Opinion

A Tyee Series

BC's Education Feuds: The Last 30 Years

Three decades of slashed funding and 'disrespect' means no recess for teacher-government dissent. Last of two.

By Crawford Kilian, 7 Oct 2011, TheTyee.ca

Christy Clark

Thanks to long-ago B.C. premier Simon Fraser Tolmie, Christy Clark has 80 years of teacher-government feuding to contend with.

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Also in this series:
What's Behind BC's Education Feuds?

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[Editor's note: See the first of this two-part series, which details the first 50 years of teacher-government battling in B.C., here.]

If you were a B.C. educator in the summer and fall of 1983, or a firefighter, or a cop or social worker or civil servant, you still remember the feelings.

You felt nausea when you heard what Bill Bennett's Socreds brought down on July 7; existential dread when you realized their new laws were going to screw your career and personal life beyond all recognition; joy when you gathered at the old Empire Stadium, the cops and firefighters marched in, and thousands in the stands stood up to applaud; righteous anger when you demonstrated, 60,000 strong, around the Socreds' convention at the Hotel Vancouver.

Larry Kuehn, who was president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation in the early 1980s, remembers those years very well. For him, July 7 was the pivotal moment: 28 "restraint" bills introduced that would roll back most of the gains working people in B.C. had made since the end of World War II.

It hadn't come out of the blue. Kuehn traces the change to the 1970s. For a quarter-century after the war, resources had moved toward working-class and middle-class families, sparking a golden age when a family could live on one wage-earner's income, buy a house, and send the kids to college.

The golden age ended with wage and price controls in the mid-'70s, the oil shock, and Nixon's withdrawal from the Bretton Woods agreement. Thereafter, Kuehn argues, resources would move back toward capital, and working families would see no more real improvement in their incomes from then until now.

At the same time, Kuehn told The Tyee, the BCTF was changing. It had been focused on improving salaries for its members, but in the 1970s -- with B.C. teachers the best-paid in Canada, and with some of the biggest classes -- it shifted from bargaining salaries to improving learning conditions. It was also trying to build a better society for its members and their students.

Charles Ungerleider, who served as deputy minister of education under the NDP in the 1990s, agrees that the BCTF changed in the 1970s: "The Federation wanted to remake society through education. It continues to pursue that."

Thomas Fleming, professor emeritus at UVic and B.C. education historian, says local teachers' associations had more bargaining power than the BCTF until the late '60s and early '70s. But he traces the change to the bureaucratization of the schools in the mid-1940s: "Bigger schools and school districts led to more labour-relations issues," he told The Tyee. He believes the Ministry of Education began to lose touch with the schools and to pay increasing attention to post-secondary. School boards and teachers had to become more militant about their needs.

Two conflicting visions

Kuehn sees the conflict in B.C. between educators and politicians as based on two issues. First, the schools are supposed to prepare students to be workers, valuable human capital. Second, the schools should prepare them to be active citizens, informed proprietors of a democratic society.

"Both are functions of the public schools," Kuehn says, "but government emphasizes one and teachers emphasize the other." So the government wants standardized exams to give employers a predictable workforce. Teachers want individual development of students who will be highly unpredictable citizens.

The 1980s were a long decade of conflict between the two points of view. B.C. unions formed the solidarity movement, a homage to the Polish shipyard workers who were challenging the Soviets. After teachers went out and the whole province seemed to be on the edge of a general strike, B.C. pulled back with the so-called "Kelowna accord" negotiated between Bill Bennett and IWA leader Jack Munro.

But the struggle continued. Kelowna had offered teachers some "assurances," including no reprisals against striking teachers and keeping money saved by the strike inside the education system. Those assurances soon vanished. The school wars resumed with low-level skirmishing -- and occasional battles like the May 1985 firing of the Vancouver School Board for refusing to submit a budget within Victoria's guidelines.

Bill Vander Zalm, after a controversial stint as education minister, had not run in the spring 1983 election. Then Bill Bennett abruptly announced his resignation in 1985. Teachers who had been planning an anti-Bennett campaign in the next election were caught off-balance, and again when Vander Zalm swept back into politics and won another election for Social Credit.

Another bizarre twist

In yet another bizarre twist to his career, Vander Zalm as premier turned out to be pretty good for the schools. He appointed ex-principal Tony Brummett as minister of education. The Sullivan Commission sparked a lively and constructive debate, with the BCTF actively involved. Brummett brought in the "Year 2000" program aimed at implementing Sullivan's recommendations.

Then Vander Zalm's government imploded. Brummett left the education portfolio. His successor, Stan Hagen, quietly smothered some key aspects of the Year 2000.

Elected in 1991, Mike Harcourt's NDP finished off the rest of Year 2000 in 1993. The New Democrats were now determined to put their own stamp on the schools.

The Socreds were in disarray, but right-wingers were enthusiastically bashing the schools again. NDP Education Minister Art Charbonneau responded with a new commitment to letter grades, standardized exams, and "higher standards." The high-school dropout rate remained about where it had been since the 1960s.

Education funding continued to be a problem, especially in the recession of the early '90s. But while the BCTF continued to call for more money for the schools, it didn't attack the NDP. "We were at the table talking with the government," Larry Kuehn recalls. Simply being consulted made a difference. It hadn't happened much under the Socreds, and it wouldn't happen under the Liberals after 2001.

Charles Ungerleider says he made a point, as deputy minister of education, in meeting with BCTF leaders. He also revived the Education Advisory Council as a monthly forum where teachers could discuss substantive issues. But he also noted an anti-BCTF attitude among senior ministry officials -- a kind of culture that mirrored the teachers' suspicious attitude toward government.

Fleming agrees that the ministry, and successive governments, have been wary of the BCTF. "Regardless of government," he says, "the BCTF has served as the official opposition." He recalls that the Socreds in the early '80s "went into the bunkers" against the teachers: "They disrespected teachers, and took joy in the dismissal of teachers' aides."

Unconstitutional? So what?

The Liberals under Gordon Campbell triggered a "New Era" that was a lot like the 1980s. Bills 27 and 28, introduced on Jan. 25, 2002, overturned the relative stability of the 1990s.

Like the 1983 restraint bills, the suddenness and surprise of these new laws did as much as their content to alienate teachers and trustees. No one had been consulted, and the laws tore up existing contracts.

Christy Clark, then minister of education, energetically supported the bills and went on to become a lightning rod not only for teachers but also for school boards and parents.

The BCTF responded to Bills 27 and 28 with a string of protests and lawsuits. Not until April 2011 would the Supreme Court of B.C. finally declare the laws unconstitutional.

In that decade, educators and Liberal governments had plenty of other opportunities to keep the relationship toxic. They battled over the College of Teachers. Districts with dwindling enrolments got inadequate budgets and school closures. It was increasingly clear that B.C. education was systemically underfunded.

And B.C. teachers are now paid far less than their colleagues elsewhere: Vancouver teachers' top salary is currently $74,353 compared to Calgary's $95,073. (Charles Ungerleider points out that Alberta teachers, under conservative governments for decades, have done much better on bread-and-butter issues than their B.C. colleagues. He suspects it's largely due to maintaining backchannel communications with government -- which the BCTF, he says, hasn't done.)

A war-like legacy

This hot war/cold war between governments and teachers has now gone on since at least the Kidd Report in 1932, almost 80 years ago. Better said, it's been a conflict between a business culture that sees education chiefly as tax-subsidized worker training, and a teachers' culture that sees education as preparation for citizenship and a way to build a better society. In theory, these should be complementary visions. In practice, they have been bitterly opposed.

The business culture, usually in political power through the Socreds and then the Liberals, generally sees education as an expense to be kept down. It regards assertive educators as hostile. The ministry's internal culture seems to support this view.

The teachers' culture, only rarely in power through the NDP, sees education as an investment that pays off socially, culturally and politically as well as economically. It too regards its adversaries as hostile. Ironically, each side's hostility strengthens the other's. Fleming argues that the BCTF's ability to elect or oust the government intimidates both parties.

Until both sides can break out of their cultures, B.C.'s school wars will continue. [Tyee]

Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.

57 Comments:

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  • Fish-counter

    33 weeks ago

    We need a referee.

    The BCTF vs Ministry of Education fight is like a bad marriage with the kids being used as weapons. There are faults on all sides:

    The Nanaimo School Board turned down $67 million to build one school to replace NDSS and Woodlands, neither of which can stand up to an earthquake. They should have been forced to make a decision and take the poison. That is but one egregious example of disgustingly-bad management.

    Teachers are asking for five days off for grieving a friend and six months to care for one, plus a month off every year in banked sick leave. Thaty is equally egregious.

    The system is broke. Auxiliary staff are being required to provide school discipline at recess and teachers are not grading their kids.

    There are solutions to all these issues but the parties have to talk. They also have to listen and compromise.

    In my grammar school the Upper Sixth Grade 12 students) were responsible for student discipline over lunch and recess. I know because as Head Boy I was responsible to make sure they did it. It wasn't perfect, but the teachers got a lunch break and four upper Sixth students had to patrol the school grounds every day.

    School is supposed to teach social responsibility as well as Reading Riting and Rithmatic. Teachers are providing a bad example to their students. Bad form, what? They deserve Six of the Best (thrashes of cane to the bottom), and don't spare the rod.

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    You don't get it.

    Anyone who thinks that the teachers are in a "job action" because "Teachers are asking for five days off for grieving a friend and six months to care for one, plus a month off every year in banked sick leave" really doesn't know the facts. Repetition isn't working either. The issue is class size and composition, and to a lesser extent a salary increase.

    Schools are suppose to teach people how to think for themselves critically and independently; stand for what they believe in not to follow blindly. More sheep we don't need. Pity that the old grammar schools failed in so many ways with their focus on the three R's to the exclusion of anything else that makes for a good citizen..

  • Fish-counter

    33 weeks ago

    By the way the BC Ministry of Education is in violation of a

    BC Supreme Court ruling. We will get a clarification October 11. It is time to sort this sh*t out once and for all.

    How about no wages increase and no class over 20 students? Would THAT make everyone happy?

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    Asking teachers to subsidize the system..

    ...to get smaller classes is not much of a solution. We don't ask the same from other professionals. It might make you happy but again that isn't negotiation. The government believes negotiations are fair simply if they declare there is no more money for anything. You seem to think that it is fair if you ask teachers to subsidize the system by foregoing an increase. Your "solution" lets the government crow about how much money they are putting into education when it was really the teachers who made the contribution.

    Make no sense to me at all.

  • Fish-counter

    33 weeks ago

    It doesn't have to make sense to you, Skywalker

    It just has to make both sides equally unhappy. If either side were completely happy when this dispute is settled, there would be something very wrong. Neither side will be happy. They need arbitration, ideally from someone outside the province entirely.

    You can spin it any way you like but teachers want smaller class sizes, a raise and extra paid leave. They have specified how many days paid leave they want, but not the amount of money that will satisfy them. That is not even a negotiating position, it is a stand-off, a bad attitude and a hissy-fit all in one.

    The government wants larger classes and a zero cost increase.

    Solution; close schools that are running at less than 75% capacity (for example) and force early retirement.

    Wow! Now wait for the fireworks!

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    If it doesn't make sense to me...

    ...then it probably won't make much sense to any other average person. I don't think teachers are any less intelligent than I am and in order to agree to such a scheme they would have to be pretty dumb.

    Your suggestions of more autocratic decision making by Christy and her crew isn't really worth much either. Sean Hollman recently published the cost overruns on three government projects: BC Place, Vancouver Convention Center, and the Port Mann Highway Improvement. Those overruns (just overruns mind you) totaled $2.4 Billion. So please don't try to tell me there is no money for education. That is now just an excuse.

  • Fish-counter

    33 weeks ago

    The Port Mann Bridge makes sense to me.

    It is a trade route. I need to drive from Edmonton to Horseshoe Bay in 14 hours tomorrow. The Port Mann Bridge is my lifeline.

    BC Place and the Convention Centre are just the City Vancouver looking into a mirror and asking "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" Vancouver is Canada's West Coast Whore. We all know that.

    We have one better than that in Nanaimo. We have a conference centre with no hotel accomodations. It is a white elephant.

    So the construction costs went up. What else is new? What is your point?

    My point is that no one is ever completely happy in a negotiated settlement. Both sides think they could have gotten more.

    The government holds the trump hand because they can legislate an end to the job action/strike. How happy would that make the teachers?

  • lynn

    33 weeks ago

    Who ya trying to fool?

    Our present provincial and federal governments do not believe in negotiation despite the staged theatrics.

    Let's get real.

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    What's my point?

    Money for everything else, just not a kid's education. No fuss about overruns for anything else, just not a kid's education.

    They way you debate and the points you raise feeds right into the BC Liberals agenda against teacher and by extension kids. Maybe it never occurred to you..

  • raging senior

    33 weeks ago

    Fish Counter

    Once again I feel the writings of one David Robertson, "rich, smart alliance, I've got it made, to hell with you... type of guy"!! If I am correct, then your teachers must have been successful in teaching the reading, riting and rithmatic, but they forgot to use the hickory stick. Respect cannot be taught, it must be earned. I learned to respect the majority of my teachers. Years back when classes had 40+ students in elementary grades, the students also had parents who COULD stay home, teach manners, respect and of course sent their children to school with a full tummy, even if it was porridge. If one of the 40 became disrespectful, there were consequences and I am not refering to the strap, that was dire consequences. Today a student can tell a teacher to f off and there is basically not much that teacher can do. I also don't remember any student with dissabilities in our classes. I don't remember students with downsydrome even in the 60's. Today we welcome all students into the system and expect the teachers to work miracles. There are more ADHD, autistic, etc students than ever in the classrooms today. One teacher cannot possibly deal with the overachivers, underachivers and nonachivers in a class of 30+. However they do try. There are no set hours of work for a teacher--the work must be done. Hours in the classroom with students probably account for 1/2 the total hours spent per week. If the teacher moulding your child, teaching your child, advocating for your child is not worth a decent wage, then how much do you think your child is worth?

  • igbymac

    33 weeks ago

    lynn, clearly you are onto the fix

    How anyone cannot see that the objective of our bourgeois democratic government is to represent and account to business, the bigger the better keep, to keep the rich in place, is almost beyond belief.

    Until we find a way to return the government to a subservient role relative to the majority, rather than its currently dominant role as owner and general, we the people are going nowhere but down.

    Some think they can negotiate with government, convince it to do what they want. Have these people lost sight of the fact that government is suppose to work for the people, and it should not be a matter of negotiating, but steering? Or do they also hold the contrary belief that most people, the majority, want poorer education for their children and themselves?

    For this is exactly what negotiating with government has brought us: a broken, underfunded, ineffective, non-stimulating educational system. But that is all it is ever going to bring us because that is all a government which does not serve the people first, foremost and at all times, is capable of doing.

    And we do not see a single Party in our midst that has any intention on changing that fact.

  • raging senior

    33 weeks ago

    Fish Counter

    Negotiations are when two parties get together to come to an agreement. When negotiations are valid and completed, both parties should be satisfied. One because they got the best they could and the other because they were satisfied they gave what they thought was fair. No one gets everything they want. But at the end they should be able to shake hands and get on with the job. Believe it or not, this used to happen, but then the governments got involved in all negotiations and negotiations have become a tool where companies wait until the government rules. The province is looking for a provincial walkout like in 1983.

  • Cool Hand

    33 weeks ago

    Yo Skywalker

    Quote:
    You seem to think that it is fair if you ask teachers to subsidize the system by foregoing an increase.

    Ahhhh... but you seem to think it is fair to say that the BCTF continue to deny the BC gov't current and future revenues that would enable it to pay increases. And there's the crux.

    Do you know why the BCTF had an agreement in the last go 'round?

    Because the BCTF was pressured by its members to accept. And what did they accept?

    A $5,000 (?) signing bonus as well as annual increases. And do you know where the $5,000 (?) signing bonus came from?

    NE BC natural gas (ng) land grants/drilling rights for future shale gas fraccing!! That's where!

    And did you know that the BCTF or its locals opposed same?

    In fact, the BCTF or its locals oppose:

    1. NE ng fraccing;
    2. Raven Coal Mine on Van Isle;
    3. Revised Prosperity Mine;
    4. Other coal and mineral mines in BC;
    5. BC Hydro's Site C and transmission line development;
    6. Pipelines;

    I can go on and on. But 'nuff said. PWC has confirmned that the avg. wage in mining alone is ~$109,000/annum.

    My point is that you oppose high wage employment, which, in turn provides personal income tax revenue to gov't, removes expenditures from gov't in terms of UI and social services, provides corporate and resource revenue into gov't coffers, etc. - You pay the financial price!!!

    The BCTF executive was even termed as "left" and "hard left" by a 1990's NDP cabinet minister. I typically coin the phrase "Looney Left". haha

    The BCTF always seems to bite their nose to spite their face.

    Conversely, a friend's 40-year old family company in the private sector is unionized. Always a great relationship there. Union members identify cost savings as well as opportunities and they receive financial compensation above and beyond their contract. Go figure!

    OTOH, the BCTF opposes their employer's ability to gain revenue to increase theor salaries. haha

    If I was on the gov't bargaining committee and if the BCTF had any principles, they would agree to a 3rd party assessment of the financial costs to gov't of their opposition to the BC developments I discussed above.

    It would then become apparent that the BCTF's opposition to these developments would cost the provincial treasury $billions$ over the years.

    And the BCTF should agree to a wage freeze, in the minimum, in principle, as the guvmint would no longer receive the funds to pay their increases. Common sense, n'est pas?

    Just logic, common sense and reality. Of course the BCTF seems to reside on Planet X. haha

    BTW, money does not grow on trees and the Manitoba NDP guvmint has the same taxation/economic policies as the BC Libs, which the BC NDP also opposes. Yup, looney leftasitis.

  • Cool Hand

    33 weeks ago

    Yo Skywalker

    Quote:
    The issue is class size and composition, and to a lesser extent a salary increase.

    Haha. Fer chis sakes man. You gotta be kidding!!! The BCTF's position will cost the BC treasury a ~$2 billion/annum.

    Ever been in collective bargaining talks? Go in with a nutty position - you are toast.

    BTW, I can only come to the conclusion, with your statements, that you are actually either a member, or former member, of the BCTF!

  • Cool Hand

    33 weeks ago

    Raging Senior

    Quote:
    The province is looking for a provincial walkout like in 1983.

    Yuppers. Operation Solidarity/Solidarity Coalition. Another looney left matter.

    Remember the public opinion polls at the time? 19% approval for Operation Solidarity/Solidarity Coalition. Socreds also way ahead of NDP as silent majority despises radical opposition.

    Jack Munroe at least saw the writing on the wall. The looney left never forgave him. :P

  • Fish-counter

    33 weeks ago

    Raging senior: thanks for the moral blackmail

    but it didn't work. The school I went to was a grammar school, and I was Head Boy. We were taught discipline and quiet respect. The school motto was:

    "Work hard and play hard - to win"

    My parents were dirt poor and I was the only kid in 800 who did not have a school uniform to wear for the first two years. Have you any idea of the shame that bore? I doubt it. My only objective was to get to university, which meant being in the top 4% in my cohort. That was my ticket out of the working class ghetto of Northen England. I had no other objective in school. I had to be one of the top 4%.

    Canadians teachers are wishy-washy laurdrywomen with no idea how to motivate students.

    I know some students are hard-asses and they should shape up or get dumped from the system. OK? some of them are going to fail, in which case they are on their own. These kids are screwing the serious students.

    We should not necessarily see dropouts as our failures. These kids are responsible for their own fate. Lets get back to streaming the kids by ability and talent. It would focus resources on the best talent and yes, some kids get left behind.

  • Frank

    33 weeks ago

    One has to keep in mind

    "and the Manitoba NDP guvmint has the same taxation/economic policies as the BC Libs"

    That Luke disagreed with himself when he posted on Yahoo that Manitobans would be better off under the Conservative government in Saskatchewan.

    What he says on the Tyee may or may not be what he actually believes.

  • Frank

    33 weeks ago

    Luke luke luke

    "My point is that you oppose high wage employment, which, in turn provides personal income tax revenue to gov't, removes expenditures from gov't in terms of UI and social services, provides corporate and resource revenue into gov't coffers, etc."

    Of course, teachers, doctors, nurses etc also pay income taxes. German ferry construction people on the other hand, don't.

    If you want good jobs then why support shipping raw materials out of the country to feed someone else's economy? Even Peter Loughheed can see the problem with that.

  • Cool Hand

    33 weeks ago

    Frank

    Quit the spinning. :P

    Fer chis sakes man, (again) haha ... I don't have a Yahoo account, I don't read Yahoo news and I've never posted to Yahoo.

    Furthermore, I've also never stated that Manitobans would be better off under the Conservative government in Saskatchewan.

    In fact, I've stated otherwise because the Manitoba NDP has the SAME taxation/economic policies as the BC Libs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Someone, somewhere else has the moniker Cool Hand? Haha

    Man, you are either on steroids or need to take some meds. Shame on you! You are brighter than that!! haha

  • Frank

    33 weeks ago

    Luke

    You're off your rocker, remember years ago when you posted serious stuff? What happened to that Luke? All you do now is post "haha and LOL" ad nauseum.

    Its like you're the laugh track for an episode of Three's Company.

    Take some anti-depressants or something and get back on an even keel.

  • Cool Hand

    33 weeks ago

    Frank

    Alright. We are now even.

    BTW, I loved Three's Company as a kid. Damn, no reruns! Just havin' some fun! :P

  • Frank

    33 weeks ago

    And

    Trying over and over again to claim the Manitoba NDP is the same as the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals is kind of pathetic.

    It would be just as easy to look at the policies of the BC libs and say they're pretty much the same as the policies the Conservatives in Alberta and Ontario, and yes, Manitoba espouse.

    After all, the Ontario Conservatives posted their party platform and one of the planks was a 10% corporate tax rate. Same as the BC Libs and same as the Manitoba NDP.

    Which I guess means we're all Conservatives?

  • igbymac

    33 weeks ago

    Is this an admission, finally? :)

    Frank ...Which I guess means we're all Conservatives [sic]?

  • Frank

    33 weeks ago

    igbymac

    It could just as easily mean the Ontario Cons are actually Dippers. Same with the BC Libs.

    If the criteria is the level of provincial taxation on corporations then yes, we could all be the same.

  • igbymac

    33 weeks ago

    Yeah, I'm good with that! ;)

    "It could just as easily mean the Ontario Cons are actually Dippers. Same with the BC Libs."

    Though, even I will admit, the small difference between them all can result in significant changes in the here and now for people at the poles of the spectrum. I think, philosophically, that it is simply not nearly enough to right the ship.

    Of course, it appears that I want to throw those most hurting to the wolves by not supporting the lesser of the evils when, in fact, I want us all to jump off.

  • Fiat lux

    33 weeks ago

    For crying out loud, when

    For crying out loud, when will you people realize that all these crimes against humanity started with the exclusive teaching of neoclassical market economics in our universities ?

    This racket will continue until the coming worldwide depression and corporate dictatorship unless people start asking questions and demand answers, now, from the universities on what they teach ?

    In any case, resource extraction is not an income but the sale of capital and any society that permits its unquestioned
    continuation is a society of fools.

    As far the cost of today's higher education is concerned, I was taking courses at Cambridge for 7 years and hardly paid anything, just after the war, when large areas were still in ruins.

    Now with all the "wealth creation", people have to sell their souls to go to university.

    Yet, nobody dares to question the Lords of the Economy?

    We told our children, when they were going up, that they're welcome to get any level of high education, but first they have to learn any trade of their choice.

    They have. Neither of them went into academia, or working in their original trades and haven't missed a thing. At least, by leaning trades first, they've acquired a certain degree of practical logic and survival instincts they couldn't get from memorizing books.

    Ed Deak.

  • Fiat lux

    33 weeks ago

    For crying out loud, when

    For crying out loud, when will you people realize that all these crimes against humanity started with the exclusive teaching of neoclassical market economics in our universities ?

    This racket will continue until the coming worldwide depression and corporate dictatorship unless people start asking questions and demand answers, now, from the universities on what they teach ?

    In any case, resource extraction is not an income but the sale of capital and any society that permits its unquestioned
    continuation is a society of fools.

    As far the cost of today's higher education is concerned, I was taking courses at Cambridge for 7 years and hardly paid anything, just after the war, when large areas were still in ruins.

    Now with all the "wealth creation", people have to sell their souls to go to university.

    Yet, nobody dares to question the Lords of the Economy?

    We told our children, when they were going up, that they're welcome to get any level of high education, but first they have to learn any trade of their choice.

    They have. Neither of them went into academia, or working in their original trades and haven't missed a thing. At least, by leaning trades first, they've acquired a certain degree of practical logic and survival instincts they couldn't get from memorizing books.

    Ed Deak.

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    @ Cool Hand

    You are beginning to sound like JosefK, BC Order or I_Am_Peo. As expected from the Looney Right there is always money for cost overruns and projects for the rich but never enough to fund schools properly nor to pay a fair wage to teachers. Always the excuse that if we just have more money for some mega project then the money will trickle down to the public service. Yeah right, like that ever happens with the looney right.

  • Skywalker

    33 weeks ago

    With the latest polling showing..

    ...Christy's tactics are not working very well, it is heart-warming to know that "this too shall pass" .

  • IndyJones

    33 weeks ago

    BCTF Power is Diminishing

    What's missing from this article is that in the last decade, increasingly teachers are feeling detached from the BCTF. Teachers' jobs have become more complex and difficult. Involvement in the union by full-time classroom teachers is being replaced to a degree by teachers-on-call, special ed teachers, and councellors who have less of an appreciation of classroom teacher needs. Many full-time classroom teachers are too exhausted to be active members of their union. As the saying goes, "A union is only as good as it's membership." This is one reason BC teachers are behind their counterparts in Canada in wages and benefits.

    "Fleming argues that the BCTF's ability to elect or oust the government intimidates both parties." In days long past, maybe so, but not now. The BC Liberals have done a good job of diminishing the power of the BCTF. Unless teachers decide collectively that they are at a point where they are "mad as hell and cannot take it anymore", the strength of the union will continue to diminish. The BC Liberals are banking on teacher indebtedness (mortgages, student loans, etc), which for many is significant, to further reduce the influence of, or break entirely, the BCTF. With today's fragile economy looking grim for the future, great numbers of teachers would balk at walking a picket line.

    Given these circumstances, the government and teacher cultures described in this article may change significantly.

  • Wake Up

    33 weeks ago

    Clarification

    Cool Hand, You said that teachers received in the last set of negotiations:

    A $5,000 (?) signing bonus as well as annual increases. And do you know where the $5,000 (?) signing bonus came from?

    That is ALMOST true. You are manipulating information.

    Teachers received a $4000 signing amount, and they had just been on strike for over two weeks. The money the government used to pay for the signing dollars was because they hadn't had to pay teachers during that time.

    Nor did the government have to pay into pensions. Pensions pay-outs in the long-term did suffer as a result of the strike and the signing money was not used as contributory moneys - it was a one time payout.

    Basically, it was to pay the teachers' bills while they had been on strike so that they weren't spending time in food bank line-ups instead of marking and playing catch-up with students. It had been a long and bitter time.

  • Wake Up

    33 weeks ago

    clarification, cont'd

    I forgot to provide the portion of the quote which was manipulative. Cool Hand said the signing moneys came from:

    NE BC natural gas (ng) land grants/drilling rights for future shale gas fraccing!! That's where!

    I, as mentioned above, beg to differ.

  • Wake Up

    33 weeks ago

    Details needed...

    Two points of Crawford Killian I would like to add to:

    He said: "Elected in 1991, Mike Harcourt's NDP finished off the rest of Year 2000 in 1993. The New Democrats were now determined to put their own stamp on the schools."

    When reading through, this gives the impression that teachers bent over backwards to implement whatever the NDP wanted to occur. This was far from the truth.In 1991, teachers were on job action and it was a tenuous balance to keep the divisions amongst teachers from widening and destroying the everyday fabric. A majority of the teachers then and now are quite conservative thinking, and not NDP voters. The NDP ended up making a deal with the BCTF, after a significant time in job action.

    In addition, like this, most articles seem to divide the teachers into political camps, but that is entirely wrong. What is missing is the fact that teachers of various political stripes are sick and tired of being used as scape-goats. That teachers are not being construed as meaningful, valuable citizens providing over and above the service that most people put into both their jobs AND into the raising of our community treasure - the youth. The longer these strike situations go on, the more the mantra drones in the background - teachers cost too much and work too little and don't make a difference. That makes everyone angry and demoralized. Why shouldn't teachers have a small wage increase? slight benefit improvements as nothing has improved for 20 years? Time to help more kids, better?

    The answer from the government is: "Because we want to prove we are stronger, so our voters don't think we are weak! Because we need to keep dollars in the system to pay for our superior pensions, and only give chicken scraps for teachers! Because we would prefer to have big events for the rich that we know teachers cannot afford to go to! Because we don't want teachers living near us in our big houses, we don't want them to be able to afford any house at all!

  • Davey-boy

    33 weeks ago

    A small raise?

    If teachers were given a 24% raise, they would make almost as much as teachers in Calgary.

    If high school teachers had their prep time doubled, and were given a 25% raise, they would have wage and workload parity with Ontario teachers.

    The threads on the Tyee and the Vancouver Sun are revealing: informed posters arguing methodically and logically for wage gains are countering the uninformed and emotional posts offered by the predictable trolls.

    C'mon, trolls, let's hear a thoughtful, rational and coherent case for your side. I dare ya. I double dare ya. Heck, I triple dog dare ya!

  • vancurber

    33 weeks ago

    Let's compare ourselves with Alberta

    They have the highest paid teachers in the world and the second highest dropout rates in Canada. Perhaps they should pay their teachers less?

  • vancurber

    33 weeks ago

    Average cost per student per year

    In BC is $9500. How many people could afford to send their kids to school paying $9500 per year? Not very many. Clearly our school system is completely unsustainable. We need to allow voucher programs to compete with the public school system, at least in the lower mainland where there would be enough of a market for it. For 9500 per year per student I could create a far better school than any school in our public system. And it would be EASY. I could get WAY better teachers in WAY better classrooms with WAY better results. And it would be EASY.

  • tierra y libertad

    33 weeks ago

    Charter Schools Fail The Test

    @vancurber: Vouchers and charter schools in the USA often do no better than the public schools even though charter schools deny entry to children with special needs. Your call to privatize BC public schools would be a huge mistake and would ruin what is actually a very good system. Here is a link from an actual educator named Diane Ravitch. She is eminently qualified to weigh in on this topic unlike most of the bloggers here. Give this a read and you will see that charter schools are no "silver bullet" to challenges facing K-12 education.

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/

  • Davey-boy

    33 weeks ago

    I could run a great school too...

    All I would have to do is exclude the dyslexic kids, the ADD kids the ADHD kids, the Mod MH kids, the MMH kids, the SBD kids, the MBD kids, the kids with Chronic Health designations, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, etc......

    You were planning to exclude those kids too, right Curby?

    The astonishing thing is the fact that Vancouver public schools, on both the west side and east side of the city, continue to outperform the independent schools that exclude such kids. UBC continues to track the GPA's of its students, comparing the grades of public school grads to private school grads, and the private school kids are always lagging behind. Even the public school grads from low socioeconomic parts of the city outperform their private school peers.

    The private schools rely on the ignorance of people like you (and in fairness to you, the MSM promotes this ignorance) to maintain their student base. Several teacher friends of mine have worked in both systems and can illuminate quite clearly why the private schools are doing so poorly.

  • Frank

    32 weeks ago

    vancurber

    "Clearly our school system is completely unsustainable."

    Educating a citizen in order for them to properly function in society is unsustainable at $9500 a year?

    If that's the case its our economic system that's unsustainable.

  • zalm

    32 weeks ago

    vancurber

    "They have the highest paid teachers in the world and the second highest dropout rates in Canada. Perhaps they should pay their teachers less?"

    Shut down the tar sands, and watch that school-leaving rate drop like a stone. Young fellahs wanna earn money, and they're leaving school to do it.

    Motivated teachers are the only thing that's keeping anybody in Alberta schools at all. I'm sure the Conservative government there explored all other avenues to motivate teachers, such as floggings and hostage-taking, and obviously settled on paying them more as as last resort.

    That, or send everybody to the tar sands and shut down the schools entirely. Our very own Canadian gulag, where, no matter how much money you earn, you're still living in Fort Mac, stoned out of your gourd and raising your little cancers until they consume you.

  • happy

    32 weeks ago

    A "minor" omission?

    This was dutifully reported:

    "and occasional battles like the May 1985 firing of the Vancouver School Board for refusing to submit a budget within Victoria's guidelines."

    yet somehow this was overlooked. Or should I say swept under the carpet?

    "In 1996, the North Vancouver school board was fired by the NDP government for failing to bring a deficit under control"

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/a-ripping-yarn-the-province-vs-vancouvers-school-board/article1609968/page3/

  • Wordspinner

    32 weeks ago

    Raise the Funds

    It's always interesting when the government claims it doesn't have the funds to do what's right in education. But they do have the funds. Only they have the power to tax to raise more funding. They don't have the guts to refuse to fund something based on its merits or to argue against whatever is being requested on the basis of their research, policy or consultant's reports. The reason: they don't have any evidence to refute such requests.

  • Justice girl

    32 weeks ago

    Fish-counter

    "Canadians teachers are wishy-washy laurdrywomen with no idea how to motivate students."

    Yesterday, I gave thanks for a career I consider a vocation. Today I read your arrogant, ill informed rants. I'm looking forward to seeing my students tomorrow, because they give me hope that narrow-minded, old-school misogynists like you won't be able to run the planet much longer.
    Thanks, Davey-boy for your reminder of what parity would look like if teachers in Canada's most expensive province were paid even close to what their colleagues in Alberta or Ontario are paid. This is what comes of teachers and students subsidizing big business for ten years.

  • igbymac

    32 weeks ago

    a thought

    "It's quite remarkable: When governments are embroiled in labour disputes, they deem health care and education essential services. But when it's time to cut the budget, where is the first place they go?"
    --R.G. McGillivray

  • Fish-counter

    32 weeks ago

    Cool Hand says:

    "In fact, the BCTF or its locals oppose:

    1. NE natural gas fracking
    2. Raven Coal Mine on Van Isle
    3. Revised Prosperity Mine
    4. Other coal and mineral mines in BC
    5. BC Hydro Site C & transmission lines
    6. Pipelines."

    Good. Terrific. Thanks for the info. Now, where are the BCTF's mutual funds invested? How about the Ontario teachers mutual funds? Are they all ethically-directed? It is just that teacher pension funds are among the biggest in the country and tyhey carry a lot of clout. I am just asking...

    As for Justice-girl's comments; she is right. I was ranting and exaggerating to make the case.

    As I understand it however, the BCTF has yet to specify their wage increase position. Their demands for increased time off are totally and unbelievably laughable. Really. They are an insult to the people who pay their wages - the taxpayers. Take the whole bloody year off if you like, but not on full pay.

    I share her love of the students, and the hope they represent too. My own generaton (I am 62) is a lost cause. They are too busy going to Mexico to want to improve things here. A friend of mine once said that tourism is defined by the phrase:

    "I don't like it here, so I am going somewhere else".

    Which reminds me of the old Monty Python skit, featuring a man in shirtsleeves and shorts, with a handerchief tied at the corners for a hat, saying in a northern working-class accent:

    "People who don't like this country enough to stay here all year shouldn't be allowed back in."

    I am only partly joking. See, it is one thing to be against development here, but if you fly halfway around the world for your vacation, you aren't exactly helping the old global GHG emissions. And you are probably not doing the environment much good when your cruise ships drops anchor on a coral reef, either.

    Teachers seem to take a lot of flights and cruises. Therefore it follows, Q.E.D., that they are overpaid.

    Over to you, Justice girl.

    (Thinks: "Incoming!")

  • zalm

    32 weeks ago

    Ignoramus

    BCTF investments in bcIMC aren't all that large, especially compared to the much-larger list of other public servants.

    But I would imagine they're stuck with investing in some of those darling items you and Kuhl Hound listed. Here: check for yourself:

    http://www.bcimc.com/publications/pdf/Inventory/Inventory20110331.pdf

    And why is that? Because Conservative-leaning governments (yes, I include so-called federal Liberals in that group) over the last forty years have abandoned the fixed income market as a steady and slow way to sensible growth, ROI, and reward for sane behaviour in favour of psychotic get-rich-quick schemes laundered through investment banks and securities houses as a way of supposedly "making people richer" while ignoring the fact that our increase in money (much devalued though it is) has bought us a poverty of lifestyle that beggars thought.

    I'm very happy for you, fish-counter, if you can afford three Mercedes and four DVD players all bought on credit cards, but it's not the kind of thing I've ever aspired to.

    All I ever wanted to do was become good at something, enjoy my work, contribute to society, and enjoy my family. I never even intended to retire, but my body is now beginning to give me some indication that I may have to factor that into my thinking eventually.

    But it's hard to accept the tainted dollars that come from retirement (as I'm part of that pension scheme too), yet I see that I may have to one day, because the fixed income investments market has been absolutely ruined by the short-term thinking of successive Western governments only too eager to be re-elected by substituting a marketplace mentality that suggests happiness can be purchased in quantities as great as anyone could desire simply be subverting everyone's labours to the power of the equity markets and their psychotic and criminal behaviour.

    Their watchword: "Oh, you're too poor to be in equities? Fuck you. Grab hold of those bootstraps, asshole."

    No, fish-counter, fuck you. A small organization of individuals making common cause to live their conscience and improve their part of the world by limiting the damage men do to each other and their natural world gets short shrift from governments that cut its legs out from under it, and all you can say is:

    "I was ranting and exaggerating to make the case."

    You're a fucking lunatic. That's not civil discourse, that's shouting in the ear of a blind man with a megaphone. That's as ignorant as it comes, and I'm renewing my call to the editors for an ignorant button.

  • G West

    32 weeks ago

    Editors

    I know you've taken away the 'BEST' button - for good reason - but zalm's post above me here deserves some kind of recognition - because it's a classic. One of the best ever!

  • happy

    32 weeks ago

    zalm

    Yes, but does not the BOD of BCIMC have final approval of where the funds are invested?
    There IS choice....why doesn't the board just pull the funds from these tainted corporations if that is the wish of the employees and direct them to more etihical investments. Is that too simplistic? I ask because I don't know.
    The teachers hold one of the seven chairs on the board

    http://www.bcimc.com/about/boardofficers.asp

    so they have a direct influence beyond the small overall contributions you refer to.
    I also see the fund is quite heavily exposed to the mortgage market.
    Thats just interesting, nothing more.

  • zalm

    32 weeks ago

    happy

    Decades later, bcIMC still does not have an ethical investing policy. Are you surprised? I thought not.

    I doubt it's the responsibility of the sole board member of the BCTF to promote one, but I'm quite sure everyone is looking at the ramifications of such a policy - after all, if the advisory committee, to which I belong has called for one for years...

    Of course, nothing in that invalidates what I said above, which is that equities is the only way that pension funds have been able to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to their clients in the past couple of decades. Back in the 1960s, it was not only inappropriate to invest pension funds in common stock and private placements, in some jurisdictions like Ontario and Massachusetts, it was illegal.

    What's changed? And why? Answer me that, and I'll tell you why every one of us is slowly getting dragged into a moral morass that is squeezing the life out of the poorest people on our planet, and the truth and beauty out of us, ourselves.

    Like every German under Hitler, we're all collectively guilty. And I don't like it one bit.

  • G West

    32 weeks ago

    and happy

    If you want a reading list so you can understand the process whereby we've gotten to the point zalm so accurately describes, I'll be happy to provide you with one...

  • happy

    32 weeks ago

    All righty

    It could be argued its not just a sole member. The college instructors have a seat, so thats two of seven for the educational sector.
    I could go even further and say two of four of the employee reps (as the government appoints the other three)are given to the educational sector. But.....semantics.
    I don't wish to get into a non productive Tyee style merry go round.
    Your points are noted.
    Al I will say... is that even though you blame the "system" for forcing you to accept, what you consider, unclean money your group still has choice within that system where the investments are made.
    You can work the system. It doesn't change overnight, but change can be made if enough citizens want it bad enough.

    Thank you for your sincere offer West but my brain is not wired in that direction (thats why I ask questions) I'm a nuts and bolts guy.

  • happy

    32 weeks ago

    Say! Noticed something interesting

    Articles that came out post this one on the 7th have been closed, yet this one remains open.
    Coincidence? I think not.
    I would have to say you zalm, and West too, have a lot of pull with the management here to bend the rules for us.

    Cheers guys!

  • G West

    32 weeks ago

    Sorry Happy

    I'm as surprised as you are to find this story is still open and active...I don't know if it's a coincidence or just an oversight - I do know it has bugger all to do with me and I’ll bet it hasn’t got anything to do with zalm either.

    In fact, my ‘relationship’ with the management here is actually pretty fraught… always has been – it goes with speaking your mind and not suffering fools gladly.

    I think you're wired just fine and a little reading about how much cash and treasure actually ends up doing nothing more than creating 'financial' growth (instead of real productive growth) would be something you could understand and appreciate just fine.

    I've just finished a book about the beginning and growth of the M&A phase in the 70s...you have no idea how close that "con" job got to being deemed a violation of anti-trust laws in the US....

  • Fish-counter

    32 weeks ago

    Zalm: calm down. Your pacemaker is on overdrive.

    I don't own even one Mercedes. I live on about $25 kpa, and am very happy with that. Which is one of the reasons I get uppity when people making two or three times as much as me whine about being underpaid. The wisest thing I ever read was:

    "If what you have is not enough, more won't help"

    It applies to us all, including the David Hahns and teachers. As for me being a f**king idiot, I am happy you can write that and not get a warning from David Beers.

    Many teachers take at least one vacation abroad by air, and that alone contributes to GHG emissions. Seriously.

    Teachers are the salt of the earth as individuals, and I respect every one of them that I know personally. Their union is wishy-washy and quite off-side when they want 20 sick days a year, six months off to care for a sick friend and five days for a funeral. Those kinds of outrageous expectations make me laugh. It robs them of all credibility.

    Class sizes are pushing 30. That is equally outrageous. It should be 20, without exception. I couldn't work in a school; the claustrophobia would kill me. I need to see outside, which is becoming a luxury. We are building Big Box schools, which is a mistake. Those are the issues the public would support, but not double-digit wage increases, even if spread over three years.

    Meanwhile, I am told that lesser-paid auxiliary staff are being called in to manage discipline because teachers won't.

    As an ex head-boy, who was put in charge of school discipline myself, I know that some Grade-11 students could be given limited responsibility for discipline during lunch and recess, relieving teachers of that load.

    Some schools are absolute icons of social responsibility and the students are paradigms of dedication.

    Not all schools can be perfect, but they should all be good, like rice pudding or a can of baked beans, for example. The thing about baked beans is; you always know what you are getting before you open the can. That is because they are made with quality control. School quality control comes in part from standardised provincial exams. Why won't teachers accept that?

    I like the Tyee. It is a good forum and we should not abuse it.

  • G West

    32 weeks ago

    Fish-counter

    Just a very small point - since you seem to be trying to be reasonable. That's a good thing, because, truth to tell, on the basis of most of what you've written on the subject of schools and teachers, zalm wasn't the only person around here who had come to a somewhat different conclusion.

    The negotiating position of a group of professionals (teachers) who are, at best, almost 15% behind their fellow professionals in Alberta (at worst they are much worse off), who have been told in advance that they will get goose eggs in this negotiation, is going to be unusual.

    Put some money back on the table - start treating them with the respect you 'say' you have for them and watch what happens.

    Furthermore, I can't see that your experience as 'head boy' in a British public school has much relevance in the current context...if I'm wrong, convince me otherwise.

    Cheers

  • Bounder

    32 weeks ago

    Great Overview

    I was an administrator within the school system for about 32 years and this article jogged my memory about many issues over that time. It's my fear that both sides are so entrenched in their positions that the problems are insolveable. It will take significant leadership and will to save public education and I don't think either side has that leadership and will.

  • A concerned gra...

    31 weeks ago

    respect

    Perhaps there would be more respect and more support for teachers if students, parents and grandparents saw more affirmation that the bargaining demands on the table were about students.

    I really believe the issue of bullying needs to be addressed on both sides with some real honest bargaining on how to address it in schools - K-12.

    Frankly I don't see anybody owning any responsibility for what happens to children in public school where it pertains to this subject (bullying and respect) and I think that is unconscionable. It should one of the highest priorities before time off and wages.On BOTH sides.

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