While the NDP probably can’t say too much against the Liberal’s plans to make British Columbia a more environmentally friendly province, they do have some concerns that other key concerns have been placed on the back burner.
High on the NDP list for attention is Education which MLA Gary Coons says was ignored for the most part in Carole Taylor’s budget yesterday. By Coons count, Ms. Taylor provided less than 70 words to the fate of public education in the province; a short shrift that Coons says is unacceptable.
Coons outlined his thoughts in a front page story in Wednesday’s Daily News.
BUDGET WAS ‘SLAP IN FACE’ FOR EDUCATION SAYS MLA
Gary Coons and the teachers’ union president angry at what budget ignored
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Pages one and two
Teachers and local politicians reacted with dismay to the British Columbia budget announced yesterday, saying they felt education was almost entirely ignored by government.
“The Campbell government budget neglects K-12 education, and our students deserve better from this government, said North Coast MLA Gary Coons from Victoria. “Three sentences in the whole budget speech, less than 70 words, were dedicated to public education. What a slap in the face to our most valuable resource. “
In Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s speech, she said the 2008 Budget was continuing the government’s “commitment to put students first when it comes to education funding,” and that the province would continue to increase dollars going into the public system in each of the next three years.
However, Coons says that such rhetoric fails to recognize past “cut and slash methods” of the government.
“In 2006-07, the per-pupil funding was $38 less than it had been in 2002, and $200 less than in 1990,” said Coons. “Although Minister Bond gets a 6.4 per cent increase to her office, K-12 education programs which include early learning, literacy, new requirements for carbon neutrality for school districts have been reduced by 3.4 per cent.”
Prince Rupert District Teacher’s Union President Joanna Larson was also appalled at what she saw as a complete absence of education issues in the budget.
She said that although the province committed to investing in StrongStart Early Learning Centres, which will be funded in an additional 116 centres in the coming year, she was hesitant to count it as really addressing public education.
“It’s for pre-school aged children and it’s just a drop-in program that’s essentially masquerading as a genuine head start,” said Larson.
“The Budget is hugely disappointing. We would expect a government that puts into legislation restrictions around class size and composition, to actually put some money to it so that legislation actually meant something. But they didn’t, and students in the province today are worse off today than they were in 2002 before that language was stripped out of our contract.”
Coons and Larson both say there are a number of things missing from the budget to help students in B. C. classrooms, in additional to extra funding for Boards of Education to meet the class size and composition figures set out in legislation.
“There’s no increase in funding for the low-incidence, high-needs students with less0seve, but still significant special needs,” said Coons. “The budget provides no money for the specialist teachers to support them, and nothing for students with English as a Second Language, who have restricted funding. I saw and still see that safety is a concern in many shops and labs, and again, there’s no funding to ensure the safety of students.”
Larson said that in times of such large provincial surplus, teachers would expect the government to make announcements that would fund the current unmet needs in classrooms today in areas such as special education service, that funding will be increased to keep up with maintaining the current level of services/
Unfortunately, she said, that hasn’t happened.
“There are still one-in-four children living in poverty in B. C., and there isn’t anything in here to help them out,” she said. “That’s the highest number of any province in Canada. They keep talking about the strong economy, and I see a lot of initiatives in the budget that put dollars back in corporate pockets, but nothing that really comes back to kids or families, and certainly not education.”
High on the NDP list for attention is Education which MLA Gary Coons says was ignored for the most part in Carole Taylor’s budget yesterday. By Coons count, Ms. Taylor provided less than 70 words to the fate of public education in the province; a short shrift that Coons says is unacceptable.
Coons outlined his thoughts in a front page story in Wednesday’s Daily News.
BUDGET WAS ‘SLAP IN FACE’ FOR EDUCATION SAYS MLA
Gary Coons and the teachers’ union president angry at what budget ignored
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Pages one and two
Teachers and local politicians reacted with dismay to the British Columbia budget announced yesterday, saying they felt education was almost entirely ignored by government.
“The Campbell government budget neglects K-12 education, and our students deserve better from this government, said North Coast MLA Gary Coons from Victoria. “Three sentences in the whole budget speech, less than 70 words, were dedicated to public education. What a slap in the face to our most valuable resource. “
In Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s speech, she said the 2008 Budget was continuing the government’s “commitment to put students first when it comes to education funding,” and that the province would continue to increase dollars going into the public system in each of the next three years.
However, Coons says that such rhetoric fails to recognize past “cut and slash methods” of the government.
“In 2006-07, the per-pupil funding was $38 less than it had been in 2002, and $200 less than in 1990,” said Coons. “Although Minister Bond gets a 6.4 per cent increase to her office, K-12 education programs which include early learning, literacy, new requirements for carbon neutrality for school districts have been reduced by 3.4 per cent.”
Prince Rupert District Teacher’s Union President Joanna Larson was also appalled at what she saw as a complete absence of education issues in the budget.
She said that although the province committed to investing in StrongStart Early Learning Centres, which will be funded in an additional 116 centres in the coming year, she was hesitant to count it as really addressing public education.
“It’s for pre-school aged children and it’s just a drop-in program that’s essentially masquerading as a genuine head start,” said Larson.
“The Budget is hugely disappointing. We would expect a government that puts into legislation restrictions around class size and composition, to actually put some money to it so that legislation actually meant something. But they didn’t, and students in the province today are worse off today than they were in 2002 before that language was stripped out of our contract.”
Coons and Larson both say there are a number of things missing from the budget to help students in B. C. classrooms, in additional to extra funding for Boards of Education to meet the class size and composition figures set out in legislation.
“There’s no increase in funding for the low-incidence, high-needs students with less0seve, but still significant special needs,” said Coons. “The budget provides no money for the specialist teachers to support them, and nothing for students with English as a Second Language, who have restricted funding. I saw and still see that safety is a concern in many shops and labs, and again, there’s no funding to ensure the safety of students.”
Larson said that in times of such large provincial surplus, teachers would expect the government to make announcements that would fund the current unmet needs in classrooms today in areas such as special education service, that funding will be increased to keep up with maintaining the current level of services/
Unfortunately, she said, that hasn’t happened.
“There are still one-in-four children living in poverty in B. C., and there isn’t anything in here to help them out,” she said. “That’s the highest number of any province in Canada. They keep talking about the strong economy, and I see a lot of initiatives in the budget that put dollars back in corporate pockets, but nothing that really comes back to kids or families, and certainly not education.”
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