What's Changed?

I had a fascinating conversation with a friend, colleague, and mentor last night.  He has been retired for a while now from education and doesn't miss the politics of it all.  He still likes to keep up to date with what's going on and asked a fairly simple question that unfortunately does not have a simple answer.

We were discussing the opposing views of education funding.  The Ministry of Education says that they have been and continue to increase the amount of money that goes into education; the BCTF describes on-going underfunding and the resulting issues, most notably increased class sizes and changing compositions in those classes.  His question was, "are kids doing worse in school now because of  class sizes?"  See, a seemingly simple question with a not-so-simple answer.  It seems to boil down to how you answer it.  Our grad rates are at an all-time high - more students staying in school and graduating, scholarship results are up, and provincial exam results seem to be holding, as are FSA results at grades 4 and 7.  In Sooke our aboriginal student success rate is above the provincial average.  By these measures it would appear that things are holding or improving, but that would be a simplistic answer.

The deeper answer is that we have dedicated, caring teachers who continue to struggle daily with the impact of more students, greater diversity, and fewer resources to do the job.  It is because of these teachers and there unrelenting desire to ensure the success of their students that we continue to get the results that we do.  Teachers are notorious for taking on more and more in support of their students.  The worry is that these gifted and caring individuals will burn themselves out and move on to easier, less demanding careers, retire early, or simply quit.

I'm not sure where we go from here, but it does seem clear that we have to do what we can to support the most important element in education - our teachers.