Re: Students' skill levels below par, April 29.
Nick Martin reports "Manitoba's students are performing below the Canadian average in reading, math and science..." There is an obvious reason for this fact.
Over the last few decades, Manitoba education ministers have prided themselves in introducing many new and worthwhile programs and curriculum changes. Most of these offer better and more equal opportunity to students who once were not able to acquire an education or a job upon graduation.
As excellent as this direction is, it has been instituted at the expense of the basic educational programs of study.
Most new programs have never received adequate new provincial funding to cover the actual costs of implementation. So where has the extra money come from? That's right, from funds which should have gone to maintain the basic programs of reading, writing, mathematics and science.
Only where local school boards have increased local tax levies to subsidize their basic programs have schools been able to maintain them at appropriate levels.
It's politically incorrect to short-change any of the "equal opportunity" programs, so the only subject areas available for reduction (or at best, no increase) are the core subject areas.
As the years have gone by this has resulted in a degeneration of the quality of core education.
How long can a program be maintained without at least an inflationary increase?
Consider the following illustration: The high school I administered in 1985-1994, Garden Valley Collegiate, currently has an educational budget for the core subjects equal in actual dollar value to that of 1986. Oh yes, the overall school budget has been greatly increased, but not for the basic reading, math and science programs.
Consider the latest example of ministerial edict: The minister has mandated more physical education instruction. But did he provide all the required extra funding? Of course not. High school administrators will have no choice but to steal a few more bucks and human resources from the basic programs in order to comply.
The original target of provincial funding covering approximately 80 to 85 per cent of a division's budget has eroded to less than 65 per cent (individual divisions vary). All the rest must be levied by the local boards -- which this government apparently despises and wants to eliminate. Unfortunately, local school boards are now being further restricted from raising necessary cash to pay for the programs. Boards are now penalized for raising local tax levies to cover the ever-increasing educational costs being downloaded to the local school divisions.
Oh, such a comfortable political strategy. That is, until government suddenly succeeds in getting rid of responsible local boards and inherits the full impact of 100 per cent of educational funding responsibility province-wide.
It is not only in financing that students are being shortchanged. With the introduction of new programs, the time allotment for core subjects has decreased. There are many 'creative time-tables' in Manitoba in which administrators tamper with schedules and the length of the school day restrictions but generally every suggestion faces the restrictions of provincial or local policies or bus schedules. Lunch "hours" are often less than a half hour; class changes are a few minutes and do not allow time for movement from one end of the building to the next class -- to say nothing about being able to stop at the washroom. The list can go on.
There are situations where divisions have asked for permission to alter the school calendar to provide some of the extra time required and it has been denied; but more curricula has been mandated. The department requirement of 110 minutes of instruction for each core credit is often not met -- maybe on paper schedules, but not usually in reality.
The provincial educational vision is in serious disarray. Yes, a moratorium on school closures is politically popular in some segments of greater Winnipeg, but its major impact is to illustrate how disconnected from reality our minister is once again. The sad thing is, it does not seem to make much difference which party is in power.
We owe an apology to our mainstream student population because the Department of Education and the education minister have sacrificed their educational rights in the process of improving the opportunities of others. While these advances were needed and good, these students should not have had to pay the price.
Ken Loewen, former principal of Garden Valley Collegiate, still lives in Winkler.
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