Olympic budget … to all-day Kingergarten
Teacher Newsmagazine
Volume 21, Number 5, March 2009
By Noel Herron, a former teacher and Vancouver school trustee.

If anyone doubts the imminent demise of the emergence of a province-wide all-day Kindergarten program in BC in the near future, think again.

The emergence of an apparently insatiable Olympic appetite for taxpayer money coupled with the recent release of several bogus Olympic budgets, points to not just a postponement, but the demise of key education initiatives, among them universal all-day Kindergarten.

To think otherwise flies in the face of reality.

It’s not just the rushed January convening of a special session of the provincial legislature in Victoria to bail out the billion dollar Olympic Village boondoggle, but the upcoming gathering storm around the hidden Olympic security budget that could also top a million, eliminating any pretence of the availability of sufficient provincial funds in Victoria for essential early childhood programs.

Ironically, the Vancouver Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee have excluded the highly regarded humanitarian organization Right to Play from operating from the Vancouver Olympic Village site as it did in previous Olympics.

Right to Play uses sports and play programs to improve health, develop life skills, and foster peace for children and communities in some of the world’s most disadvantaged countries.

On top of the Olympic Village’s potentially heavy debt, this further tarnishes the iconic status of this controversial site.

However, it was the late January front-page analysis by The Vancouver Sun, pegging the overall Olympic debt at a massive $6 billion (and counting), that puts paid to any remaining hope for the implementation of universal all-day Kindergarten in all of BC’s 59 school districts in the near future.

Shamefully, it has now emerged that both Canadian and BC taxpayers have been either hoodwinked or lied to—in this case, both—by politicians at all levels (municipal, provincial, and federal) in the lead up to next year’s ballyhooed Olympic sports extravaganza.

For the past three years, provincial politicians have shamelessly promised action on the early childhood file. There has been no let up on the hype and spin from the Ministry of Education on this topic.

Yes, parents were told we are going to have great early childhood programs in BC, and make no mistake about it, they will be some of the best in Canada. The provincial government pleaded that it needed a little more time to ”get it right,” and then, as our education minister boasted, “We are going to lead the way.”

The BC Liberals’ 2007 Speech from the Throne belatedly conceded that “currently approximately 25% of children (in BC) are not ready to learn when they enter Kindergarten.”

Vague and over-the-top promises followed this speech, such as Shirley Bond’s assertion that by the year 2012, BC will have, (get this),”pre-Kindergarten classes for three-year-olds” when at the same time the prospects for all-day Kindergarten for five-year-olds, as the minister well knew, were rapidly disappearing over BC’s financial horizon.

However, that did not prevent Bond from claiming that currently, “BC leads the country in early childhood education” when in reality, according to most analysts, BC is close to being dead last.

Even more outrageous, after five years of leading Canada in child poverty stats, Premier Campbell, with a straight face, in an end-of-year television interview stated that children still remained his top priority. Opposition critics lost no time in deriding the premier for his once-a-month-priority-proclivity on this and other topics.

Victoria, over the past few years, has not only created, but carefully cultivated enormous and patently false, expectations in the early childhood arena. The media messaging on this was as unrelentless as it was bogus.

Many parents of preschoolers were looking forward to all-day programs for their five-year-olds next September only to realize that they have now been left with empty promises and dashed expectations.

But as provincial budget time approached in February with the chance of very little funds, or no funds, available in Victoria’s coffers, Shirley Bond in mid-November started warning parents that all-day Kindergarten would not start soon.

Pleading that the provincial plan requires additional in-depth study before it reaches the approval stage, it is clear that the provincial Early Childhood Agency’s province-wide “consultation” plan was yet another stalling tactic to disguise the lack of meaningful action by the BC Liberals. (To put the minister’s weak plea in perspective, the Vancouver Board of Education has run all-day Kindergarten classes for over two decades in many of its schools.)

With over 3,000 responses being submitted to the Early Childhood Agency, the report, long past its due date is, being viewed, according to some critics, as a provincial participation put-on similar to the now famous Liberals’ “dialogue” on health two years ago.

The Early Childhood Agency’s official report, slated to be released in mid-December, appears to have been delayed indefinitely—no doubt in a belated attempt to give some heft to the Liberal’s May election platform on early education. (Look for a plethora of early childhood promises in this document.)

The studied absence by the provincial Liberals from the January First Call Coalition Child and Youth Issues Forum (a provincial advocacy organization representing over 80 affiliated groups) when the other two provincial parties, Green and NDP were present, speaks volumes about the government’s unwillingness to discuss its early childhood agenda. (See First Call’s position on early childhood programs.)

As the situation now stands, thousands of needy preschoolers will continue to be left behind as Victoria’s current restrictive and discriminatory entrance requirements for all-day Kindergarten hold sway.

Increasingly, these children will fall behind their peers as they move from primary into intermediate grades and consequently they will be denied access to the educational opportunities they deserve.

All-day Kindergarten would, based on research and practice, usher in a new era and a genuine strong start for between 7,000 to 10,000 five-year-olds annually. Each year that slips by without province-wide implementation means that thousands of these kids will continue to fall behind.

Who are these children? In a sense, they represent the “forgotten” early childhood kids who struggle for the first three or four years of their elementary schooling. They are a diverse group: children of the working poor; inner-city kids; minority-language students; children who for many reasons do not receive the rich preliteracy experience with the hands-on interactions that all children relish; and the so-called “grey area” students who do not fall into specific provincial categories that would enable them to receive the early intervention boost they need.

Where does all of this leave us on the eve of a provincial election?

What we have seen over the past three years is a dubious collage of early childhood images—photo-ops for various provincial ministers making announcements, title changes for school boards, book handouts for preschool parents, and misnamed and misleading drop-in programs, masquerading as Head Start programs for a smattering of preschoolers across the province. (Incidentally, the Obama administration, as part of its new long-term stimulus package, plans to add $1 to $2 billion to its highly successfull nationwide Head Start Program.) All of these elements have one thing in common—superficiality—as the BC Liberals craft a political image for preschool years that fails to match their actions.

We will let our credibility challenged education minister, Shirley Bond, have the last word: “We remain committed to an aggressive early learning agenda in this province,” the minister has flatly stated when asked about the repeated delays and foot dragging in delivering solid early childhood initiatives.

If you believe that statement, I have a bridge to sell you.

First Call’s position on all-day/early Kindergarten programs

First Call feels that expanded Kindergarten has the potential to serve children and families well if it is properly implemented.

Proper implementation would include:

• inclusive and play-based programming.
• staff who are trained in early childhood care and education.
• ability to meet the needs of working families.
• universal access.
• inclusion of parents as knowledgeable partners in relation to service providers.
• maintenance of current childcare licensing ratio and space requirements in any school-based programs for younger children.