I am responding to the Jan. 9 article by Katherine Mortimer titled “Education in need of major overhaul.” I agree with Mr. Turanski’s worry about district budgets and the unpredictability of funding.
For the past 10 years there has been a chronic underfunding of public education. This starvation of the system is what really needs to be fixed. Since 2000, public education spending has dropped from 3.6 to 3.1 per cent of GDP. The government spent 26 per cent of its budget on education 20 years ago and 20 per cent 10 years ago, but now is down to 15 per cent. The falling funding ratio has resulted in a significant loss of funding to public education.
If 2010/11 funding for K–12 education was restored to the 2001/02 percentage of the provincial budget, an additional $1.5 billion would be available for public education.
If restored to 1991/92 ratios, an additional $3.7 billion would be available to meet the needs of students and resolve the outstanding issues facing public education in the coming years.
I have some concerns about Mr. Turanski stating that an overhaul of the system is long overdue, coupled with the implication that at the forefront is the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). This is a group in the U.S. that seeks to serve as a catalyst for educators, business leaders, and government seeking to change the curricula, teaching methods, and assessments used in K-12 schools.
The assumption is that current system is antiquated, and needs to be reformed. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills' view is that competition and private alternatives improve system quality. In fact, public education systems in the U.S. and the U.K. are struggling due to long-term underfunding and grinding erosion of over-testing. In B.C., since most of the government exams were made optional, Grade 12 students have largely chosen to stop writing these exams. At the same time, they are having more success in completing graduation requirements. This is particularly true for our aboriginal students. Reducing the testing regime is a reform of the system that has had an immediate positive change for our students.
The FSAs are administered to every student in Grades 4 and 7, but they don’t help the teacher instruct or the student learn. The snapshot the Ministry of Education wants could be obtained by randomized testing which would be far less stressful to students and would be far less disruptive to teaching.
Teachers have integrated all of the goals of the P21 group for years. Here are the 7 C’s promoted by the P21 group: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, cross-cultural understanding, communication, career and learning self-reliance, and caring for personal health and planet earth. In my 30 years of teaching science, I can vouch for my students showing growth in each of these areas. So why do we need a revolution and where is the need for a total restructuring? I agree completely with Mr. Turanski that “teachers are doing these things already."
The Vernon Teachers’ Association has invited the school district to work together to look at curricular and education change. Perhaps we will be able to focus our energies on those aspects of the system that really do merit some change.
Lastly, I do need to correct some impressions that might have been created by Mr. Turanski’s comments about contracts with teachers and support workers.
We call these collective agreements because they are agreed to and signed by all parties. In fact, the signatures on the most recent agreement is signed by Mr. Turanski for the Vernon School District, myself for the VTA, and representatives from the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the B.C. Public Sector Employers’ Association. We have parts of our collective agreement that are local issues in addition to those that are more general in nature for all teachers in B.C.
It is very premature to talk about disruptions to the system. We haven’t even set our bargaining objectives yet. What is important for everyone to know is that we cherish the principles of free collective bargaining and we are looking forward to opening discussions with our employer to explore how we can continue to improve our working relationship.
Bruce Cummings, president
Vernon Teachers Association
