Opinion

Boomers a 'Time Bomb' for BC Schools

Educators, be prepared. As demographics shift, BC's coffers will prioritize the old.

By Thomas Fleming, 30 Nov 2011, TheTyee.ca

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Public school enrolment is dropping; is funding to follow?

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Imagine we get beyond the current impasse in educational labour relations. Imagine, for once, it's not just about money. Imagine, also, that government and the teachers' federation somehow set aside 40 years of rancor and distrust long enough to confront deep and fundamental challenges already changing the face of public schooling.

What should they be thinking and talking about? What will public schooling look like in B.C. in 20 years? What do government and the teachers want it to look like? Are they even thinking about it at all?

Even without a crystal ball, a few seemingly unavoidable facts spring to mind.

First, public school enrolments, relative to the general population, have been shrinking for four decades and appear unlikely to recover soon. The spectacular growth that characterized much of the public school's history for the last 60 years is over. Schooling is no longer an expanding industry. Instead, a "demographic time bomb," as one journalist put it, is transforming our public institutions, especially the school.

Let's look at the numbers. The public school's prominence reached its zenith in 1971 when 25 per cent of the general population attended public schools. Today, it is closer to 12 per cent. Fewer youngsters attend public school, measured as a percentage of the provincial population, than at any time since 1911. That's a century ago!

Likewise, fewer than 10 per cent of British Columbians were over 65 years of age in 1971. Now, more than 25 per cent are. A once-youthful province has grown old and, with this change, a re-ordering of economic and political priorities is at hand. Public health and pension fund issues are already rocketing to the top of policy agendas at both provincial and federal levels.

This shift in provincial demographics has profound implications for public schools and government spending. School closings in Vancouver and elsewhere are just the first sign of more fundamental structural changes that are likely to come.

Schools subject to 'new realities'

Going forward, our society is confronting new challenges. Growth in the 65 plus segment of the population, increasing longevity rates, an ever-shrinking ratio of workers to dependents during the next two or three decades (in effect, both a labour force and tax base contraction), not to mention accelerating public sector pension costs, will compel government to make difficult and unanticipated decisions about where resources are allocated, as well as who gets them.

At first there will be vigorous crusades to raise more money to support services. At the same time, there will be strident calls for governments at all levels to save money as new realities displace old priorities. Public schools are unlikely to be spared in the program reviews close at hand. While it is possible to fantasize that public schooling can go forward on a "business as usual" basis, or that provincial authorities will continue to direct close to 28 per cent of general revenues -- the current level of B.C. school support -- toward educating youngsters who comprise no more than 12 per cent of the province's population, such outcomes seem improbable.

Sooner or later, government will be obliged to deem this level of investment "unsustainable." Sooner or later, government will re-examine the entire machinery of school governance, administration and finance systems all built to meet circumstances prevailing in the 19th century. This will be a real "tipping point" the moment when new realities faced by voters will oblige government to invent strategies and structures that will make public schooling far less costly and much more customer oriented.

This will be the moment when the two main actors in provincial schooling, the government and the B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF), will have to face the fact that old-fashioned pedagogical and organizational structures are simply no longer affordable, or even appropriate. We are now in an age when much learning takes place outside school walls and where the internet surpasses libraries as the chief warehouse for information.

This will be the moment when government and the teachers will be forced to have the conversation that both have long avoided. No one outruns history forever! Sooner or later, the future has to be faced.

[Tags: Education, Politics.] [Tyee]

Thomas Fleming is professor emeritus in educational history at the University of Victoria. Bendall Educational Publishers in Mill Bay, B.C., has published two of his recent histories, Schooling in British Columbia: Voices from the Educational Past, 1849-2005 and Worlds Apart: British Columbia Schools, Politics, and Labour Relations Before and After 1972. Fleming also served as a research director and editor-in-chief of the 1987-88 British Columbia Royal Commission on Education.

12 Comments:

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  • Van Isle

    25 weeks ago

    The present problem with our

    The present problem with our whole education system is that it's an industry and key players don't want to give up their little kingdoms. For example in the not to distant future all students will have a electronic device, called nowadays an ibook, and anything that they want to know will be there; hence no more libraries and no more reference books, no more books on specific subjects, and that would eliminate one little kingdom. Too many parents look at schools as a baby-sitting service.

  • Granville

    25 weeks ago

    "A school s a school is a school"

    In England, my teachers taught me how to think critically, in high school and in university. The workload in school was self-imposed oppression, but in university there was ample time for sports and partying.

    Today's education is all about workload and quantity, not quality. It is about tonnage not critical thinking, in my humble opinion.

    Yes, the electronic age is upon us. Kids need more than ever to be able to sift through the dross and recognise the good stuff.

    Grade school is more about socialisation than education. Kids learn and retain what they need and they forget the rest. They need personal coaching and encouragement; role models not punishment details.

    The good teachers have known this for decades and they provide role models that many parents do not.

    The Boomer phenom is over-rated. We will get through this and into the future. The smart education students are those that can see through the short term and understand the demand for teaschers in ten year's time.

  • cw

    25 weeks ago

    Re: the cartoon

    Is [falling] funding to follow?

    No, it lead.

  • Granville

    25 weeks ago

    Eventually, the baby boom teachers will retire too.

    They are doing it, as we speak. Meanwhile, school districts have an extremely tough challenge ahead. In Nanaimo for example, the SD 68 turned down $67 million to build a new high school, complete with a kitchen and earthquake proofing. They declined it because they could not face merging two older schools and letting go some of the teachers.

    It is a tough world out there with unions, teachers and parents all shouting for more. The reality is that it is much easier to grow a business than it is to shrink it. Ditto cities, schools and governments.

  • OwlRol

    25 weeks ago

    Red Herring

    Funding is dropping (in real dollars), is public school enrolment to follow?

    I've heard the demographic financial argument too often. To some extent, its a red herring.

    The education system needs a major overhaul, starting with top management and ending with the baby sitting service notion.
    No more worker 19th. century, widget clone production.

    Lets do a little estimating, something not always well taught in math.

    Assume 4 million BC citizens & residents, 12% enrolled in public schools (480,000 estimate, although falling enrolment suggests a shift toward 450.000) at a very generous $10,000 per pupil per year (currently over $8,000).

    That's $4.8 billion, or about $1,200 per BCer per year, steep fo some, next to nothing for others (4,800 David Hahn annual salaries, 1 per more than 100 students).

    Still much less than incarceration costs of $60,000++ per year for each inmate, just wait 'till B.C. has to pay for Harper's "tough on crime" bills when they come due.

    The issue of dependency ratio grows, not only with more underage or retired people who depend on worker contributions, but also with higher unemployment of otherwise capable (and mostly eager) workers. This is a systemic problem.

    Dependency ratio was huge in the 50s & 60s, with single, large family "breadwinners". Canadian population grew considerably since then, but nothing like Canadian productivity triping during that same time.

    Where did all the profit from that multiplied productivity go? More affluent lifestyles and spending? To some extent. More administrivial & managerial paper pushers, despite new technologies? More PR and advertizing, Surely.

    But mostly, more profit takers, many not home grown, receiving much but giving little, certainly not an equivalent.

    From this perspective, the above article seems ludicrous. Efficiencies, yes, cutbacks, no.

    It's at the heart of the recent, 99% occupy movement and will not go away.

  • frank2

    25 weeks ago

    Agree with OwlRol The

    Agree with OwlRol
    The important thing is to fund whatever is necessary to ensure that the next generation is able to perform well in an increasingly complex world, with "performance" including social skills as well as passing tests.

    There DOES need to be greater effort given to figuring out what "works." (Including getting a better consensus on what objectives of education should be.) And then implementing -- with whatever degree of "creative destruction" is required.

    BUT, just focusing on macro costs and competing priorities will NOT result in a constructive outcome, however appealing that might be to the bean-counters who seem increasingly to populate our political leadership.

  • Crescent

    25 weeks ago

    Rediculous Use of Stats and Wrong Headed Perspective

    Sure there are opportunities for efficiency: Cut the ministry's budget to prevent them from inventing new curriculum that doesn't work, and shifting classroom funding to publishers. Cut the number of school boards to make management more efficient. Charge fees to parents when books are trashed or lost. Charge fees to parents when capable students don't want to work to pass a course. Charge penalties to parents that pull their kids out of school for holidays and trips.

    Then while you're at it: Cut the 'salaries for life' for MLA's and MP's - they just have to work 5 years and then their salaries are permanent! And you are worried about keeping teachers' salaries competitive?!

    Then deal with income inequality - where 1% of population takes 305-40% of the national income!

    Then tax back the $7billion two week party that cost 2million taxpayers $3500 each from the corporations that profited and claw back salaries of the politicians, until the $7billion is recovered, that thought this was a good idea.

    Then tax back the $100billion in war mongering, on 20million taxpayers for about $5000 each, from the corporations that profited and from the politicians, until it is all recovered, that thought this was a good idea.

    etc. etc.The waste is huge.Not much in education.

    Besides, quality education is an investment in our future. As for cost, teachers like everyone else want to be paid a fairly. In the last contract they agreed to smaller class size for forgoing pay - pretty reasonable.

  • wvdk

    25 weeks ago

    a 'Time Bomb' in a Teapot

    BC's public schools are funded per student. 20 or so students more: hire a teacher, 40 or so less: lay off two teachers. Flexible funding is built into the system, so there's no growing time bomb. Retiring boomer teachers will somewhat offset the decline in teacher numbers, but new teachers will still face a teacher surplus, causing personal hardships. Schools closing in small communities cause community hardships. There is however no provincial level 'time bomb'.

  • OwlRol

    24 weeks ago

    Crescent and wvdk

    Crescent, I agree with most of your frustrations and I'll focus on a couple more education types here.

    Don't forget the very expensive (P3), but failed BCESIS provincial education computer management and reporting system, now scrapped after only a very few years. Serious technical flaws (among others) that should have been evaluated before purchase.

    "Charge fees to parents when books are trashed or lost." Some schools do that and withhold report cards, but try and collect. Can't wait to see the cost of trashed portable electronics.

    "Charge penalties to parents that pull their kids out of school for holidays and trips."

    Can't do that when it's a B.C. MLA, later MP, who pulls a kid out for 2 weeks, less than 2 weeks before Gr.12 provincial exams, no matter how valuable the vacation trip might have been.

    Other than English, Gr. 12 provincial exams no longer exist, more recently because Cdn. universities don't require them any more, but after 2001, because the ministry didn't want to pay for marking teams. So now government student achievement is done in grade 10 & Social Studies 11 provincial exams, mostly through multiple choice questions (guess who gets to mark the bits of written components?). Superb evaluation, eh, and how many grade 10s are thinking about post secondary scholarships?

    Funny how enrollment in many districts has decreased but school board staff, notably highly paid administrative positions have increased during that same time in those districts.

    So where do those cuts take place? Teacher-librarians, counsellors and special ed. Too many chiefs, not enough front trench line workers.

    wvdk, if only. How about 45 students in non mandatory courses, 30 or 31 to the class limit, with 15 kids on a waiting list, hoping someone will drop out to give them a space in a chosen course. 20 kids to a new, but small classroom, ha,ha.

    Too many such stories, but these are nearly identical in many other ministries. (I'll never forget the poor woman wheeled into a hospital room with 5 men, while empty rooms were closed for lack of staff).

    All this while many of the top brass try to mimic big corporate culture. Remember Enron, Nortel, etc. Those were before the Great Recession.

  • ShortSummer

    24 weeks ago

    Pensions are not a time bomb

    To the author, and to the readers of this article, the public sector union pension plans - including the Teacher's Pension Plan - are in excellent financial condition. They are funded by a combination of employer/employee contributions off pay cheques, and the employer's portion is considered part of a total compensation package. Unlike in the USA, Governments can not take a payment holiday, creating a funding debt that must be paid off in the future. Further, when the actuaries do their job and see a potential shortfall, the law says contribution rates must increase to fund the potential shortfall, or members must agree to lower their pensions in the future.

    Finally, let's consider the cost of lousy pensions - the Government will pay more in CPP and OAC, as well as welfare and other costs. Higher pensions = higher taxes paid too!

    A well funded defined benefit pension plan is good for everyone, and every worker deserves one.

  • ShortSummer

    24 weeks ago

    Pensions are not a time bomb

    To the author, and to the readers of this article, the public sector union pension plans - including the Teacher's Pension Plan - are in excellent financial condition. They are funded by a combination of employer/employee contributions off pay cheques, and the employer's portion is considered part of a total compensation package. Unlike in the USA, Governments can not take a payment holiday, creating a funding debt that must be paid off in the future. Further, when the actuaries do their job and see a potential shortfall, the law says contribution rates must increase to fund the potential shortfall, or members must agree to lower their pensions in the future.

    Finally, let's consider the cost of lousy pensions - the Government will pay more in CPP and OAC, as well as welfare and other costs. Higher pensions = higher taxes paid too!

    A well funded defined benefit pension plan is good for everyone, and every worker deserves one.

  • OwlRol

    24 weeks ago

    Myths to divide us

    ShortSummer, you are absolutely correct. Many myths tossed out by the mainstream media to divide the population and anger those who think that they are being short changed by other little guys while the elite are excused because they are supposedly the job creators.

    Another myth about teachers is that they get nearly 3 months of holidays. 3 weeks has been the truth, Christmas and Spring break. Ask any young teacher who gets a pink slip at the end of June and wonders if they get rehired in September. Summer is an unpaid layoff, not a holiday.

    And why is the government considering a defined income pension plan for those without, rather than a defined benefit pension plan? Not much security there, but less expensive for employers.

    If the Scandinavians can do the DBPP, surely so can an overall wealthy Canada. Then again, the Harperites view that as the worst of socialism.

    We need a portable, defined benefit pension plan for all Canadian workers, indexed to cost of living, so that they know that after many years of work, they won't starve or become homeless. No fancy cars or deluxe holidays, but more than Kraft dinners in a cold, mouldy room.