What's With all the Rhetoric?

As we're now hearing rumblings of yet another school strike in British Columbia - the second one in three months (and the fifth one in 13 years here in BCEd), the usual rhetoric is making the airwaves about how underfunding is hurting kids, and how teachers aren't able to effectively do their job.  And perhaps it requires a mention that the underfunding narrative continues to plague every single conversation regarding education, even though there's no hint of accountability behind poor spending practices. And yet, we are encouraged to support tactics which suggest we should blindly hand over even more funding, or we may face having our kids being taken hostage by them. Again. 

"Underfunding" is a lazy phrase which has no hint of truth when it comes to education in British Columbia. StatsCan indicates an increase of 12% since 2015, even though there is no accountability for how it's being spent.

Perhaps it's going to Superintendent salaries instead of Educational Assistants. Maybe there's more money used for useless professional development workshops than a decade ago...and what about all that money added for hiring teachers to satisfy the Supreme Court decision on class size...all the while cutting popular programming at local schools!  It's hard to know, considering every time I've asked someone for proof of a School District audit, or a review of the Principal Fund at their school, all I get is a blank stare in response.  And here's a really unpopular truth:  increased funding doesn't support better educational outcomes.  Yet this reality is never acknowledged, as the lobbying efforts to increase budgets only lead to more wasteful spending, and takes away from the little educational time our students have during classroom time.

Another misnomer flying around, is how academic excellence continues to remain a priority in this province and we should be very proud of the excellent results that this "world class" system has created, even though there remains zero evidence to support this claim.

As a longtime parent advocate in this province, I have to admit that my frustration has now turned to amusement, as not one observer - whether it be a policy wonk or a journalist - has bothered to peek beyond the headlines to actually report on what our latest PISA results are. There's zero understanding about the impact the declining results are having on our students.  The report itself states that the trends and comparison of the data, are what is to be examined...not the mere reporting of where we currently sit in the order of world rankings. And even there, we have slipped downwards from our perch in previous years. 

We have more cash in than ever before, yet little to show for it.  In fact, our students performed much better when there was less cash in the budget.   Our math initiative examines provincial, national and international data. Dr. Stokke wrote an excellent commentary about improving math education in Canada.  This area, in particular, has seen a devastating decline over the past 20 years as an influx of poor instruction in the form of student centred, inquiry based methods have taken over our children's classrooms.  While our teacher unions lobby against any form of standardized measurement, whether it be our Foundational Skills Assessment, or PISA (the Programme of International Student Assessment), what is clearly evident, is that today's students are now floundering, where they once soared above their competitors.  Recent PISA results published in December 2018 indicates that British Columbia is now below the Canadian average in all three subject areas:  Reading, Science and Mathematics.  Reading used to be where British Columbia led almost all other nations worldwide. Not anymore.  Science and Mathematics are now showing statistically significant declines also...in only three years.  Math, in particular, has declined a whopping 34 points since 2003, which, according to OECD data, is the equivalent of almost one full year of instruction.  The implications of these results are devastating. What this means, is that today's students, are almost one full year behind, where students were almost 16 years ago.  Furthermore,  we have more students performing at a sub par level (Level 2 or lower), and fewer kids performing at the high level (Level 5 or higher).  Instead of examining these facts, we've heard nothing about this in ANY media outlet or Ministry press release. In fact, the only mention of  PISA's 2018 results, is how WELL British Columbia students are doing.  A quick glance through the years shows this is not the case.  In Mathematics, we have jumped from 5th place in 2003, to 12th in 2012, and we're now in 20th spot overall in 2018.  Reading and Science levels have declined as well, despite record levels of spending, a sparkling new curriculum which cost millions and involved input from BCTF committees, lots more teachers on the payroll, and gleaming new schools.

So what's going on? 

Despite all the grandiose chatter about 21st century skills, and critical thinking, our education leaders and politicians would prefer that the general public and our education partners, rely on clickbait headlines and rhetoric.  Other factors continue to be ignored as well.  Tutoring, for example, is on the rise. And it has been for years. Despite repeated attempts at lobbying our Ministry and other government agencies to track the tutoring phenomenon, we've been ignored and can only rely on anecdotal data. It's not pretty. We're seeing about one in three children are usually enrolled in tutoring centres by the time they're nine years old. That's Grade Three folks. Another factor that cannot be ignored, is how British Columbia has the highest enrollment in independent and private schools in the country. Which, conversely, means that British Columbia has the lowest percentage of students enrolled in public schools, according to StatsCan.  Parents are responding to this nonsense by withdrawing their children, in droves, and heading for alternatives. They will not be stopped, or have their children's futures compromised by the finger pointing, and stomping of feet of our education leaders, who continue to hold our children captive, through no fault of their own. 

As the BCTF is now increasing its advertising campaign in its bid to drum up the usual rhetoric that's so abhorrent in this province, once again, I would encourage any and all, to get informed about the real issues about education in this province.  Our advocacy has heard from thousands of parents, and teachers, across British Columbia and beyond. The overwhelming message we're hearing, is that the number one priority is to stick to the 3 R's and educate our youth.  Currently in British Columbia, this priority has been hijacked by special interests and has been cast aside, whereby the equity gap in public education continues to increase, which will only lead to continued decline in enrollment and even less funding for our ed partners to fight over. 

Our family has now been affected by teacher and school strikes in this province for over two generations, and all it's done, is leave a bitter taste for the public system in its wake. As my youngest is now halfway through her Grade 12 year, every single parent I have heard from, has indicated that had they known, they would never have gone through the public system, given the antics, and nonsense they have experienced over their child's educational career.  That despite some of the teachers, and Administrators who tried to help them, the frustration and indoctrination along the way, simply wasn't worth it.

If you truly want to help our kids, fix this mess. Stop abandoning them. Effective classroom instruction, strong curricula guidelines and excellent resources have all been sacrificed in the name of Progressive education in this province. Perhaps examine what truly creates effective schools and focus on improving that, rather than trotting out the usual, predictable rhetoric.