The REAL story is this week's decision at B.C. Supreme Court

This is but a side issue compared to the REAL story, which is the judgment rendered in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday by Madam Justice Griffin - http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/11/04/2011BCSC0469.htm#_Toc290368382. (See also lively discussion at the Biblitz B.C. Law Review fb group).

In this judgment, the court has removed the power of elected representatives to set education policy and spending strategies, giving it over instead to teachers, who were not elected by anyone and who have a prima facie conflict of interest in such decisions.

Ultimately, neither students nor parents/taxpayers now have anyone representing our interests in education.

How will special needs kids fare in this brave new world, I wonder?

Teachers have shown NO initiative regarding their obligations toward full inclusion for special needs kids - beyond the usual efforts to offload them altogether, I mean. The Moore decision shows us that it's now next to impossible to get an independent review of a teacher's performance and that the union will take any steps necessary to shield members from such crucial reality checks. Strangely, the B.C. courts assist even when teachers fail as often and as badly as they did in Moore.

Probably, though, none of this will matter once cyber classes like the superior Kahn Academy become the new normal as they surely must. Automation will again relieve the need for costly (in so MANY ways) labor while at the same time raising academic standards and allowing those teachers who remain to spend more quality time with their special needs charges.

If only...

If reporters bemoaning the loss of the VSB's communications staff had demonstrated as much concern or attention to all the other staff cuts we've seen in the past decade, we probably wouldn't have the severe underfunding crisis that requires decisions like these.

Nanaimo is cutting all the student support workers who provide critical intervention to at-risk kids instead. Would that have been a better place to cut in Vancouver?

The short attention spans and myopia in much of the media coverage of education challenges continues to amaze me - every year, school boards are put back on the same hot seat for making this cut or closing that school - decisions that are really entirely beyond their control and most of the time there is little or no effort to explain the root causes for these damaging decisions.

Funding

What George Abbott and the Liberals are not acknowledging when they declare we are giving more money is inflation and added costs. When the teachers got a raise during the Liberals first mandate they refused to fund beyond year one. What does that mean? More money is required to maintain a status quo and when no more funding is forthcoming it is a shortfall. They recently increased Medical Premiums but added no funding. Inflation has eaten away at any increase by more than the extra funding. Technically the Liberals are telling the truth that they are spending more than ever but we are all spending more than ever to survive. Costs have gone up faster then increases. A continuous habit of not funding Provincially mandated increases leaves the Districts with insufficient funds. All we have to do is look at Surrey to see a growing District but not enough money. The formula the Liberals are using is broken. It is time to sit down and discuss how important our child's education is and fund it properly.

In addition

Some of the increase in funding is illusory in that it is, at least in part, a sleight of hand in what constitutes "funding" per student.

Some of what used to be separate and under operations budgets (i.e. heating, etc) is now included in the new per student funding model, thus "increasing" the per student funding without there being any more money IN the system.

Also, as one previous poster pointed out, and to the best of my knowledge, this new model also doesn't adjust for inflation.

Finally, and to no one in particular, please reconsider suggesting that increases in teacher's salary is somehow a shocking thing. In the public sector AND the private sector wages make up the most significant over-head costs--there's nothing new in this, in fact, its not information at all.

Add to this the fact, on the one hand, of Vancouver having the highest rental costs anywhere in Canada, to, on the other hand, the fact that our salaries are well behind many other cities in Canada, and it should also come as no shock that we're asking for this to be addressed.

It ISN'T, given these--and other--concerns, in any way an unreasonable request. Other profession even within the province and city start out at --and sometimes continue into--higher salaries.

However, please keep in mind that to be a teacher requires not one, but two degrees (and many teachers have a master's degree). Very few, if any, other profession at the equivalent level has this requirement--and it IS a requirement.

All tallied, hold accountable those who have the authority and mandate to affect change, and who have their fingers on the purse strings (irrespective of how much is in said purse): administration and management.

More often than not people are using teachers as the scapegoat, when we have very little authority and ability to affect change. Please just be aware of this.

Teacher qualifications - what a laugh!

Rubbish!

Any parent who has seen the letters, assignments, instructions and newsletters schools routinely send home has wondered with reason whether teachers today have the wherewithal of basic grammar and spelling.

Look at the trouble teachers and schools have had complying with something as simple as the bar against illegal school fees! How many times do parents have to argue the Young decision from way-y-y back in 2006? Each fall without fail, notices arrive for a wide and varied assortment of 'necessary' field trips and supplies, which are no more essential than junk food. Each fall, parents have to beg the principal and school trustees to do their duty and uphold the law. Beg.

Even worse, everyone with a kid in French Immersion has been appalled - truly appalled - at the lack of command of the French language most Fr. Imm. teachers have. Few would be able to conduct a parent-teacher interview in French - that is, if parent-teacher interviews had not years ago been replaced by a sort of group open house that precludes any actual inquiry about the child's performance and the role the teacher no doubt played. No questions, no criticism. Ever. Union says no. Strangely, the local courts agree. So far, anyway.

Most of us end up having to contract privately with Alliance Francaise in the summer and after school to shore up the yawning gaps in what should have been taught in the classroom. We also discover to our horror that Fr. Imm. teachers are also taking summer courses there to upgrade their French.

Qualified?

I don't think so.

The real question about Fr. Imm. is why it's so hard for Vancouver schools to attract authentic francophone teachers to this academically re-gentrifying and increasingly popular program. Here's my theory: BCTF shields its second-rate membership from review by severely limiting the number of truly qualified francophones, who would inevitably report on the poor performance of their colleagues. How could they not?

You would think Alliance Francaise would play a more pivotal role in local Fr. Imm. education. A reasonable assumption. The truth is that local teachers and the school boards, which seem increasingly to represent their interests, have consistently told AF it's not welcome and not to interfere.

Weird...

Nobody is glorifying the fact non-teaching positions were cut to save teaching positions.

It's called setting priorities.

communications specialists aka spin doctors

The former communications executive for VSB, Mr. Gosbee, states:

"There's tremendous confusion about what our public schools are doing today; there's an advance towards private education and even home schooling, and I think that the public schools are getting a terribly bad rap from the Fraser Institute all the way through the business world."

The above article also states that Mr. Gosbee has been providing "communication" services for the last 20 years to the VSB.

I am wondering why the public has so much confusion about public schools when the VSB has had such a qualified person at its communications helm for the last 20 years.

The Fraser Institute has been at their statistical warping games for the last 37 years and has been publishing its school report card since 1998, 14 years ago.

Years of "communication strategies" at VSB have had little impact on the general public's acceptance of the Fraser Institute's flawed view of education.

Why should the public be so confused after 20 years of investing in those who should have had some very real success in countering the Fraser Institute's ideology?

Parents who rely on report cards to determine their child's progress are failing them. Parents who are not daily partners in their children's education, who rely on the Fraser Institute and computer aided comment report cards are allowing the Fraser Institute and their private school backers to lobby government to institute their false solutions.

It won't be communicaton officers who will change the public's confusion over public education, it will be the parents.

It's time for parents to wake from their slumber party and get involved in real changes that benefit all children, not just the wealthy.

askBiblitz

I think you should read over the judgment once again and perhaps understand that teachers and other workers, including yourself have a right to negotiate their working conditions.

Would you, as a parent, want a teacher to have 35 children in the classroom, 5 or more requiring learning assistance, 3 or more with special needs, and all the others required to be meeting or exceeding the ministry's prescribed learning expectations?

Given the time each day to deliver a lesson plan, engage with each student, ensure that those requiring assistance get at least an hour each week or perhaps once every two weeks of individual attention, and try in vain to deliver something meaningful to the education of those with special needs, don't you think teachers should have a say in what they are able to do at a satisfactory level?

35 students per class, 5 hours a day, less than 10 minutes a day of individual attention but only if the teacher doesn't spend any time on collective learning. Even if school were 8 hours a day, the time for individual attention and collective learning for 35 very different individuals with a wide range of abilities isn't a good scenerio.

Parents have not been stripped of their authority over their children. Education is a shared responsibility. The schools, teachers, the community and most of all parents are partners.

Teachers, those in the classroom every day, do have a unique insight into what works and doesn't work when it comes to education policy. Teacher's ability to perform their duties and meet political agendas and policy must have a say in the makeup of the classroom including the number of students in each class, the number of special needs children in each class, and the number of those requiring learning assistance. It's not only fair to the teachers but to all the other students in the classroom.

ps Not a teacher but married to one very committed teacher who spends hours each day beyond the time her students are in class preparing to make the next day a better learning experience for the students.

pss She is not the only teacher committed to this degree.

askbiblitz2

You wrote:

"In this judgment, the court has removed the power of elected representatives to set education policy and spending strategies, giving it over instead to teachers, who were not elected by anyone and who have a prima facie conflict of interest in such decisions."

Read the judgment again, the court did not take any authority away from any elected official, it did however rule government legislation or at least parts of it unconstitutional.

At some point Canadians must face up to Canada having a Constitution and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These very strong documents and what they provide in terms of our individual rights and freedoms are essential elements of any democracy. No elected official has the right to remove these rights and freedoms.

The court did not say that teachers have the right to dictate their demands, it did however say they have the right to be consulted and to negotiate their workplace like all other workers in society. It ruled that Christy Clark and her Ministry officials erred in omitting teacher's input and denied them the right to negotiate their working conditions.

Quit disinforming the Tyee readers.