Parents, Beware!
Education legislation tabled this week will have a profound impact on your children. Please take the time to read the BC Education Plan. Read between the lines. It is deliberately vague and its implications will be far reaching. It is a thinly disguised plan to privatise education in B.C. It states that the government has been working with "education partners". Who are these partners? No practicing teacher has been involved in writing this document.
It states that " more learning will take place outside of the school setting" and that "learning will be empowered by technology". Parents will be responsible for taking their children elsewhere for sports, arts, science programs, etc. and for providing them with whatever technology is required. The "flexibility to organize classes" means larger class sizes with no limit to the number of children with learning or behaviour challenges included. Does your child have the reading and writing skills and independence required for online learning? Teachers who oversee distance education courses are already responsible for upwards of 400 students each, and the completion rate is dismal.
The deep cuts of the past ten years have seriously affected students, particularly those with special needs. There are extremely long wait lists for extremely little support. The Learning Initiative Fund will be only $30 million in the next two years, and schools across the province will have to fight for that little bit of money. Compare that to the $275 million that has been taken from schools each year for the past ten years to fund corporate tax cuts. These corporations are making money on the backs of your children!
Our "Families First" government says there is no money, perhaps because billions were spent on the Olympics and mega projects. MLAs gave themselves a 29% raise, and CEOs of public corporations get obscene "bonuses" for doing their jobs. Big corporations are just waiting for the public education system to be dismantled so they can jump in and privatize education.
Teachers did not go to school for six years so they could work 50 - 60 hours a week for $47000 and 3 weeks paid vacation a year. They became teachers because they actually like children and love teaching them. Talk to any teacher at your neighbourhood school and learn the facts.
Free public education is the very cornerstone of our democracy. Please stand up for your children now.
Ron Byman
Prince George
