Dear Editor:
The current impasse between B.C.’s public school teachers and the provincial government reminds me a lot of my experiences during the 1990s and early 2000s advocating on behalf of adults with severe mental illnesses: two outwardly appearing-to-be-rational parties taking what are plainly out-of-touch bargaining positions – made worse by both sides not basing their objectives on neutrally established service-delivery criteria.
The root defect in the contract negotiation procedures between the B.C. teachers and the B.C. government is that in British Columbia there aren’t any impartially established, set-in-law education standards that this province’s teachers and their de facto employer, the B.C. government, would be required to use as a basis during bargaining.
So what is needed?
The establishment of an impartial, permanent “provincial public education standards authority” whose terms of reference would include setting mandatory education standards that every K-12 public school in B.C. would have to adhere to.
Education standards would include: maximum numbers of pupils per class; maximum numbers of special needs students per class; minimum numbers of classroom assistants per class; hours of preparatory work teachers are paid for; etc.
In order to insulate a standards authority from improper and/or counterproductive political (or other) interference, such a body would best be established under the impartial aegis of B.C.’s lieutenant-governor, perhaps by way of a Royal Charter or writ – with membership appointed by the lieutenant-governor, based on consultation with stakeholders, for no less than seven-year terms.
If provincewide public school education standards were established by a standards authority, such standards should be formally evaluated and, if necessary, updated on a bi-annual (or tri-annual) basis by way of a transparent and inclusive consultative process that would enable the involvement of representatives of all major stakeholders such as teachers, the government and parents, while ensuring that interested taxpayers have avenues for input as well.
After an education standards authority was set up and provincewide education standards established, B.C.’s auditor general (or a similar public funding expenditure watchdog) should be tasked with projecting the costs to B.C.’s annual budget for delivering K-12 education – based upon the standards – while factoring in potential salary levels for teachers and other provincial school districts’ employees.
Then, in the future, both sides would know from the start what the costs for delivering education are, and negotiations could focus not only on how much money the government of the day can be “forced” to cough up, but also how much, and where, B.C.’s teachers are prepared to give – and make compromises – in order to ensure that the provincial public education standards authority can be implemented.
Roderick V. Louis, White Rock
