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Oct. 13th, 2005 09:15 amlink via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spellboy
Our teachers have been on strike for a week. Now the BCTF could be getting sued for $25 million a day.
This province is a mess right now, and this is just one more thing. I’m a firm supporter of teachers, and I’m a firm supporter of fair wages and working conditions for teachers, I also am a supporter of labour organizations in certain select circumstances, and this happens to be one. However, despite the fact that I home school, I believe that every child is entiled to receive a sound public education. This strike is considered illegal because education was declared an essential service, and the government took away the teachers’ right to strike. The reason for the strike is that teachers are allegedly asking for two things - smaller class sizes, and bigger pay cheques.
My mother is a teacher in a small Northern town. She has children in her classroom that have a whole host of behavioural and learning issues, and she had to fight tooth and nail to get even a part time assistant. It doesn’t help matters that she has a reputation for being able to manage behaviour problems, and being able to get the majority of kids up to grade level (she teaches grade four), even if they entered her classroom a full one or two or even three years behind their level. So guess what? She ends up with a higher concentration of children that need extra support. The better she does her job - the more challenges they heap on her plate (or so it seems to her). So, I am well aware of the challenges that teachers face. She also swallowed the pay cuts that all teachers in Alberta went through years ago when Ralph Klein became premier of the province.
But compared to the rest of the world, even compared with our good neighbours to the south, the U.S. Canadian teachers are treated extremely well. I read about what teachers in some U.S. schools face, and I seriously tip my hat to them - as should Canadian teachers. Our teachers are fairly compensated, and they are treated well in their retirement (it is one of the few professions left in which there is such a thing as a defined benefits pension plan), and I think that’s a good thing.
My problem with this strike is that I wonder if the working conditions were to improve - i.e. either smaller classes or additional support staff to improve the ratios and thus working conditions, if the teachers would still be digging in their heels about the pay increase? I suspect they might, and that’s where I have issues with the strike.
They want better conditions? Fine. They want a pay increase? Well, I don’t know how much teachers make in BC, but I know how much Alberta teachers at the top of their pay scale make, and with two months off in the summer plus breaks during the year, let’s just say that they are IMO extremely well compensated. So, I’m indifferent on the pay increase, but what bugs me is that tax payers don’t have any leverage to demand certain things in return. There needs to be some kind of review system - maybe not yearly, but maybe every five years? How can we evaluate the performance of a teacher - I’m not sure how performance can be evaluated. I don't think performance can necessarily be quantified, and certainly not in any conventional ways like some kind of bogus testing, but there must be a way - or mechanism. I’d like to see some more competition for positions (yes, this raises a whole host of problems such as favoritism, popularity etc., I’m well aware), but it chafes me that there is no mechanism for weeding out (I’m giving the majority of teachers the benefit of the doubt here), the few teachers that have started to coast, and have really stopped caring. And further more, teachers in different areas face different challenges. Teachers in my high school had it easy. It was an academic high school, so there weren’t too many behaviour problems to speak of, and almost everyone wanted to be there - we were all keen to learn. Teachers at an inner city high school face a completely different set of challenges. Should there be a difference in compensation? What about innovation? There are teachers out there that are constantly raising the level of teaching and implementing new initiatives in the school. Should they be compensated differently that an colleague that just shows up and does the bare minimum? In private sector, they would be.
spellboyOur teachers have been on strike for a week. Now the BCTF could be getting sued for $25 million a day.
This province is a mess right now, and this is just one more thing. I’m a firm supporter of teachers, and I’m a firm supporter of fair wages and working conditions for teachers, I also am a supporter of labour organizations in certain select circumstances, and this happens to be one. However, despite the fact that I home school, I believe that every child is entiled to receive a sound public education. This strike is considered illegal because education was declared an essential service, and the government took away the teachers’ right to strike. The reason for the strike is that teachers are allegedly asking for two things - smaller class sizes, and bigger pay cheques.
My mother is a teacher in a small Northern town. She has children in her classroom that have a whole host of behavioural and learning issues, and she had to fight tooth and nail to get even a part time assistant. It doesn’t help matters that she has a reputation for being able to manage behaviour problems, and being able to get the majority of kids up to grade level (she teaches grade four), even if they entered her classroom a full one or two or even three years behind their level. So guess what? She ends up with a higher concentration of children that need extra support. The better she does her job - the more challenges they heap on her plate (or so it seems to her). So, I am well aware of the challenges that teachers face. She also swallowed the pay cuts that all teachers in Alberta went through years ago when Ralph Klein became premier of the province.
But compared to the rest of the world, even compared with our good neighbours to the south, the U.S. Canadian teachers are treated extremely well. I read about what teachers in some U.S. schools face, and I seriously tip my hat to them - as should Canadian teachers. Our teachers are fairly compensated, and they are treated well in their retirement (it is one of the few professions left in which there is such a thing as a defined benefits pension plan), and I think that’s a good thing.
My problem with this strike is that I wonder if the working conditions were to improve - i.e. either smaller classes or additional support staff to improve the ratios and thus working conditions, if the teachers would still be digging in their heels about the pay increase? I suspect they might, and that’s where I have issues with the strike.
They want better conditions? Fine. They want a pay increase? Well, I don’t know how much teachers make in BC, but I know how much Alberta teachers at the top of their pay scale make, and with two months off in the summer plus breaks during the year, let’s just say that they are IMO extremely well compensated. So, I’m indifferent on the pay increase, but what bugs me is that tax payers don’t have any leverage to demand certain things in return. There needs to be some kind of review system - maybe not yearly, but maybe every five years? How can we evaluate the performance of a teacher - I’m not sure how performance can be evaluated. I don't think performance can necessarily be quantified, and certainly not in any conventional ways like some kind of bogus testing, but there must be a way - or mechanism. I’d like to see some more competition for positions (yes, this raises a whole host of problems such as favoritism, popularity etc., I’m well aware), but it chafes me that there is no mechanism for weeding out (I’m giving the majority of teachers the benefit of the doubt here), the few teachers that have started to coast, and have really stopped caring. And further more, teachers in different areas face different challenges. Teachers in my high school had it easy. It was an academic high school, so there weren’t too many behaviour problems to speak of, and almost everyone wanted to be there - we were all keen to learn. Teachers at an inner city high school face a completely different set of challenges. Should there be a difference in compensation? What about innovation? There are teachers out there that are constantly raising the level of teaching and implementing new initiatives in the school. Should they be compensated differently that an colleague that just shows up and does the bare minimum? In private sector, they would be.
