Vancouver Kensington NDP MLA David Chudnovsky in the British Columbia provincial legislature on Monday, February 27th ..
Let’s turn to education, kindergarten-to-grade-12 education, because the people in our schools are children. We’re told by the Minister of Finance that it’s a children’s budget. So what’s in the budget for our public schools? The Premier and the minister are all over the media crowing about the increase in funding, but as usual with this government, it pays to look at the numbers a little bit more closely.
The increase in per-pupil funding that the government is projecting is 2.35 percent over the next three years. Inflation is expected to be 6.5 percent over the same period. Therefore, per-pupil funding in our public schools — that’s children — is to lag more than 4 percent behind inflation for the next three years. There’s a children’s budget for you. There is a commitment to children.
At the same time, funding for private schools is going to go up 10.7 percent. It’s not a big secret where this government is going, not a big secret what their priorities are, not a big secret what their agenda is for public schools and what their agenda is for private schools. The numbers tell the story.
You do have to wonder what’s going on in the corridors of power. Who’s running the ship? Is there anyone over there learning lessons from their own experiences?
Only a couple of months ago this government precipitated a completely unnecessary confrontation with teachers, parents and communities across this province. It was a confrontation precisely about the funding and resources available to public schools. It was about class size problems and class composition problems. Now, we know that after years of denying there was a problem, after years of pretending that the government’s massive cutbacks in services to children had a positive impact on schools and students, finally, last fall, the Premier and the Minister of Education admitted that yes, we do have a problem in our schools when it comes to class size and class composition.
You’d expect to see that realization, late as it was, reflected in the budget. You’d expect to see resources allocated in the budget to deal with the real challenges in our public schools, challenges the Premier and the Minister of Education have finally noticed. But no, there is no allocation for class size improvements and class composition improvements in the budget — not there. They didn’t make it into the children’s budget — no allocation in the budget for the results of the minister’s much ballyhooed round table.
You remember the round table, Madam Speaker. The minister told us that was going to be the solution for class size and composition: get everybody together around a table and abracadabra, the problems would be solved. But of course it takes resources to solve the problems of class size and composition in our schools: 9,000 classes with more than 30 students in them; 11,000 classes in the province with four or more identified students with special needs. You can’t solve those with a discussion, no matter how round the table is and no matter how many folks you invite in for a talk. It takes resources. It takes political will. You’d think it would be there in a children’s budget, but sadly, tragically, it’s not.
You’d think that in the throne speech we would have seen a commitment to class size limits and class composition guarantees in the School Act. That was what the students of this province were promised at the end of the government’s dispute with the teachers. The government created a two-week crisis in the schools, and to get out of it, they promised to guarantee services to students and that the guarantee would be enshrined in public policy. Now, as we know, that wasn’t the preference of the teachers. The teachers’ position and the teachers’ preference was to provide those guarantees in collective bargaining. But the teachers were willing to compromise, and in return for that compromise the government committed to guarantees for class size and class composition in legislation.
You’d think we would have heard about that legislation in the throne speech. You’d think this government, bruised and battered and isolated during the fall because of its disastrous education policies, would have tried to calm the waters by making good on its commitment to B.C.’s children. But no such legislation was announced, at least not yet. So we look forward in this session, in the season of the children’s budget, to the government getting around to keeping its commitment to the children of the province when it comes to class size and class composition.
Thanks to former COPE School Board trustee Noel Herron for passing Mr. Chudnovsky’s speech in the legislature along to VanRamblings’ readers.
