Last week I posted about the day my son came to work with me. He is in grade 7 at Bayside Middle School and has spent a lot of time over the past two weeks sitting on the sidelines waiting for resolution to the labour dispute in the Saanich schools.
I hear with crystal clarity how the disruption is deeply impacting families in my riding. Families of students, families of teachers and families of support staff.
I have also heard the stories of the exasperated parents called to pick up their children because of the shortage of educational assistants, the school cannot get help to our children who need it. And the exhausting stories of the teachers and administrators who cannot conjure solutions to staffing shortage any longer. The consistent message I hear is that everyday in our district, teachers and administrators are triaging crisis.
I guess I could choose to brush all of this aside, we are in the middle of contract negotiations so of course the “system is broken.” Some might even say the education system is perpetually complaining about this, and no matter how much money we spend, it’ll never be enough.
Except I can’t brush it aside. The people that make up the system, are my friends, my family, my peers, my neighbours. They are my educators and trusted advisors. Their respected opinions have long influenced me. They are the people that I just met who speak to me with sincerity, people with their focus far away from the negotiating table and solely on the health, well being and future of our children and grand-children.
Chronically underfunding public education
What the picket lines in front of Saanich schools represent, and the gridlocked negotiations, is a system in chaos due to chronic under funding.
It begs the question of the provincial government: what is the vision for education? Is it to just barely maintain the status quo that everyone has been so critical of for the past decade and a half? Is government prepared to make the investments in public education that the system so desperately needs, or are they just going to shuffle the pieces around a little?
In the last provincial election I was proud of the BC Greens education platform. I don’t think anyone believed that education was a priority for the “single-issue environmental party.” We committed to investing billions of dollars of new funding over and above the court rulings to support our children and educators.
At the heart of our vision is the understanding that a quality public education system lifts the entire society. It is more than the long term investment that folks believe it to be. It’s a short and medium term investment as well. This is exactly the point that I hear repeated every day as I’m connecting with educators. The under-funded system that our provincial government is trying to band-aid and duct tape through this round of bargaining is having a negative drain on our society.
We have heard the same rhetoric from both the BC Liberals and BC NDP. They both consistently trumpet that our economy is strong, indeed the strongest in the whole country. So when is it time to invest in public education if it is not when our economy is strong?
Resetting priorities
Education should support people, the system should provide a safe place to nurture inspired creativity, and a space for thriving innovation.
Public education needs to be a much higher priority than bad public policy costing us billions like bridge-toll politics in swing ridings and fossil fuel subsidies in the midst of a climate crisis.
Families cannot afford the disruption and our children deserve a high quality public education. It’s not happening in Saanich as our schools are locked behind picket lines.
The system is in crisis but it is not broken. It’s held up by visionary educators working side by side with support staff who sacrifice daily to make sure that our young people have every chance to carve out a beautiful future. How long can we expect our educators to continue when their government doesn’t appear to value their work? While our children are rallying to demand their leaders take climate action seriously, it’s time their leaders show them how much we believe in them. It’s time we show them what we are prepared to do to make sure that we give them every chance of success.
It’s time to elevate the education of our children, and in a broader sense embrace comprehensive and socially integrated approaches to life-long learning, to ensure the resources are available to people when they need it to improve and upgrade their knowledge and skills training. An investment today improves the outcomes today.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Well stated Adam. Thank you.
the problem is deeper as it is not an education system that is needed but a “connection” delivery system . connection to nature as the foundation so connection to self can be whole and connection to community possible.
connection modeling is delivered very differently than education modeling but bring education on its wake as well than fitness and health.
we have been working for the last 15 years demonstrating this way of supporting the development of children on saltspring. wisdomoftheearth.ca
I admire this perspective. Thank you. So, what is the solution? What does elevating the system look like? Are there other models out there that you are inspired by and would like to bring to BC?
A band aid approach to Education does not work.
Well said, Adam. But your thoughts are not those of the average person in the electorate. The average voter is quite satisfied with a quality of education that they received when going to school. That education has been maintained by the sputterings of strikes which seem to work eventually because the educational war always produces a loser. As does everything arising out of our present political system. Until we choose to accept some form of PR we’ll never learn to cooperate on long term solutions.
All of this so true Adam. Sorry to read your family, neighbours and those in Central Saanich SD are in midst of the school labour issue. Re: provincial priorities — what a great question you pose: “It begs the question of the provincial government: what is the vision for education?”
Something else–choices of how education funds are apportioned by government. Part of my thoughts on this are in Tweet I sent out last week :
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute…where no church school is granted any public funds or political preference” – John F.Kennedy, 1960. Hey @Rob_Fleming, @jjhorgan agree for BC? Time to cutback public funding to religious + private schools BC?”