Carole James has finally come out with a position on education: let unions go on strike at schools (source: Carole James speech to BC School Trustees, 1 Apr 2005).
Carole James says education is not an essential service. The NDP wants to turn back the clock to when students and their parents could be held hostage to labour disputes at schools at a moment’s notice and at any time of the year.
Carole James and the NDP's education policy says nothing about parents, student achievement, school safety, removing junk food from schools, or many other key education issues.
The NDP Record
- 4-million student days lost to labour disputes.
- A one-size-fits-all class size policy that split up siblings. The NDP’s rigid made-in-Victoria policy led to absurd situations where schools could not add one single student to a class that had reached its limit – even if that meant the student was forced to bus across town.
- 170 elementary schools turned away 750 children from within their catchment areas in 1999. (Source: BC Principals & Vice-Principals Association)
- An additional 276 elementary schools admitted that they had been forced to re-organize their schools after the start of the school year to accommodate rigid class size limits, adding further disruption for students.
- Under the NDP, there was a ban on parent volunteers in schools.
- For all their talk, the NDP actually short-changed the education system. According to who? Carole James.
- Quote: “Simply put, there is not enough funding available from the [NDP] provincial government to maintain the current choices of educational programs, classroom services and support services for the existing student population in schools.” – Carole James, Victoria School Board Chair (source: Victoria Times-Colonist, 24 Sept 1999)
What the BC Liberal Government Has Done
- Highest K-12 education funding in history – $881 more per student since 2001.
- Made education an essential service under the Labour Code so that labour action would not disrupt the education of our kids. We believe in the right to strike, but we also believe in the right to an education.
- Class size limits in legislation instead of a union collective agreement.
- Individual primary classes cannot exceed 22 students for Kindergarten and 24 students in a Grade 1-3 class. District-wide class size averages must be no more than 19 students in kindergarten, 21 students in Grades 1-3, and 30 students in Grades 4-12.
- Average elementary class sizes have remained virtually unchanged for the past decade. The average elementary class size in BC has increased by only 0.6 student since 2000/01 and in fact there are fewer students on average per class in 2004/05 than there were in 1995/96.
- Created School Planning Councils to bring parents into decision-making, and guaranteed the right of parents to volunteer in their children's school. Doubled grants to Parent Advisory Councils this year to over $22 million.
- $1.5 billion plan to complete all required seismic upgrading of BC’s public schools, and promotion of healthy and active living through programs like ActionSchools! and our commitment to ban junk food in schools.
The Results
- Achievement in our schools continues to improve. Highest high school completion rate ever – 79% in 03/04 vs. 76% in 00/01).
- Best overall marks ever in reading, writing and numeracy.
- BC students continue to be ranked among the best in the world in math, reading, and science.
- In 2003, BC students won the most provincial scholarships ever (more than 5,000).
- By 2007/08, the Province will have invested more than $2.2 billion in school capital and maintenance projects across British Columbia, having built or approved 34 new schools and 278 replacements, additions, renovations or seismic upgrades.
