The provincial government is trying to use a report on class sizes to mask a crisis in the education system, says the head of the local teachers' association.
A report released today by the Ministry of Education, touts how average class sizes in B.C. public schools are smaller now than they were before the government introduced class size legislation four years ago.
"When the first class size report was released in 2005-06, there were 9,253 classes with more than 30 students. Today, that number has decreased by more than 65 per cent to 3,229," reads the accompanying press release.
But you can count the president of the Central Okanagan Teachers' Association, Alice Rees, among those who are unimpressed.
"Averages, always, are the great lie," she said.
For one thing, the averages don't hold across all classes and across all districts. In fact, here in the Central Okanagan, the average class size for Grades 4 to 12 are slightly higher than the provincial average, while the size of Kindergarten classes here are slightly lower.
For another, averages don't say anything about what actually goes on inside the classroom.
According to Rees, the law regulating class sizes and composition says that ideally, classes should have no more than three students in them who have been identified as needing special assistance. "These are kids who have a legal right to additional support within a regular classroom."
In 2009, the Central Okanagan had 370 classes with four or more designated special needs students in them, up from 307 classes in 2007. "I'm aware of several classrooms with six," said Rees. "The reality is this becomes a teaching management and sharing issue."
As well, most classes also have students in them with increased or different needs but who have not officially been identified as such and so do not qualify for extra help. "Who will be there for the kid who isn't special, isn't designated, but needs the additional support?" said Rees.
And while the government makes a big deal out of how the amount of dollars spent on education has never been higher, the rate of funding increases has not kept pace with rising costs. Over the last two years, the Central Okanagan Board of Education has had to make $7.4 million worth of cuts from its $170 million budget and could be forced to cut $6 million more next year.
"In this district our librarian support has been cut back dramatically, our learning assistance teachers are cut, our counsellors are cut and our other support networks are in dire danger of being gone next year," said Rees.
And if things don't change soon, she added, B.C.'s historically excellent education system will be in danger of crumbling.
"You have a system that is trying to meet the expectations of society, and those are very high," she said. "And I would say at this moment it is one of the best systems in the world, but it is in crisis."
Adrian Nieoczym reports for Kelowna.com where a version of this story first appeared.
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Fiat lux
2 years ago
Costs can not be cut only
Costs can not be cut only transferred on other sector, the environment and the future.
In this case the government's "savings" and "cost cuttings' are paid for by the parents and the children. Like the plans to have some of our local kids sit in the buses for up to 5 hours a day.
This never fails, as it is a simple physical rule, way above head of miseducated economists and politicians on their way to corporate directorships .
The main object of screwball economic theories is to give preference to certain sectors, in this case our "wealth creating foreign investors", while forcing the public pay for the real and increased costs causing damage, called "efficiencies".
In any case, monetary costs are not realities, but often forcibly induced temporary perceptions that have nothing to do with facts.
Global climate change and ecological destruction caused by so called "economic activities" are the prime examples. History is full of endless examples, but the bloody fools never learn and keep hoping for miracles sold to them "prophets" and professors.
Now try to explain this simple, long standing physical fact to brainwashed economic and religious fundamentalists like some of our politicians
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
bluerev
2 years ago
Rules don't help
Have set class sizes does not help, because different students and different teachers can handle different classes differently.
When I was in grade 12, my english teacher ignored the class size limit of 32 and allowed the class size to grow. Many students wanted her because she was an excellent teacher, and she did not mind having the extra students, because they wanted to be there. This was a bonus to the other students who could not handle the larger classes and the teachers who could not handle the larger classes, since she took up the slack.
If the government and unions controlled the situation everyone would have lost, instead, everyone gained.
There is not one size fits all in anything. Give the teachers and students more choice and reduce the size of the bureaucracies.
Sask Resident
2 years ago
One Taxpayer
There is still only one taxpayer. If you want more teachers or a new school, you have to accept increased taxes or costs. Assuming that somebody else should pay is not reasonable (except for Quebec) since they have their own services to pay for.
Subsidies also distort the economy by making one industry or school cheaper or more expensive than reality. A classic example is the long-tern, continuous subsidy to build wind mills that will break even on their own. Soon someone will have to return, at the government's cost, to dismantle the wind mills.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Why everybody complain about
Why everybody complain about taxes, but not the obscene profits and renumerations of executives, all of which are also forms of taxation coming our of our pockets ?
A couple of years ago the retiring president of the Exxon Corp. the parent of our Esso, who has been the recipient of multimillions for many years, got a golden handshake of $500. million. What the hell does a guy in his 70s do with half a billion dollars ? In in 2008 the CEO of the Royal Bank took home over $42. million, or $23,000/hr.
All of which came out of our pockets as their customers, but there's no choice, because all of these mega corporations are
the same thieves, stealing the public blind while paying part time minimum wages.
By all means let's complain about taxes, but at least we have a certain control and accountability over them, but how about complaining and demanding control over the disgusting thievery of the corporate mafia ?
Ed Deak. Big Lake.
bluerev
2 years ago
Re: Ed Deak
You are completly correct, we should call the money, that goes to executives from our pockets, taxes. Excutives should also know that without us the "tax" payer they would not be in power. And people should be up in arms, because this is taxation without representation.
We need to tax the rich, close loop holes, and send those who cheat the system to regular prison.
dirtmeister
2 years ago
Dysfunctional
Why not ask why we have so many dysfunctional kids? Because too many dysfunctional people are pooping out kids. Easier for a girl in grade 10 to drink, do drugs, poop out kids and collect welfare. I went to school with average class size of 30, most of the kids English was a second language and there was no ESL. Most seceded. Because our parents work hard and had expectations for their kids.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Years ago, back in the 50s
Years ago, back in the 50s and 60s, parents could work hard, earn decent wages, buy houses and feed their kids.
New businesses were opening up by the hundreds, we could buy Canadian made clothes, shoes, foods, machinery, furniture etc. There were no foodbanks, no minimum wage part time jobs, unless somebody wanted one, no homelessness, schools were being built all over.
Colonization, fraudulently called "free trade" and "globalization" put an end to any degree of Canadian independence.
Our governments are selling off the country under more frauds called "foreign investment" and "resource based economy", neither of them of any economic benefit, and we're loaded with junk made in Asian slave labour sweatshops, filling our garbage dumps with products worn out in fractions of their normal life expectancy.
Now we have "service jobs", which are not of any economic benefit, but liabilities.
So much for the great economic minds who run this country and the world, stealing everything they can, given to them by our pimp governments.
Ed Deak
dirtmeister
2 years ago
Dysfunctional Teachers
There is a direct correlation between teacher ability and class educational performance. Al Sharpton on Meet the Press indicated that the failure of the education system was due to teachers coming from a pool of bottom third universities and bottom third of students. Since the 60's teacher grad IQ has drop 25 points. In the past teachers came from smart women and minorities as the professions were closed to them. This is no longer true. What we have today is bottom feeders incompetent teachers.
Fiat lux
2 years ago
Is this any reason for the
Is this any reason for the closing of schools and forcing little kids on the buses for hours ?
Is this going to improve the quality ?
Which are the bottom third universities, apart from the economics departments of all? ?
Ed Deak.
W Laurier
2 years ago
Hmmm
I would like a member of the BCTF to tell me a time when education "wasn't in crisis."
I have small children and by and large, their school is quite good. There are, however, rather marked disparities in the quality of schools according to parents I speak to.
Mrsteve
2 years ago
BC Education
I can't help but wonder. If 50% of our property taxes go to schools and there are far less kids and far more expensive homes, where is all the money going? If all of this money is not going to schools then is this not fraud?
Top this off and we notice the excuses we get for cutting more schools is because of the taxes the same government is creating.
The education of children should be our highest priority. What else could be more important. If we are having less children then our kids should be getting the best education possible. How else can we survive as a prosperous province?
I believe our education system should provide for very small class room sizes and money to transport these kids as a class for weekly field trips.
We cannot go on selling off fixed assets to cover the operating costs of our schools. I think this government is grossly irresponsible. The assets of the schools belong to the people of British Columbia. They have been paid for by past generations and now we are being told to give them up.
I can only guess the hidden agenda here is to privatize schools entirely.
gnam
2 years ago
@dirtmeister
Not sure how the 'bottom third' argument plays out in Canada since Canadian universities are largely regarded as being on a fairly level field when it comes to quality of education.
The point about teacher IQ should really have a reference... since that claim is hardly common knowledge. Secondly, it would be more relevant (should it turn out to be true--which I doubt very much) if you cross-referenced an inflammatory statistic like that with IQ results for the broader population. It would come as no surprise to learn that in a society that appears more and more to value training over education, that a test developed in an historico-educational context with drastically different pedagogic priorities and standards would no longer yield the same results that it used to.
Finally, you should probably provide some stats on your whole grade ten girls thesis. As it stands, it really looks like nothing more than reactionary misogynistic drivel aimed at teenagers--typically not the demographic that I would tend to hypothesize as the source of contemporary social ills.
At any rate, I'm with the teachers on this. They tend to be well educated, hard-working, under-resourced, and underpaid for the kind of job they do.
With the province wide funding shortfalls and mass lay-offs scheduled for the end of this school year they (teachers) have every right to be upset about current budgets and funding levels. Parents should be upset too. Juxtaposing the funding issue with a red herring about raised taxes simply ignores the issue, which is about how to ensure quality education for young people.