Public education needs greater support from province, groups say
Vancouver Observer
Noel Herron
Oct 29th, 2010

Two public pleas underline the growing demand for a halt to provincial underfunding of our K-12 public education system. They are: a recent letter to the The Vancouver Sun from Eric Yung, President of the Richmond District Parent Association, calling on the government to “immediately increase funding for K-12 public education”, and a call from what has been termed a “unique alliance” of business, political and education leaders in the Surrey school district, to build desperately-needed schools for a dramatically growing population. Surrey is a district with over 230 portable classrooms, making it the portable capital of Canada; the district has received no capital construction money since 2005.

Repeating, as his predecessor Margaret MacDiarmid has done, the BC Liberals’ mantra about the adequacy of the “highest ever" per-student grant won’t do our newly-appointed education minister George Abbott much good. And it certainly won’t quell the growing clamour for added support in a system that has seen virtually every one of the province’s 59 boards in financial difficulty this past year.

While George Abbott now undertakes the fence-mending task of improving relations with education stakeholders across the province, Victoria's emerging storm around the persistent underfunding of schools simply won’t go away. No amount of spin-doctoring and public relations initiatives, such as the Premier’s early childhood announcement during his recent province-wide television address, will disguise the stresses and cracks in our K-12 system that up until now was regarded as one of the finest public school systems in Canada.

Premier Campbell will find the gathering storm arriving on his West 4th Avenue constituency office doorstep on November 12th at noon hour when the newly-formed APPLE BC , a coalition of  parents and partners lobbying for increased funding for their schools, protests there.

This new alliance has three beefs with the ongoing impact of provincial underfunding:

1. School Closures 

At present, 191 schools have been closed, with 25 more threatened since 2001. By the end of the current school year, this number will exceed 200. George Abbott could show leadership by declaring a two-year moratorium on closures, while a broad review of the educational and community impacts is undertaken at the provincial level.

2. Teacher Layoffs Affecting Vulnerable Students

Up to 3,000 teachers have been laid off since 2001, including hundreds in specialty areas such as special needs, ESL, learning assistance, aboriginal education, and skill development. This has a devastating impact on these students. BC was recently handed a failing grade by the Centre for ADHD Advocacy Canada, a new national advocacy organization, for restricted student status and low access to support for students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

3. Parent Fundraising

There has been a dramatic increase in parent fundraising over the past decade, with parent advisory committees forced to compensate for cutbacks to programs and services. Parents now fundraise for school supplies, resources, and playgrounds. Fees levied by schools have sharply increased, with community organizations scrambling to take up the slack.

All of this is happening in a province that has money for roads, overpasses, bridges, sky trains, arenas (including a half-billion-dollar Teflon roof for one arena), and a downtown convention centre with massive cost overruns.  Add to this our Premier’s command-performance press conference at the site of Dam C in the far north last April, at the cost of over $350,000.

Our priorities are clearly out of whack in BC.

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