Who Manages The Public Education System?

 

Who Manages The Public Education System? — That’s The Issue   [comment Tunya Audain]

As long as we still have the monopoly system — public schooling run by the government and produced by monopoly teacher union workers — we will continue to have turf problems.

For the longest time now — like 40 years at least — the teacher union has been calling the shots on many issues and the feeling is that the government acquiesces in order to ensure “labour peace”. Governments of different political stripes — conservative, liberal, socialist — have all had tussles with the union.

Hopefully, when the Appeal does go to the Supreme Court of Canada, 9 judges will determine who has the right and duty to govern and manage the public education system. 

I found it very troubling indeed, upon reading the latest Griffin Judgment, that the government was seeming to be pleading to regain some management rights from the BCTF ! Was that a joke? Here is the sentence from page 19 referring to March 2011 bargaining: “The government had an additional mandate that it asked BCPSEA to achieve in bargaining, seeking concessions from BCTF in favour of greater management rights.”

I also bring forward a statement from a BCTF newsletter in 1967 which explains their deep involvement in professional development: “It is claimed that we appear to be accepting naively responsibilities which properly belong to school boards and the Department of Education, and in which they are in default. So long as the BCTF is willing to carry the load, these members argue, the public authorities will continue to evade, or neglect their responsibilities.”

So, do we blame an opportunistic union for appropriating management rights from those sleeping at the wheel?

Yes, the case must go as far as it can to clarify who is to manage?

 

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Then my reply to continuing conversation

 

International Connections Count In The Teacher Union Movement

Even though the BCTF strongly proclaims that it is “non-partisan” that does not mean it is not political.  Actually, the leadership (successive executives and HQ staff) hold ideological positions off the tame BC spectrum of conservative-socialist range.

Dr Tom Fleming in his book “Worlds Apart” positions the start of their political instrumentalism to 1972 when the teacher unionists helped bring in the first socialist government in BC and when BCTF President, Jim MacFarlan, “radical Marxist” held sway.

The BCTF does not belong to the tame Canadian Teachers’ Federation; it belongs to the radical EI (Education International).   “Dare The School Build A New Social Order?” (Counts, 1932) is an enduring project of militant teacher unions (like the NUT, NEA, BCTF, etc.) in the social reconstruction mode. 

No only is the government of the day their target for influence, so are the public and teachers in the field kept on continuous alert through sophisticated PR and annual manifestations (eg anti FSA campaigns).

“Hard done by” may be just another affected sophisticated strategy in a “progressive” drive for “worker control of the workplace” and social change societally.  Who manages whom?  Who provokes whom?

This is not idle, tin-foil-hat rambling.  The game plans of the BCTF have gained adoring acclaim in the labour relations literature.  Please see: Structuring reality so that the law will follow: British Columbia teachers' quest for collective bargaining rights    http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Structuring+reality+so+that+the+law+will+follow%3A+British+Columbia…-a0274699540

Start with the Conclusion first:

•  overwhelming onslaught of litigation
•  an influential, media-savvy political force
•  cultivating teacher support
•   "restructure the reality" so that "the law would follow."

Yes, the Appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada (9 judges) will have some very interesting issues to sort through.