Campaign out to recess on public education

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2011 (5110 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHATEVER happened to public education as an election issue?

We’re well into the campaign, and barely a syllable has been uttered by the parties about the $1.9-billion annual budget or the 180,000 kids in the system.

Premier Greg Selinger has announced the NDP will cap class size at 20 kids for kindergarten through Grade 3.

Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard will double the number of truancy officers in city school divisions from 4.5 full-time-equivalent private contractors and make them public employees as the key strategy to reduce dropout rates.

As well, the leaders mused during the Manitoba Teachers’ Society debate about the province eventually covering 80 per cent of the education operating budget without making formal announcements and, more importantly, without saying how much money the annual operating budget would be under that structure and who would decide how it would be distributed.

Here are some issues that students and parents might like to see addressed before Oct. 4:

— Report cards: The NDP is trying out a new report-card template in selected schools this year for province-wide implementation a year from now. They’re supposed to tell parents in plain English how their kids are doing.

— No-fail/social promotion — There’s still a lot of confusion among parents, kids and teachers, even though the province says schools can hold students back.

— Aboriginal education — The quality of education that Ottawa provides at First Nations schools is arguably well below what kids receive in public schools. Regardless of jurisdiction, pressure is growing to give aboriginal kids living on reserves the same opportunities as public school students.

— Moratorium on closing schools — In spring 2008, the NDP suddenly imposed a moratorium on closing schools.

— Building new schools in suburbs — The NDP has shied away from building new schools in the suburbs, preferring to use empty desks in older neighbourhoods several kilometres away.

— Private-school funding — Back in the 1990s, the Conservatives were increasing the operating grants for private schools by two per cent a year. The NDP has frozen those grants at 50 per cent of the local public school division’s per-student spending.

— Provincewide testing: Grade 12 students only write provincial exams in math and language arts; diagnostic assessments are used extensively.

— Future of school boards — Is there one? Manitoba is the last province to give trustees taxing authority and the province has eroded trustees’ autonomy and powers each year. Less than half of Manitoba’s school board seats were contested last fall and barely one-quarter of the seats outside the three largest cities required an election.

— Amalgamation — The NDP imposed amalgamation, which took effect in 2002, but stopped short of going all the way in potential amalgamations. There are still some tiny school divisions with low assessment bases, and Winnipeg, with 59 school trustees, is pretty lonely among major Canadian cities that manage to cope with only one public school board apiece.

— Provincewide bargaining — The teachers want it, trustees don’t. The NDP has refused to bargain with teachers province-wide until both major players go for it. Teachers’ wages and benefits make up close to two-thirds of the annual cost of operating the public school system.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca