCLiberals are today. Long in power, enacting illegal legislation, and scandal ridden. Terrible how history has to repeat itself. I'll be working hard to unelect Liberal MLA's this next election.
It's a sad commentary on the nature of politics in BC. 4 years of honeymoon they work hard for the people; 4 years of "the glow is off" and flexing their power; 4 more years and you have arrogant, self serving, autocratic, and ideology driven government that cares more about their backers than the citizens of BC; an intrenched form of entitlement, a "we can do what ever we want now", and believe the people will accept it. I'm Richard Giroday and that's my rant.
By your logic, the analogous body in the education system to the judges of the judicial system would be the principals and other administrators. Judges enforce the law and ensure that the lawyer practising law to defend/prosecute another party. Thereby, the judge is able to see all sides of the problem
ReplyDeleteTherefore, the teachers would be the lawyers and the students would be either the parties of the case or the jury (whichever works). They don't really see how the system works but rather are the layman there to understand the process to the best of their ability, but by no means are they experts.
I agree though, judges would understand the judicial system the best as they are experienced lawyers who have been trusted to run the system "judicially". I also agree that the administrators should be allowed to run the educational system (with input from the interested parties, i.e. teachers and students) as they not only understand the teaching process, for example all principals are teachers themselves with a minimum of 5 years of experience (most with more) but also keep in mind things like the school budget seeing as much as we would love to provide the world to the students, the reality is that isn't always possible.
Are you saying that an administrator with 5 years experience in the classroom and one year as admin is qualified to evaluate a teacher with 25 years teaching experience?
ReplyDelete