Author Archives: cmenzies

The Teachers’ Strike: Two upcoming Events

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(1) Hosted by Left Turn: The B.C. Teachers Strike: A Dress Rehearsal for The General Strike Of 2006? November 22, 2005.

(2) Hosted by the Vancouver & District labour Council: Lessons Learned from Teachers’ Dispute. November 15, 2005.Event 1: The B.C. Teachers Strike: A Dress Rehearsal for The General Strike Of 2006?

Last month’s illegal strike may well have been a watershed for the B.C. labour movement. Despite a vicious campaign by the Liberal government, court rulings that included the largest fine against a union in Canadian history, and lukewarm support from the BC Fed, teachers seem to have emerged not only undefeated, but more militant and united than ever.

How did this happen? What went down in the back rooms? What impact is this having on the rest of the labour movement? How about community support? And of great importance for all activists fighting the Liberals’ privatizing and union-busting, what does this mean for next spring’s looming public sector confrontations? Will there be a general strike, or a general demobilization? Will the spring sizzle, or fizzle?

SFU Harbour Centre
Room 1900
Tuesday, November 22
7:30 PM

Speakers: Lisa Descary, Richmond Teachers Association; Gretchen Dulmage, HEU vice-chair, Children and Women’s Hospital; Will Offley, B.C. Nurses Union; Lawrence Boxall, CEP Local 2000.
(Organizations are listed for identification purposes only.)

For more info contact info@leftturn.ca

Event 2. VDLC Pizza Educational: Lessons Learned from Teachers’ Dispute

Presentations from the BC Teachers’ Federation, CUPE, and the Vancouver and District Labour Council, each will provide their perspective from their role in the dispute.

November 15, 2005 at 5:30 pm (Followed by regular VDLC meeting at 7:30 PM Maritime Labour Centre 1880 Triumph Street)

Keziah McCrystal Rothlin, Executive Asst.
Vancouver and District Labour Council
#140 – 111 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, BC V5L 4C4
604-254-0703 Phone
604-254-0701 Fax
vdlc@telus.net Email

Roundtable on Public Education

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75 plus people -parents, unioninsts, academics, teachers, community members- found their way to the obscure room in the Chemistry Building to hear Jinny Sims, president BCTF, Catherine Evans, president BCSPE, Paul Orlowski, Vancouver teacher, Kevin Millsip, Vancouver trustee, Wayne Ross, Curriculum Studies UBC and myself (Charles Menzies) speak on the significance of the teachers strike. After the presentations the floor was opened for discussion and questions and a further hour of commentary followed.

We will be uploading a webcast of the event shortly in this space. We will also be publishing online the proceedings of the event in printed form.

In the meantime you can find the text to two commentarites, Stephen Petrina’s welcome and my own, here. Please note that these are unedited draft comments and will be revised and expanded for the online publication to follow.

Download Petrina’s welcome
Download Menzies’ comments

Roundtable on the BC Teacher’s Strike being held at UBC

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A roundtable discussion on the Teachers’ strike is now being planned by Charles Menzies, Steve Petrina and Wayne Ross.

WHEN: Wednesday November 9th at 4:30 pm
WHERE: Chemistry Building, room 126. CHEMISTRY BUILDING EAST WING; Also called Building C(Wayfinding at UBC).
View meeting room locater map customized for our event

Speakers:
Jinny Sims, President BCTF.
Catherine Evans, President BC Society for Public Education.
Paul Orlowski, Vancouver Secondary Teacher.
Kevin Millsip, Trustee Vancouver School Board.
Larry Kuehn, Director of Research and Technology, BCTF.
Charles Menzies, Parent Advisory Council member and Associate Professor of Anthropology, UBC.
E. Wayne Ross, Professor Dept. of Curriculum Studies, UBC

THEME: A roundtable discussion on the significance of the teachers’ strike and struggle for public education in British Columbia.

FORMAT: A panel of presenters representing teachers, parents, and researchers will each speaker for 5 to 10 minutes each. This will be followed by a moderated discussion of the significance of the teachers’ strike.

SPONSORS:
Department of Anthropology and Sociology, UBC
Department of Curriculum Studies, UBC
Canadian Studies Programme, Faculty of Arts, UBC
Department of Political Science, UBC
Centre for Research in Women’s Studies and Gender Relations
First Nations House of Learning, UBC
Workplace: A journal for academic labor
New Proposals Publishing Society

PDF event poster (revised Nov 8, 2005): Download file

Extend the School Year (2)

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See BCTF Representative Assembly position on extending the school year BCTF School Staff Alert, Nov. 7, 2005

The teachers’ position is completely understandable, especially given the fact that the Minister of Education has implied teachers should ‘catch-up’ but without any pay. While I still personally believe that a paid extension to the school year is a reasonable request the political context is such that an extended school year is not a viable solution. And, as research has demonstrated (see link to article below) the impacts as measured in standardized tests are minimal.

Further to my previous post and suggestion to extend the school year a number of issues have emerged.

(1) The adverse impacts on teachers engaged in graduate study during the summer term if the school year is extended into July.
(2) That time might be added to the school year but that teachers would not be paid for this added time.

I hadn’t considered the first point and I had simply assumed that any extension of the school year would necessarily mean that teachers and other staff would be paid for the additional work done to make up for the missing ten days. This is critical. From my perspective extending the school year in any way would be contingent upon teachers being paid for the added time.

It would appear that a middle ground solution is emerging that would see the postponement of January provincial exams. This would at least accommodate some of the difficulties related to the ten day work stoppage.

I would also like to point to an article on the impact of strikes on student achievement from the U.S. in which it indicates that strikes have had minimal if any real impacts on student test results.Click here for full story.

School Boards reject idea of extended school year.CBC coverage on extended school year question. Further to this issue school boards are saying they don’t think extending the school year is workable.

Roudtable

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The following letter was sent to the Roundtable reps and raises several critical issues regarding the crisis in education that has existed long before October 7th, 2005.

Dear Education Roundtable representatives,

In 1999, the province commissioned an independent Review of Special Education in reaction to widespread concerns that special education was in crisis at that time. That review received numerous submissions, including one from BCCPAC that highlighted provincial underfunding of special ed and the threat this posed to inclusive education, with local school boards and their staff ill-equipped and failing to live up to provincial special education policies. In 2001, the report of this Review was almost entirely ignored by the incoming government, which instituted far reaching changes, including funding policies that forced deep cuts at the local level, greatly aggravating the existing challenges in special education. As the BC Association for Community Living (BCACL) memo copied below illustrates, those changes have taken things from bad to worse, threatening inclusion and posing a very real crisis for children with developmental disabilities and other special needs.

Successive NPA and COPE School Boards in Vancouver have repeatedly documented how this funding gap forces them to divert millions intended for general education, thus hurting all students. The BCTF has consistently highlighted this concern, making it a focal point of the recent job action. And while BCCPAC has been less vocal in recent years, its members have continued to pass numerous resolutions expressing concern about underfunding of special education and other special learning needs. In 2004, even MLAs representing the current government urged their leaders to restore funding for special education in the report of their budget review committee. That the crisis identified by special education advocates in the late 1990s has deepened, becoming chronic and systemic and ever more daunting does not make it any less a crisis!

Regrettably, the Minister has seen fit to selectively represent the provincial parent voice at the new roundtable, and to exclude any voices that can speak purely for students with special learning needs at a table where this is clearly a central issue. This places an added responsibility on those appointed to the roundtable to represent all students in our education system, regardless of your organizational goals and policies or member priorities. You have been given an opportunity to stop the appalling betrayal of our most vulnerable students by acknowledging and addressing the central and undeniable role of consistent provincial underfunding in the crisis that faces so many of our students with special learning needs, including ESL and Aboriginal students and other children with unique needs today. As the parent of a child with special needs and advocate who has accompanied many other parents through their own children’s individual school crises, I urge that you seek outside support and input if necessary to accomplish this, so that we can address this crisis promptly and restore the promise of inclusive education once and for all.

Dawn Steele

Parent of a child with special needs, David Livingstone Elementary (a non-BCCPAC member), Vancouver.

CC: Vancouver DPAC; SOS; BCSPE; BCACL; Opposition Education Critic John Horgan;

UBC Faculty Association Sends $5000.00 to the Feed the Teacher Fund

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UBC faculty from UBC-Vancouver and UBC-Okanagan, meeting via video link passed overwhelmingly passed a motion to contribute $5000.00 to the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators Feed the Teachers Fund. Moved by Stephen Petrina and seconded by Charles Menzies the motion recognized the important work that BC teachers have been doing in standing up to an intransigent government.

A member from UBC-O, speaking in favour of the motion, reminded us that in Kelowna they understand what it is like to be on strike and “this motion is the least that we can do.” Others speaking in favour of the motion made reference to the important human rights issues involved.

One member who spoke against the motion raised the issue of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and questioned whether this was a wise investment of faculty association dollars. The other speaker opposed to the motion read excerpts from the purpose of the association as stated in the bylaws and constitution of the faculty association and rhetorically asked where the words political could be found in our mandate suggesting that the motion was a political act and our purpose was simply to look after the interests of our membership.

However, the overwhelming vote of support (by a margin of two to one, clearly demonstrates the associations’ recognition of the significance of the action taken by the teachers and the inappropriate behaviour of the government in this struggle.

Intial Overview of Strike

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Wayne Ross has a very nice overview of the aftermath and implications of the strike at Where the Blog Has No Name.

For myself I am torn between respectful support of the decision of the BCTF exec and the majority of teachers and a sense that the labour movement leadership has yet again demonstrated their unwillingness to back real struggles for social justice.

Listening to Jim Sinclair’s comments on CBC radio early Friday morning October 21st, 2005, I knew right then that the Fed had pulled the plug. Here we were in the midst of one of the most significant labour struggles for many years and the BCTF and CUPE found themselves standing alone on the podium so-to-speak. These debates go back and forth between those who argue they are being realistic and those of us who suggest conservative is a better term to describe the response of the officialdom of labour.

I would also add my disappointment in the legislative actions of the NDP. It has been rumoured that NDP Officials called an end to the filibuster against Bill 12 so that a sense of ‘balance and decorum’ could be maintained and members return to their homes for their long thanksgiving break. Oh for the days of Dave Barrett.

This is not, of course, to say that the NDP didn’t put on a good show -they did. And, several members deserve special mention in the efforts to slow down the passage of Bill 12. People like NDP Ed critic John Horgen, Prince Rupert MLA Gary Coons, and former BCTF President David Chudnovsky. A special mention should go to Corky Evans for his musical interlude late on evening during the debate(Now, as through this world I rambled, I met lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a shotgun and some with a fountain pen). But, where was Carole James? Rumoured to have walked among the masses during the Oct. 17th rally in Victoria she was, by all accounts, not officially present among those who spoke. The party of labour and the official opposition has I would argue a significant obligation to stand up for justice and ethical treatment irrespective of a narrow determination of ‘the law.’

For those interested in a more detailed examination of these issues keep a space in your timetables for the forum being organized at UBC on November 9th at 4:30 pm.

B.C.’s teachers say thank you!

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October 24, 2005
B.C.’s teachers say thank you!

Teachers around the province have been moved by the incredible support shown by parents. You brought us goodies while we walked the line. You walked with us in all kinds of weather. You honked your horns and cheered us on as you drove by. Your attendance at the many meetings and rallies encouraged us. We are overwhelmed and heartened by your words of encouragement in the many phone calls, e-mails, and letters received. In countless ways, you bolstered us. We say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Your stories about school fees, class sizes, lack of student support, and reduced resources made an impact as those stories reached the general public. Together with teachers, you furthered the public debate about quality public education.

Our goals are to continue to achieve improved learning conditions for our students, guarantees for class size and composition, and more specialist teachers such as teacher-librarians, counsellors, and ESL teachers. These conditions are fundamental to a stable, quality public education system. Our goals also include the restoration of fair, negotiated collective bargaining.

School board meetings, community gatherings, and the upcoming municipal all candidates’ meetings provide opportunities for us to work together in furthering awareness of these important educational issues. Together, we can present our mutual concerns to keep quality public education in the forefront.

We look forward to our continued working together.

Source: BCTF web page.