Wednesday, May 1, 1991 - North Shore News - 9

Jeachers need a lesson in economics

WAS AMUSED recently to see old Harvey Kirck’s raddled
features peering at me from a B.C. Teachers’ Federation

advertisement.

He was pointing a finger, too,
something like those 1914-18
“Your Country Needs You” pas-
ters.

The words put into this latter-
day Lord Kitchener’s mouth were:
“The future of our children de-
pends on the quality of educa-
tion.’ A startling pronouncement.
Oh well. Retired TV announcers
have to do something.

The ad was typical of BCTF
propaganda, for it contained
mumbo-jumbo indicating that to
restrict teachers’ salaries by means
of Bill 82 would signal the Decline
of the West.

You would think that the BCTF
is not really after money. It is a
kind of Salvation Army. It loves
the kids. Education is what it is
concerned about. Or so it says.

The increases the school boards
have been granting to the already
pamperted teachers add to the
spoil. In North Van, they amount
to 14.8% over two years. Hence
Bill 82, which allows a rollback.
Hence also the kid-loving teacher
walkouts and ‘‘study sessions.”

Let’s take a look at what teach-
ers in North Van are getting.

New teachers — the 2quivaient
of apprentices in other trades —
get $22,227 per year. Senior
teachers with 12 years and a
master’s degree get $53,303.
Hardiy begging bow! stuff. Yet
the whining would do credit to the
poor of Calcutta.

If there’s no rollback, and
counting automatic increments,
which are additional, by Jan.1,
1992 the apprentices will be get-

550,000 people
work hard to

protect Canada’s
endangered species.

CYCLES.

Doug
Collins

ON THE OTHER HAND

ting $50,856, and senior teachers
$61,086.

Even if there is a rotlback, they
won’t be starving. Administrators’
money, already in the strato-
sphere, will also increase. And this
for a back-breaking school year of
195 days.

Mention working days and
teachers will tell you about their
life and hard times; about how
they sweat at university in the
holidays to improve the lot of the
students,

It’s mostly bilge. But even when
it is true let them not sob on the
public shoulder about it. {t’s their
own lot they are improving.

Are our teachers badly off in
comparison with those of other
provinces? A study done by the
B.C. School Trustees Association

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shows that in 1989/90 Vancouver
teachers were at the top of the
heap.

The minimum for those with
B.A.s in education was $31,234 a
year, the highest in the country,
The maximum was $46,614, which
was second highest.

The provincial average for all
teachers, including benefits, is
$51,000. And the benefits include
pensions of up to 70% of salaries.
The teachers contribute to those,
but you contribuie more.

Then, too, the BCTF is always
howling about class sizes, meaning
the teaching of fewer kids. Fewer
kids mean more teachers. More
teachers mean more BCTF dues.
And there is no evidence that
smaller classes mean better results.
There is evidence that they mean
less work for teachers.

The results produced by this
fat-cat system are far from
wonderful. We all know about
students not being able to
distinguish a noun from a verb.
And a survey covering 15 jurisdic-
tions that appeared recently in
Atlantic Monthly magazine show-
ed that B.C. Grade 12 students
rank last in functions-caiculus,
14th in geometry, and 12th in ad-
vanced algebra.

The BCTF will probably bring
Old Harv on again to complain it
ain’t their fault. It’s the system’s.
But they are the system. Many of
them sit on neighboring school
boards (a scandal! that makes Fan-
tasy Gardens seem like small pie),
and their moles and co-
conspirators infiltrated the educa-

‘tion ministry long ago.

That's why competition in the
classroom is a bad word and why
“negative assessments”’ are out of
fashion. The Age of Aquarius

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IKES, HEAD FOR THE SKYLINE
MONGOOSE.

to roll back wages to repair the
harm it did through its own
weakness.

Weakness is the mainstay of
this mess. | asked Marg Jessup,
chairman of the North Van
School Board and a nice lady, just
why North Van teachers had been
granted increases of nearly 15%.
Her reply was that other boards
had done the same.

Follow the leader. It doesn’t
inatter where to.

lives. Hippydom inhevits the
earth. For that the Socreds have
themselves to blame. They have
been snowed by weirdos. And
they were dumb enough to make
strikes legal instead of telling
teachers they could go pick ber-
ries.

So we come full circle. Scan-
dalously, teachers walk off the job
and hold the schools up to ran-
som. Hypocritically, they claim it
is allin the students’ interest.

Confusedly, Victoria now wants .

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