The BC Teachers Federation has new ads out, which make you wonder if they are planning to escalate their current job action to include an actual strike.
Of course, the ads recycle old adages without providing any context.
They claim there are 12,000 overcrowded classrooms in BC, without any definition of what overcrowding means. Why is a class of 30 senior students overcrowded? I could be convinced that the early grade classrooms need to be kept small with focused attention, but in the years that lead students up to entering college, university and the workforce, the classes should get bigger if anything. How is a coddled student getting hand-holded in a class of 22 students supposed to be prepared for life in a lecture hall of 400 or an office of 50?
They claim there are 700 fewer special needs teachers today than there were a decade ago. But how many fewer special needs students are there? Regular enrollment is down 60,000 over that same time period, so does it not hold that there may be fewer special needs students as well?
They finally claim that BC teachers are second-to-last in compensation in the country. While I have no idea if this is an accurate claim or not, it strikes me as irrelevant that Ontario is paying its teachers more while the province goes broke. Salary should be determined based on what the employer HERE can pay and what the teachers HERE should earn.
Of course, the ads recycle old adages without providing any context.
They claim there are 12,000 overcrowded classrooms in BC, without any definition of what overcrowding means. Why is a class of 30 senior students overcrowded? I could be convinced that the early grade classrooms need to be kept small with focused attention, but in the years that lead students up to entering college, university and the workforce, the classes should get bigger if anything. How is a coddled student getting hand-holded in a class of 22 students supposed to be prepared for life in a lecture hall of 400 or an office of 50?
They claim there are 700 fewer special needs teachers today than there were a decade ago. But how many fewer special needs students are there? Regular enrollment is down 60,000 over that same time period, so does it not hold that there may be fewer special needs students as well?
They finally claim that BC teachers are second-to-last in compensation in the country. While I have no idea if this is an accurate claim or not, it strikes me as irrelevant that Ontario is paying its teachers more while the province goes broke. Salary should be determined based on what the employer HERE can pay and what the teachers HERE should earn.
1 comment:
The number of students with the highest special needs has increased, with those in the autism spectrum doubling in the past five years. The number of students with special needs that require support, but not as severe, has not decreased, even though the number officially identified has decreased.
Excluding the Gifted program, special education student enrolment actually increased by 1,010 students between 2005–06 and 2009–10.
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