More Fiddling While Rome Burns
Education is the cornerstone of society and serves as a litmus test to determine the health of our community. Sadly, despite being the second highest expenditure in the Province, education has once again escaped serious scrutiny in our upcoming election. Despite having the lowest percentage of public enrolment in Canada, correlating with a steep decline in student achievement, politicians once again are loathe to make any meaningful commitments to improving the fate of thousands of students once they graduate from high school. Which means the status quo will remain firmly intact, allowing special interest groups to once again take priority over society’s most important asset, our kids.
Without allowing for any accountability to occur in a meaningful way, The Province’s major partnership with the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) means that our classrooms are turning into ideological battlegrounds, rather than places of learning. Reading and mathematics achievement are deplorable. Learning Resources are even worse, given there isn’t any scrutiny before using them in schools. The equity gap amongst students continues to widen, as more and more parents are opting to send their kids to after-school tutoring centres to learn the basics, while those who cannot afford these centres, continue to watch while their kids fall through the cracks.
This scenario has been slowly building to a crescendo over the past 20 years, while our educational leaders continue to double down on learning methods that are harming our kids, and not allowing our teachers to do their job effectively.
Post secondary institutions and Industry leaders need to acknowledge what they are seeing post graduation and speak up. How much are they now spending just to bring their students, and young employees, up to speed in basic math and reading? It’s hard to write a critical essay when our education system no longer demands it in our curriculum. Ditto for arithmetic. How much is the Province now asking them to take on, while the K-12 system has failed in its mandate? Even worse, how is it possible that such deplorable student achievement has been allowed to continue without any public scrutiny or accountability?
This needs to stop.
Part of the problem is the lack of student data in this Province. By cancelling letter grades until Grade 10 and provincial exams at the high school level, both teachers and parents are flying blind in determining how much, or how little, our kids actually know. And what was left of the only remaining assessment, is now so poorly attended, that future results would no longer be tallied. From the report, “While writing these assessments is “mandatory” for graduation, fewer students are writing them, and BC’s graduation rate—96 percent—hasn’t plummeted.” Other data has revealed the decline in student achievement since provincial exams were eliminated in 2015
Meanwhile the BCTF continues its attack on the only remaining assessment left in the Province, even though 80% of parents in British Columbia support it. This might be an indication where the disconnect is felt most acutely: what our education leaders want, vs. what parents and regular teachers are asking for. While a growing number of our kids are graduating not knowing how to read or write, you can be assured valuable classroom time is being spent on learning about personal pronouns and learning reimagined history lessons. The classroom has become the new battleground for claiming our kids, and progressive policies are wreaking havoc on the minds of our youth, unchallenged by anyone outside of the classroom.
We also have equity consultants at the District level dictate that Honours Math and Science courses at high school be cancelled. When parents pushed back, they were accused of being racist. Inclusion now means that all kids must learn at the lowest level possible, and those wanting to better themselves, well they just don’t matter. Schools have been captured by ideological principles where very little, if any, meaningful instruction takes place.
If that wasn’t enough, we now have local teacher associations dictating to local schoolboards which candidates to elect in municipal elections, and are also behind reprehensible decisions made at the District level, which has even gone against provincial intervention. There has never been such wasteful spending of tax dollars than right now, while the system continues to dumb down our kids at an alarming rate.
What’s a parent to do? What can teachers do, when the very organizations meant to support their professional integrity has been hijacked by an organic predator who’s only objective is to feed off the financial resources of its membership? Any review of the initiatives that the BCTF seeks to fund clearly demonstrates they are not interested in the prosperity of students in this province.
So while politicians are out this month knocking on doors, and campaigning to secure your vote, remember our kids – the ones who aren’t able to vote. We are at a tipping point in this Province, and the future of the next generation hangs in the balance. With more people leaving British Columbia rather than entering it, hard choices need to be made. Industry leaders, post secondary institutions and the general public need to demand change. Today. Our current system needs to be scrapped, and start over. Our kids only get one chance at their education. The fight is worth it.
Comments
Post a Comment