Dear Editor:
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s campaign to kill the Foundation Skills Assessment test is not about little Johnny’s education.
It is all about who controls our education system, the B.C. teachers union or the B.C. government.
The BCTF sees the FSA as an intrusion on their turf, and it does not want B.C. teachers to be evaluated by virtue of little Johnny’s performances in the classroom.
That B.C. principals and vice-principals have demanded the Education Minister throw in the towel on the testing is an indication that the government has lost control.
The B.C. government has a duty and responsibility to demonstrate in a tangible way how the public school system is doing. Right now, that method is the Foundation Skills Assessment, a form of which is used around the world.
Until an alternative that is deemed more effective in measuring learning can be found, the B.C. government should keep what it has.
Like all other employers, the government also needs to develop a program that will be used to perform a comprehensive evaluation of the teacher effectiveness in the classroom.
B.C. teachers are caught: A union that insists they must be members of the union to be allowed teach in our public schools, and a government that does not recognize their constitutional right to chose whether or not they want to be associated with that union, by virtue of becoming members.
Because of that compulsory membership, the union has an incredible lock on the teachers, who are obliged to walk in step with what has become an insensitive and powerful union, when all they ever wanted to do was practice their chosen profession and help our children get the best education possible.
To allow the BCTF to spend millions of dollars lobbying parents while undermining our public education system is irresponsible to say the least. That money would be better spent bringing our public education system into the 21st century.
We should be reminded that while it is tempting to blame the BCTF for the failure of our education system to perform, it was our Premier Gordon Campbell and his MLAs who gave the BCTF the tools it needed to hi-jack our education system.
They have allowed the BCTF to collect about 40 million dollars a year from its members, and the union uses this money to fight the government of the day and to lobby the parents and the media.
At the end of the day, B.C. teachers are right about one thing — the Liberal government has been negligent in ensuring our children received the education that we as taxpayers paid dearly for.
It allowed the B.C. teachers union to destroy our education system.
Andy Thomsen
Summerland