How the BC Liberals are Privatizing Education

Lizanne Foster wrote a post in Facebook. I am posting it here because it needs to be read more widely. She made the following observations:

Despite all the cautionary tales about them from the U.S, we will soon see Charter schools in East Vancouver. They'll be attended by students who have won lotteries. They will be run by those corporations who have long been tantalized by $5 Trillion spent on the "education sector" worldwide. We'll be told that they provide parents with "choice".

The pathway to this inevitability is clear to see.There is no conspiracy.

1995 Milton Friedman, a neoliberal economist, suggests that schools should be privatized.

1998 The Fraser Institute begins its ranking of schools

2002 BC Liberals begin removing $336 million from education funding each year

2003 Minister of Education, Christy Clark, cancels class size and composition agreements. She also amends the School Act to remove government commitments to school buses. She cancels rules around catchment areas. (This is when the exodus from East Vancouver to West Vancouver schools began, fuelled by Fraser Institute School Rankings)

2003 BC Liberals pass legislation that makes it possible for school districts to be run like a business. Districts are encouraged to "sell" BC curriculum in China, Japan, Taiwan. A few still run schools there.

2005 - 2014 Teachers' strikes draw the public's attention to the defunding of schools, the learning conditions of students, especially those with special needs. The defunding continues.

2015 With all school districts in desperate need of funds despite having cut all "low hanging fruit", the BC Liberal government demands an extra $54Million from school districts.

2016 Government announces that they only really wanted $29million after all. Schools get to keep $25million.

Funding-by-photo-op fiscal policy results in a tiny fraction of school district needs being met.

School districts announce multiple school closures.

2017 Increase in the spin about the merits of High Tech High.

2020 High Tech High arrives in East Vancouver

The same pattern will unfold in other areas of the province. Charter schools are more likely to pop up in traditional NDP territory, with publicly-funded private schools will continue to exist in traditional BC Liberal areas.

Yesterday the Vancouver School Board (VSB) announced a list of schools in Vancouver that are on the chopping block. The closure of some 200 schools across BC since 2005 is due mostly to the declining education budget. The VSB will see the loss of elementary Band and Strings as well as many valuable programs. Education as a percentage of the provincial budget has dropped from 23% to 13% from 2002 to 2015.

This makes no sense as the Clark government has reported a surplus of $400 million. Why does the BC Liberal government continue to make cuts to public education with a surplus, while simultaneously increasing funding to private schools? This year alone the BC Liberals increased funding to private schools by $30 million from the previous $311 million, which is nearly a 10% increase. It was certainly not due to enrollment, which only increased by 1.3% last year. Public schools are reporting an increase in enrollment for the first time in 20 years. Why would the BC Liberals be hell bent on stripping even more funding from public schools?

What can you do about chronic underfunding of public schools? The non-partisan grassroots group of concerned parents Families Against Cuts to Education has created an email tool which will send a letter to Premier Clark, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Finance, your MLA, and the Opposition. Let the BC Liberals know that public education needs sustainable, adequate, and predictable funding.