Don't mourn, organize: lessons from the BC election

Based on the past twelve years, another four under the BC Liberals does not bode well for public education. But that all depends.

There is no question that the BC Liberal record has been dismal. Underfunding, privatization, larger classes, fewer services, contract stripping, school business companies, standardized tests, the list goes on.

But there are more factors at play than simply who governs. There is also the response and political pressure by the governed. An equally big problem of the last two decades has been the failure of citizens to speak up and act up to protect social services.

My greatest disappointment about this election was not the outcome, but the fact that not a single party stood up and spoke out for a radical re-evaluation of the massive inequity in our society. No political party really spoke to the need to tax the wealthy and to reinvest that money in services that benefit everyone, collectively. Like every election in my adult memory (back to the Vander Zalm days of the eighties), the debate was between a neo-liberal party of the right, and an NDP trying to be a Blairite party of the centre who speaks left to a left audience, right to a right audience, and promises nothing to anyone for fear someone might not like it.

What was the NDP platform on education? Just like everything else - we will undo just a small portion of the damage the Liberals did. That equated to putting $100 million back into a system that has had $500 million taken out and refusing to reinstate class sizes, and preserving all funding for private schools. It reminded me of the picket sign I most hated in the early days of Liberal attacks on social services that read: "These cuts are too deep". No. There should be no cuts. A fair and equitable society depends on redistribution of wealth and the provision of universal health care and public education.

Significant cuts to public education began in the 1990's under the NDP, and partly in reaction to the substantive roll backs from the federal Liberal government of transfer payments to the provinces. In my district, Greater Victoria, the School District lost 370 full time equivalent positions between 1991 and 2009. 245 of these - two thirds - were lost between 1991 and 2001.

Interestingly, in that twenty year period, staffing increased in only four years: 1993, immediately after Victoria teachers went on strike for class size provisions, 1995, another bargaining year, and 2005 and 2006, the years just after the BCTF went on strike illegally for two weeks over class size and composition.

The lesson? We get what we fight for, no matter what government is in power.

I am not disappointed this week. I am hopeful that those wanting genuine change will give some serious thought to reevaluating strategies that put all hope into electing a supposedly, but not actually, labour and social movement friendly government. Instead, we need to be building networks of activists on the ground and in our communities.

In particular:

* "Revitalizing" the NDP is not the answer. If 2005, 2009 and 2013 haven't convinced you of this, try reading Judy Rebick's insightful analysis of the impossible task: http://transformingpower.ca/en/blog/party-over-whats-hope-ndp

* Labour needs to return to its roots. That means money into strike funds, not election funds. That means taking strike action, not canvassing. That means fighting for gains that help everyone, not just ourselves. That means rejecting two-tier, divide and conquor contracts that sell out our youngest and newest members.

* Labour and social movements need to work together on the ground, not in election campaigns. We need more events like the "Battle in Seattle" - when NGO's and organized labour worked together to fight the World Trade Organization and the inequality promoted by trade deals and the World Bank. Working on the ground, together, in our communities is what is needed to influence an electorate not yet convinced of the myriad reasons why life will be better for the 99% only if we take back the wealth from the 1%, save our planet, and meet every human being's basic needs. Nothing educates better than mass movements.

We don't have time for another 12 years and another 3 failed electoral attempts by a not-so-social democratic party. As always, the words of tradition serve us well: Don't mourn, organize.

Education and the provincial election

If you live in BC, you know the writ has been dropped, and the parties are finally releasing their platforms, including my favourite topic - education.

I was happy to see a recent report on CBC's Vote Compass in which education is cited as the second most important topic to BC voters who have taken the Vote Compass survey. It came second only to healthcare, and also in the top section was 'social programs'. I believe the discussion about inequality in our society is inextricably linked to the social programs we provide through collective taxation. These ensure minimum levels of services to all citizens and in the case of healthcare, ensure that quality care is not determined by one's income. Sadly, in education, this is not the case - money can still buy you a better, private school experience.

Only one party has included the issue of private schooling in their platform - the Greens. Their platform reads:

Phasing private independent and alternative schools and programs into the public school system, without affecting the autonomy and objectives of these schools, should increase the diversity of the school system.

I'm not clear what is meant by "without affecting the autonomy and objectives". One aspect of public schooling is public oversight into the content of public schools. A publicly funded free for all might well equate to a voucher system or the charter system prevalent in the US. This would be publicly funded, privately managed schooling and is a terrible idea. On the other hand, if this statement means doing what Finland did (http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/), by eliminating private schools through incorporation into the public system, then it is the right direction.

Sadly, the NDP has stated they will not even touch the issue of public funding of private schools, meaning they will continue to support 50% funding for private institutions teaching the BC curriculum. This drains valuable dollars from the public system and provides an unnecessary and unfair public subsidy to those wealthy enough to afford private school tuition.

On the issue of funding, only the NDP appears to have made any concrete commitments to increased funding in K-12. They have stated they will add $100 million to the education budget. Unfortunately, this number is far, far short of what is required.

Just to reverse the illegal removal of class size and class composition limits enacted by the Liberals through Bill 28 would require $300 million. But on top of that we need the province to make up all the funding shortfalls passed on to school boards over the last decade: MSP premium costs, pension costs, carbon offset payments to the Pacific Carbon Trust (http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/04/23/School-districts-facing-nearly-63m-in-new-costs/). And after two years of zero wage increases for every employee in the public schools system, it is time to recognize and value the work and provide at a minimum wage increases that reflect the increase to the cost of living. Adding these factors, a reasonable estimate just to return us to the school system we had in 2001 would mean more like $500 million.

Interestingly, the $100 million figure put out by the NDP is well below what they were committing to some years back. In 2005, they were stating that they would increase public school funding by $178 million (http://gvta.net/images/Newsletter/may2005paperb&w1.pdf). Since then, we've seen Board after Board of Trustees write about the funding shortfalls and the impact this has had on delivery of programs and services to students. Why only half that amount now, eight years later?

The Liberals have made only a single commitment that I am aware of - a tax credit for teachers who coach. Teachers have long argued that there should be tax deductions for the large amounts money that teachers put into their classrooms to purchase materials. But to single out just one extra curricular activity for a tax break would be unfair.

Sadly, no party appears to be taking the chronic under-funding issues seriously. We can see what this leads to by looking at some new data from the Toronto schools, where increases in home tutoring are skyrocketing, particularly among the affluent (http://globalnews.ca/news/492413/private-tutoring-rising-sharply-in-toronto-map-shows-strong-link-to-income/). When the public system cannot afford to provide a quality education to every student, those who can afford it, subsidize the system. This leads to increasing private education services and to increased inequity between the children attending schools. If any party was genuinely interested in addressing inequality in society - perhaps the single most important political issue today - they would rethink their commitment to public education.