November 10, 2005

Bond Strikes Out

Education Minister Shirley Bond issued a news release on November 9th which announced that "provincial exams will begin one week later, on Feb. 6." That is good news. She should have stopped there while she was ahead, but, typical of the Campbell government, Bond over-reached and made the announcement controversial.

Bond also suggested that district funding might be available to pay teachers for extra instruction outside the regular school day to help prepare students who require additional assistance. That amounted to an insult to thousands of teachers who regularly make their time available in extra study sessions, outside of normal school hours, to help students prepare for exams. Why should some boards pay some teachers to do what is already commonly done? It is no wonder that the BC Teachers Federation harshly criticized Bond's announcement.

Bond's news release said that the Province is "Asking boards to consider reducing or eliminating non-essential activities in K-12, such as field trips, and to emphasize intellectual development and academic learning." It probably came as a shock to many educators that parts of school programs were considered "non-essential" by the Minister of Education. You can bet that the British Columbia Public School Employers' Association didn't identify those activities as non-essential in their submission to the Labour Relations Board when it was determining essential service levels. Perhaps the Employers' Association and Bond should get their stories straight!

In one news release, Bond went from a good news announcement to conflict over paying overtime to teachers and controversy over curriculum. When you add the confusion she's introduced over the future of school boards, she made three strikes and should be out.