February 5 , 2002

Clark's Amateurism Threatens Education

At the November 21st staged cabinet meeting, Education Minister Christy Clark promised to post accountability contracts to her ministry's website. Count that as another broken promise. Rather than providing the actual contracts, the complicated site offers "summaries".

Details vary widely in the contract summaries. For Surrey (School District 36 - you need the numbers to access the summaries) student performance objectives include "Improve the district average by 2% in each of the following provincially examinable courses: English 12 , Communications 12 , English Literature 12, Biology 12 , Chemistry 12, Geology 12, and Mathematics 12 over the next three years."

There is a two step trick in improving district averages in provincial exams that involves depriving students of educational opportunities. Step one: discourage any student who is not performing at a C+ or above from taking the exam. Screening out those likely to score badly drives up the average. While you are at it, discourage any grade 11 students from going on to grade 12 courses unless they are at the top of their class. Participation rates are no longer deemed important. Step two: eliminate all enrichment activities such as field trips, guest speakers, and hands on labs while teaching strictly to past provincial exams.

Christy Clark is the Minister who said teachers would be allowed to strike while education would be protected under her government's essential service legislation. She repeated that often before the legislation was even written. Once it was written the task of defining essential services was handed to the Labour Relations Board. Before the board could rule on any actual school closures, government imposed a contract with Bills 27 and 28.

Faced with her government's failure, Minister Clark said the entire bargaining structure will be reformed. When asked on the Bill Good show what was broken and what would be changed, she said she really didn't know. She did know as she has now revealed that the Campbell government will not fund school boards for the entire 3 year contract it imposed.  Apparently they expect Bill 28 to be used to drive up class sizes and eliminate special needs support to cover cost increases.

Clark is also in the news threatening teachers with a vague government "solution" if they don't resume their volunteer activities. Spaceship to Minister Clark: you cannot force people to volunteer; your statements are inflammatory with the result that even more teachers may stop sponsoring extracurricular activities.

The public relations stunt that is masquerading as performance contracts shows Clark's amateurism threatens not just extracurricular activities but also the quality of education. Discouraging activities that enrich all students so as to artificially move two points on a provincial exam will do harm that is beyond the Minister's comprehension.

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January 23, 2002

In September Schools will Change

Don't expect to see the full consequences of the government's failed essential service legislation and legislated teacher contract until September.  Like much of the damage being done by the Campbell government, it will take some time to see what happens.  After an imposed settlement, one by one frustrated teachers will withdraw voluntary services, not as the result of any collective action orchestrated by their union but as personal decisions when they face larger classes and receive less support.

All of the New Era exaggerated rhetoric about essential service legislation for education will be shown to be a pack of lies. The Campbell government made it the law that the Labour Relations Board could determine what job action could be taken by teachers. Before the Board even ruled on whether substantial job action (rotating strikes) can be taken, government prepared to call the legislature to impose a contract.

When governments elsewhere ended strikes, including NDP governments, the approach usually followed has been to appoint an arbitrator (industry inquiry commission) and then make the recommendations of the arbitrator binding on both parties. No one likes that approach, but it is the next best thing to negotiating a contract.

In the case of the last contract with the teachers, government as ultimate paymaster bypassed the Public School Employers Association, and negotiated a contract that was made effective through legislation. Ignoring the employers' bargaining committee without changing the legislation that established it was probably a mistake. What is unacceptable to any union, and to most employers, is for government to unilaterally impose the precise terms of the contract as the Campbell government did with the BCNU and HSA and, as some critics would say, the Clark government did with the BCTF.

When an arbitrator is appointed whose recommendations become binding, everyone gets back to normal work in fairly short order. When Finance Minister Gary Collins recently appeared on CKNW's Rafe Mair show he argued that the teachers soon got over it when the NDP legislated them back to work. He failed to mention that the legislation in those instances involved either making an arbitrator's recommendations binding, or it gave force to an agreement directly negotiated between the union and government.

If government imposes a contract, possibly with lower salary adjustments than those last offered by the employer and almost certainly with contract stripping provisions including larger class sizes and a loss of protection for special needs teachers, counselors and librarians, then things will change in BC schools for a long time. PE teachers, music teachers and drama teachers are not likely to stop their volunteer activities because those extra duties are so vital to their programs. It takes more than those teachers, however, for most school programs to work; teachers from all areas supervise sports and sponsor clubs. Teachers who find their classes larger, who find a librarian or counselor missing and who experience a lack of support for their special ed students, will simply decide that they no longer have the time nor the will to sponsor a club or supervise a game.

For Class Size Resources see: Survey Article (Reducing Class Size - What do we Know,
                                                                     US Department of Education)
                                              California experience (CSR Research Consortium)