Dear All,
For the moment this blog is being temporarily dedicated in support of the BC Teachers Strike. We will return to ‘normal’ after Bill 12, which imposes a contract on teachers, has been withdrawn
In solidarity,
Charles
PS: A combination of factors came together and the blog never returned to it’s original purpose. It remains a blog in support of public edcuation. The journal is on a separate site www.newproposals.ca.
crm, may 7, 2007
As a grandparent of students in our schools, I am 100% in support of our teachers vote of 91% for “illegal” strike action. Just as 91% of the randomly-selected, gender-balanced ordinary citizens on the BC Citizen’s Assembly for Electoral Reform cannot be wrong in their choice to propose that BC adopt the BC-STV electoral system, 91% of our teachers cannot be wrong if they say that the situation is so dire that their action is necessary. Along with deficit spending and environmental degradation, our provincial government by failing to properly fund public education is again betraying our children’s future. By failing to allow teachers to negotiate on behalf of educational standards such as class size, and failing to allow teachers to feely negotiate a collective agreement that they are satisfied with, children are the losers.
I want my grandchildren to have teachers who feel understood and appreciated. Who feel supported in their most vital work. All recent governments have sacrificed the education of our children to the tax-cutting mania.
The reason our governments of all stripes are too cowardly to fairly tax the rich and the corporations, is because our first-past-the-post electoral system gives voters only 2 real choices which severs the link of responsibility between voters and representatives. Then the power of big money has no counterpoint in voter power. BC-STV will give us governments that truely represent all the people’s true wishes, and will make such dire actions unnecessary in the future.
In the meantime, lets all support our teachers courageous action in every way we can.
Sincerely,
Stephen Bradley
Port Alberni, BC
As a parent of a Grade 5 student in French Immersion I support the teachers job action. I think they are representing our parental interests in negotiating for smaller class sizes with the goal of maintaining a viable public school system. I have the impression that this Liberal government is working on the greater privatization of the public school system.
I support the teachers and there actions. They are not only lookng out for each other in the BCTF. But they are also looking at the future. Our son is going in for teaching and you are fighting for those new teachers coming into the system as well. Thank you.