Collective bargaining between teacher unions and the government is an experience which effectively excludes most people who are intimately concerned with the outcomes  –  parents, students, taxpayers  –  the public generally. There are two parties who meet in secret to arrange a peace pact.

Invariably, the teacher union  –  reading from some international union playbook  –  produces some “noise” to boost their demands.

This year in British Columbia Canada  –  following earlier established procedures (so, so civilized, you know)  –  the teacher union has received a legal judgment from the Labor Relations Board as to what they can and can’t do in Phase 1.  There are 30 actions which they need NOT perform  –  see http://www.bcpsea.bc.ca/documents/teacher%20bargaining/00-WP-Essential%20Services%20Update%20No.%202011-02.pdf

One duty public school teachers can be relieved from doing are preparing and distributing report cards.  I maintain this is illegal.  I wrote a comment

Parents Undermined By Strike

It is the parents who are ultimately responsible for the education of their children.

Compulsory education acts were enacted as back-up, the safety net, for those parents unable to educate or afford tutors or private schools.

Unfortunately, this provision has become perverted so that the prime beneficiaries now are those in the education industry, not students. This benefit for needy parents has now been universalized. This system has become hostage to the civil servants (public school teachers) now threatening to strike.

Withholding reports to parents under the School Act is illegal. Parents depend on regular reports so that they can fulfill their duty. When a student is not meeting expectations the parent needs to know this so as to move the child or press for better services.

The government should stand by with a contingency plan — to provide the sum of $8357 for each child whose parents will seek an education in a non-striking school.

In a blog comment one teacher agreed with me  –  “…withholding reports from parents is illegal and parents need to know how their child is doing.”  But, then the teacher goes on, and on, about how workload has increased, and reporting is time-consuming and they deserve raises, etc., etc.

Below is the letter to the Editor of the Vancouver Sun I just sent in (not yet published)

Dear Sir:

Re:  Job action means no report cards this fall, Sun, August 05, 2011

BC  public school teachers have a list of 30 job actions they intend to follow come “strike” time in September.

BCTF vice-president Glen Hansman assures parents they won’t see “…any negatives. In fact, things actually may be better for their children this fall.”

I strongly disagree with Hansman and the rest of those who believe this is acceptable.  In particular I am horrified that the permission has been given to NOT produce or distribute report cards.

This grossly undermines parental duty for it is the parents who ultimately are responsible for the education of their children.  Without feedback from the school they are unable to judge if learning is going on or just babysitting.

If the parent finds that the child is not meeting expectations they indeed have the duty to pursue remedies or to withdraw to another school.

The fact that parents are to sign-off on receipt of report cards testifies to the legal recognition of parental primacy. Canada is not a totalitarian country like Germany and Sweden where parental sovereignty or home education, for example, are forbidden.

I assert that not fulfilling the report card function as prescribed in the School Act is illegal.  The government should be prepared with vouchers for those parents not receiving their obligatory report cards and who wish to seek alternatives to public schools.

MY CONCLUSION

Allowing public school teachers to remove themselves from preparing and distributing report cards is an affront to civil society, contributes to the erosion of the family, and is an utter failure on the part of government and its agencies that are supposed to serve the public interest.

Failure #1 Government Failure in allowing the teacher union to call the shots in bargaining, therefore a failure in governance.

Failure #2 Education in BC is an essential service, and no report cards to parents from a compulsory public school system fails the public interest in neutering parents’ ultimate and primary responsibility in education. A government service in education is the “safety-net” for those parents otherwise unable to provide private or home education or other provision for their children.

Failure #3 The School Act mandates that parents are to receive periodic report cards (failure in statutory duty).

Failure #4 The School Act mandates that parents are to sign-off on receipt of report card (failure in statutory duty).

_______________________

Additional Information 3 days later …

Only the Province newspaper picked up on my fear about the demise of the family via public education.  The Labour Relations Board granted BCTF teachers the dispensation from producing and sending report cards to parents in the latest round of teacher bargaining.

A mild editorial called for the BCTF to get their hands slapped. [Shouldn’t they get their hands pulled out of the cookie jar altogether?]

See: http://www.theprovince.com/opinion/editorials/Time+teachers+union+hand+slapped/5232318/story.html

Time teachers’ union got its hand slapped (Aug 10, 2011)

My comment to the editorial

The State Is Stomping On Parents

I wrote to newspapers about my fears that parents would be totally excluded from their education duty to their children if the teacher strike prevented reporting to parents.

My concern about attendance has now been settled (as of yesterday) and parents will be able to find out from the office if their child is in school. At least we’ll know that babysitting is happening!

However, instruction is unknowable unless reporting happens. In Phase 1 of the protest teachers will not prepare or distribute report cards according to union orders.

This is in defiance of legislation and I assert that the withholding of student reports about learning achievement is illegal.

 

Furthermore, by denying tools to parents to enforce their duty actually damages civil society. Is there an international court of law, maybe the ILO, to take this to?

I expect to present this issue to advocates of the family and champions of the individual. The modern “nanny” welfare state does not serve the family well as it is permeated with self interest groups who would expand the state, make work for themselves at the expense of the family and diminish the sovereignty of the family and the individual.

Who Should Rule Education — The Government or Teacher Union?

This question arises because in British Columbia, Canada, the BC Teachers' Union has successfully, over a number of years, undermined the value of standardized testing — the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA).

The national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, had its columnist, Gary Mason, weigh in on the matter with his position: "BC, not the union, should run education"

Comments now number over 130 and the debate continues to rage.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/bc-not-its-teachers-union-should-run-education/article1884019/

These are four of my comments to the G&M online discussion:

1. Who is calling the shots in BC education?

Since 1972, when the NDP swept into government in BC, the teachers’ union has ruled the roost in matters education. They gained a foothold into the corridors of power, learned the in’s and out’s of influence, and have never relinquished their beachhead since.

Gary Mason now asks the crucial question: BC or BCTF to rule education? Looks like a showdown at the Victoria corral is imminent regardless of who the premier will be.

We are a laughing stock to the rest of the world if we continue to follow the BCTF script.

What bothers me the most is how the BCTF gets others to do their dirty work for them. Gary Mason mentions how parents have now been recruited to withdraw their children from the tests.

Yes, it took two years, but that script has now borne fruit. It was their October 2008 newsmagazine that published the call: “We need a parent boycott”. The article considers the reasons why teacher insubordination or a boycott would not work:

- Divisive of teachers – pits activists against dissidents

- Political suicide – the public doesn’t really understand

- Legal suicide – teacher boycott would be ruled an illegal strike

Therefore, VOILA, the paper goes on, “we must strengthen and refine our existing efforts to undermine the tests and support a powerful parent boycott.” http://bctf.ca/publications/NewsmagArticle.aspx?id=16804

Of course, on top of past successes with parents, more “tweaking” must go on. “Our job is to empower them in that task” that is, get MORE parents than ever to withdraw.

As a grandparent I deeply resent the way teacher unions have contemptuously treated parents in the past, and I’m ever more distressed how current parents are being co-opted and exploited to fulfill the BCTF agenda.

I urge Gary Mason to do a follow-up story on the many ways in which the BCTF has been recruiting parents – the YouTubes, the parent conferences, the advocacy organizations they fund and expedite, the capture of school boards, the research papers, etc. It would blow your mind!

It’s wrong, and very unfair to parents, to students, and society as a whole.

2.  Parent and Student Choice Desired

("Give the unions a choice – get with the program – or everything goes on a voucher system." [bigred85] This was a response by a reader.  I agreed as below:)

I agree. We need a voucher or tuition tax credit program so that people can choose their preferences in education styles. If people choose progressive schools with progressive teachers that don't like testing they would still have to recognize that taxpayer dollars have to be accounted for. There would still be government monitoring of the effectiveness of dollars spent — to see if the job expected was being done.

3.  Parents and Community Did Not Forfeit, They Were Usurped

(Another reader felt it was the parents and community who should run education, but observes that "that basic right" has been forfeited a long time ago. [rbairos]  My reply below)

Yes, parents and community and media may have been sleeping, dozing, or turning a blind eye while the teacher unions gained more and more power and benefits.

But, because the BCTF has such tremendous funds at their disposal — far superior to any other lobby group in BC — they can mount very sophisticated propaganda and promotional campaigns. They readily promote coalitions and quickly sponsor advocacy groups at the drop of a hat.

The very concept of a lay public school board has been substantially compromised by educators in BC. Because we have no conflict of interest rules governing, we see many teachers, ex-teacher union officials, public service union officials, etc. being elected as trustees. We’ve even seen candidates offered teacher union electoral support if they signed pledges to support teacher union agendas.

How does this picture sit with you? Teachers on both sides of the bargaining table?

The teacher union, furthermore, is quick to issue C&D (Cease and Desist) letters to those who criticize a bit strongly and it doesn’t hesitate to use SLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) processes to have a court decide if a person has defamed or just spoken too pointedly.

This is not unique to BC. Teacher unions internationally are a factor in cowing people into acquiescence and compliance with their projects – undermining of standardized testing being just one such campaign.

In BC they are so successful because they have been politically, militantly active since early 70s.

4. The Debate Rages

I have consolidated my comments on this debate and placed them in a logical order on my blog — Genuine Education Reform Today.

http://genuine-education-reform-today.org/2011/01/28/who-should-rule-education-the-government-or-teacher-union/

Who Should Rule Education — The Government or Teacher Union?

Who is calling the shots in BC education?

Parent and Student Choice Desired

Parents and Community Did Not Forfeit, They Were Usurped

I’m not doing this to bolster my views, but as background for what comes next.

I want to highlight the importance of what our columnist, Gary Mason, has been able to achieve. His article has flushed out a critical player not yet heard from.

While the debate is urgent it has remained at a rather local level, the teacher unions, the ministry of education, the parents, etc. What has remained hidden till now are the Masters of the Game, the university people behind the scenes. And, there are many – professors, deans, departments, programs, foundations, etc.

Please read today’s letter to the editor on this issue from Heather Lotherington, Professor, Multilingual Education, Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/jan-28-letters-to-the-editor/article1885541/

The letter is titled “Testing, testing”, written in educational jargon and conceptual convolutions that I find difficult to follow. I do get some of the sarcasm lobbed at “aging politicians who support standardized tests.” In other words, she is for “contemporary literacies” which invalidate such old fashioned tests as those that check for the 3Rs.

Lotherington and the whole linguistic industry seem to have an agenda which needs huge public attention. Why is there such a resistance to teach reading anyway? How will people decipher history? Twitter won’t do it?

The progressives who talk like this are responsible for dumbing-down and it’s very costly, to our children, our future, and to our wallets.

Has anyone every calculated how much taxpayer money goes to these high falutin, pompous and pretentious studies going on in our universities? And the cost to our civil society?

Wiping The Slate Clean Won’t Solve School Testing Wars

Because of the teacher union opposition to annual standardized testing many parents have been persuaded to withhold their children from the Foundation Skills Assessments (FSAs) in British Columbia.  The Principals Association has now joined in to request dropping the annual FSA as it has been so undermined it “is no longer able to do what it was designed to do” – that is, rendered meaningless.

Some people aim to placate or conciliate and say we must move on, but I and others have said this would be giving in to bully behavior.  The Vancouver school board chairperson wants out of the dispute.  Below is my answer to those who seek to “move on”.

To Move On or Zero-Out is an Utter Cop-Out 

(by Tunya Audain 20110123, comment to blog Report Card by Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun Education Reporter on story “Jameel Aziz gets mixed reviews on anti-FSA statement 20110121 http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2011/01/21/jameel-aziz-gets-mixed-reviews-on-anti-fsa-statement.aspx)

Being the grandmother of four grandchildren in the BC education system I believe I have the credentials to be involved in this discussion.  I have said before that those who aim to be mediators or enablers in this FSA fight are just emboldening those who oppose standardized testing. We mustn’t submit to authoritarianism and to those with vested interests trumping the public interest.

Those who decry rhetoric are often the best exponents of rhetoric!  Why does Susan Lambert, president of BCTF, say the tests are “superficial”.  The 3R’s are never superficial to me!

We now have the chairperson of the Vancouver School Board saying VSB “wants out of the dispute.”  

I kept hearing all day Saturday on News 1130 that Patti Bacchus saw the fight as being between the Ministry, the teacher union and the principals. I heard this broadcast repeated over and over on my background radio.  Bacchus kept repeating, “It’s time to move on.”

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.  She was involved in the deed from a long way back.

See the News 1130 write-up here:  http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/173048–vancouver-school-board-wants-out-of-fsa-debate    What you won’t get is the vocal interview.

I will maintain, that if it wasn’t for the VSB efforts of over the past few years, we would not be in the position we are in now.  It was largely because of the FSA opponents within the VSB structure that the campaign to undermine the tests has been so successful. Vancouver’s success in achieving withdrawals is substantial. I don’t have the numbers, but it has been a model and inspiration for other opponents. Vancouver achieved a lot in getting that ball rolling.

I was at that pivotal meeting on Jan 7th, 2009 where the groundwork was laid and the push turned into shove. See the details here on Janet’s blog:

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/01/08/a-report-from-the-vancouver-fsa-meeting.aspx?CommentPosted=true

The meeting included Committee I and III members (Management Coordinating and Education & Student Services) totaling about 20 people around a table, chaired by Mike Lombardi, and 50 people in the audience.  Read the blog post referred to above, and all the comments.  The details are there.  

My comments said I felt the whole thing was pre-planned. A fait accompli.  The public meeting was staged for show.

From that meeting, my understanding was that a recommendation was to be prepared by a drafting committee proposing that DPAC produce a letter to parents to include the three Ministry options for withdrawal and that VSB would allow this to be distributed.  That this was a recommendation that would go before the next full regular board meeting, January 19th.

Imagine my consternation when I went to the January 19th board meeting to find the DPAC letter had already been produced (it was available for pickup with other papers) and that it had already been sent out to some schools.

In question period I asked why the approval of this letter did not come before the board as a whole and Patti Bacchus replied, with Roberts Rules of Order in her hand, and said that the Rules covered that.  I was dumbfounded.  

I still think this was a deceitful move, not going before the regular board for debate and discussion.

Furthermore, I think it was really a slick move by the committee members to have the DPAC be the ones to be seen publically assisting the parents with decision-making on this critical issue.  I see a lot of VSB people complicit in this initiative.  VESTA was a big player and had many members at that Jan 7 meeting as committee members.  (I think it’s a bargaining victory in Vancouver to have union members on all VSB committees.)

Certainly the BCTF article detailing why a “Parent Boycott” was required would have been read beforehand by committee members. “So, if a teacher boycott isn’t the answer, what is?

Simply put, we must strengthen and refine our existing efforts to undermine the tests and support a powerful parent boycott.”

http://bctf.ca/publications/NewsmagArticle.aspx?id=16804

Parents being used and manipulated again by the teacher union for their causes!

That was only two years ago. Much has been accomplished since in undermining FSAs and VSB should be credited for much of this present state of affairs. That meeting was an education for me.  I was rather naïve before, but VSB politicking at those meetings opened my eyes.

So please, people, don’t say, “Let’s forget all that.  Let’s move on.”  There’s some pretty atrocious politics involved. I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg in how our society values are being undermined by some very dedicated vested interests.

The Progressive Agenda Being Fulfilled  

(by Tunya Audain 100815, comment to Blog School for Thought (SQE) on topic “Saying it as it is” 100814 

http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/saying-it-as-it-is/ ) 

The deterioration of language skills is real and deliberate.  It is a pervasive trend with direct connections to teacher 

training where progressivism is the norm.  Canadian Deans of Education have signed onto an Accord to produce teachers 

to assume social and political roles, to contribute to social change and community transformation. 

I recently read an article http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/book_reviews/97169.html 

"John Dewey, Dumbing Down, and The Scandal of Dyslexia".  The author concludes that Dewey and his buddies, being 

socialists, “They were sick of individualism, the pioneer spirit, free enterprise, and people doing their own thing. John 

Dewey wanted you to be a happy member of a group. You didn’t need that much literacy or knowledge. Dewey actually 

saw these as impediments. He calls, especially in the early grades, for sharply curtailing the study of literature, history, 

math, science, geography and such, in order to make room for social activities, specifically, ‘cooking, sewing, manual 

training’”. 

“To advance his sociopolitical visions, Dewey was eager to dilute content and diminish learning.” 

All this is in line with what John Taylor Gatto has been saying in his “Dumbing Us Down. The Hidden Curriculum of 

Compulsory Schooling”.  Several times a winner of “Teacher of the Year Awards” in New York, when he quit teaching 

he said he no longer wished to “hurt kids to make a living.“ 

Today I found this guest column (from EducationNews) by a teacher also deploring poor English and grammar in this 

article “Grammar problems caused by ‘hyper-constructivism’”. http://betrayed-

whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2010/08/grammar-problems-caused-by-hyper.html  (from the blog, Betrayed*) 

Robert Archer faults “constructivism” which, unfortunately still exists in teacher training.  It’s a form of discovery-

learning and had Dewey as one of the historical figures influencing this development. (See Wikipedia for constructivism).  

This is what Archer said:  “Somehow, this grammar-is-imbedded movement is supposed to help students naturally take in 

what proper grammar is (i.e., grammar by osmosis). It’s very much a hyper-constructivist approach to education; the 

students are supposed to “discover” proper grammar on their own as they read good pieces. Then, somehow and some 

way, they are to emulate these proper mechanical structures in their own writing. And if the students don’t quite “take it 

all in,“ the teacher may take 2.5 minutes here and there to show them what a damn verb is.” 

Is all this deliberate, manufactured, dumbing-down? To create a class of poorly educated mass with another class of elitist 

rulers?  Sounds very Plato to me – philosopher kings!  Isn’t this what socialism is all about—We are all equal, but some 

are more equal than others? 

We need to find more essays and material about this deliberate capture of curriculum by left-wing progressives for their 

political purposes.  I found an excellent article on the hijacking of art education for the purpose of social justice, etc..  

Very, very perceptive and scary. http://www.aristos.org/aris-10/hijacking.htm   

Of course, science, math, literature are already seeing social justice themes but I haven’t seen any articles (good 

references) as persuasive as the above art article. 

Am I a conspiracy freak?  I don’t think so.  I see the progressive agenda being actualized everywhere.  Progressives are 

about a number of things, but their main thing is uniformity.  NO CHOICES.  That’s why they love government 

monopoly education.   

* Betrayed, the blog sounds like a great place to visit.  This is their write-up: 

Betrayed – Why Public Education Is Failing http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/ 

Betrayed is an online chat forum for parents, teachers and community members to offer their thoughts on what’s wrong 

with public education and how to make it work better for the students…Help teachers and parents take back the classroom 

from those who have stolen it.