Isn't Christie's education system great!!

[Urban Cowboy]

A leopard doesn't change its spots. Christy is still trying to get rid of as many teachers as possible. It's a phobia with her. Plus she's greedy and wants to sell off as many assets as possible. I don't know how she gains personally from this, but if she can personally gain $300,000 from her cash-for-access dinners, then she'll find a way to gain from the sale of government assets as well.

Try posting some actual facts, or move along to the conspiracy forum. That seems a much better fit for you.

[gordon_as]

Try posting some actual facts, or move along to the conspiracy forum. That seems a much better fit for you.

Hypocrisy at it's best. I'm not going to damage my brain reading all 15 of your posts from today , so perhaps you could link , or quote to one where you presented an actual fact.

[JayByrd]

Many of the problems with our education system predate the Clark administration by a number of years. Not really fair (though it is fun) to blame her for a system that was flawed when she took over and will still be flawed when we run the next Premier out of town.

The article states that the Provincial Government was ordered by the Supreme Court to restore smaller class sizes, contributing to some of the crunch in the article. A catchment area having more students than it's schools can accommodate is nothing new. I went to high school in the 80's and 90's, and remember starting the year without enough textbooks or even desks for everyone in some classes. I'd blame whomever was Premier then, but I can't remember who it was.

[Urban Cowboy]

Try posting some actual facts, or move along to the conspiracy forum. That seems a much better fit for you.

Hypocrisy at it's best.

Hey what can I say, other than you make a great teacher! When you aren't busy waving the orange flag that is.

[casey60]

Just to look at the liberals how they have dealt with the school system during their lengthy term in office. Had to go all the way to the supreme court. That money would have been better spent on education instead of lawyers.

[Terris]

The short memories of residents here is obvious.

The first thing the liberals did when Gordo got in with the underling Christy (Cheshire) Clark in tow was go after the teachers, nurses and First nations agreements in order to boost the profit margins of a wealthy few.

The Supreme Courts have ruled against these policies which has cost us the million$ they now claim to have saved us.

No, she has not created a great educational system here in BC that could not have been kept intact under any other government party....

[flamingfingers]

Christy Swung her support from the public school system into the Private Schools - you know the ones that are supposed to be independent and that allows them to charge $20K to $30K tuition per kid? Now we taxpayers are supporting THEM with millions of our dollars:

Christy Clark gives record funding to private schools, pressures some Vancouver public schools to close
By Jenny Uechi & Elizabeth McSheffrey in News, Politics | May 6th 2016

St. George's School for Boys, Vancouver, where tuition fees are over $20,000. Photo courtesy of St. George website.
Vancouverites are paying more than enough to keep their public schools open, but the Clark government is redirecting the money to private schools.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/05 ... -shortfall

[What_the]

Once one has come to realize that the two budgets that shouldn't be cut are health care and education, and why those two benefit every single one of us in the long term....

I actually have to wonder, if those defending Clark or the system have ever once talked to teachers and administration (and not just one either) regarding funding and why teachers buy pencils etc from their own pockets.
You'll start to see trends if one does. And it's not pretty.

[Osoyoos_Familyof4]

Where the largest most significant deficits are (in my opinion) in the education system today:

• Classrooms should never be organized by numbers of students, it MUST be organized according to a composition of learning levels of students. I've said it before, a class of 28/30 children is doable if they are typical students with no learning/developmental/behavioural/psychological issues. In other words HIGHLY UNLIKELY!

• Where the real educational money needs to be spent is on identifying special needs students in a timely manner. And when/if students do get a "diagnosis" of a someone who is in need of "modified learning" there needs to be a competent team equipped to effectively teach a student with higher needs. This includes a major funding increase of Certified Education Assistants. CEA's are the most cost effective way in the elementary system in particular to keep struggling students as close as possible to their typical peers. Specialty Teacher's however must have more available prep-time to prepare alternate lesson plans that address the "best way" possible to keep struggling learners as close to their typical peers as possible.

• We must address the Teacher-On-Call system: There are some districts that have tried to be supportive of new teachers who are looking for their first contracts. But there are many districts who let retired teachers collect full pension, then augment it more with working as much as they wish on-call as subs. This takes away the opportunity for young eager teachers to hone their craft. It is often newer teachers who are best equipped at implementing new and innovating methods for teaching. Pensioned Teachers-On-Call cost more on the wage scale than newer teachers and in my opinion, have had their chance. Move on, don't retire if your płan is to come back and sub almost fulltime, it's double-dipping and rather rude (sorry).

• What is required are more specialty workers: More behavioural specialists, more psychological counsellors, more speech pathologists, more occupational therapists. These workers don't necessarily need to be district employees, just funded by the district. And hopefully the waiting list for services will be expedient.

• The biggest issue as I see it is that the districts (all of them - but especially the rural ones) have a WAY too small a budget to have a true inclusionary education system. You cannot run an inclusionary school without funding appropriately students with special needs. I believe in inclusion, it has proven beneficial for even typical students. However, you can't fund a school system in the way we used to when children with special needs were segregated and even worse in special schools. But today, the reality is we have funding to identify and treat about %50 students with higher needs, and the rest are left to flounder and to make the regular classroom very stressed.

• The school system needs to find the finesse and strength to identify (with parents) when it's suspected that their children "have issues". It's not the school's expertise to diagnose a child's special need(s). But that being said there are so many times when it's painfully obvious to everyone BUT the parent who fears their child will automatically be medicated and stigmatized. This is so far from the truth because the school doesn't diagnose, nor do they prescribe, they merely try to identify children who maybe could benefit from a more intense "look at". But often those parents who are do resistant to this are overwhelmed and busy, and are afraid to deal witj the reality that a child with special needs IS HARD WORK!

The funding model of our schools is based on educational models 25 years old. We need dynamic creative specialty professionals who take on children where they are no matter if the child is gifted intellectually or struggles. We need modular education progress systems and it all needs to change.

[maryjane48]

yes i agree our schools need to change to keep up to the worlds pace. pitting teachers against parents is last thing a govt should be doing

[maryjane48]

http://www.cknw.com/2017/04/11/steele-d ... f=facebook

[Terris]

Many of the problems with our education system predate the Clark administration by a number of years. Not really fair (though it is fun) to blame her for a system that was flawed when she took over and will still be flawed when we run the next Premier out of town.

The article states that the Provincial Government was ordered by the Supreme Court to restore smaller class sizes, contributing to some of the crunch in the article. A catchment area having more students than it's schools can accommodate is nothing new. I went to high school in the 80's and 90's, and remember starting the year without enough textbooks or even desks for everyone in some classes. I'd blame whomever was Premier then, but I can't remember who it was.

Here's where you need to start looking for the origins of the dumbing down of the education system, stripping wages and benefits from the labour movement, the medical system the highways system etc.

The new Christy minstrel BC liberals are rehatched Socreds. Nothing more and nothing less...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bennett