New education minister faces full agenda

A very full public-education agenda will face the person who becomes B.C.’s new minister of education.

It’s hard to see how the new government, based on her experience and reputation within the system, could overlook Victoria-Beacon Hill NDP MLA Carole James — but perhaps I overstep my boundaries.

Whoever becomes minister of education will be walking a tightrope, given the uncertainty of the future of an untested minority government.

Changes of government always tend to freeze the public service until the dust has settled, and this turnover brings even less policy predictability and less job security for senior public servants.

I hope that inertia will not last long, because there is much to be done, and public education has heard a lot of words but seen not nearly enough follow-through.

Besides curriculum and instruction, a new minister will certainly be looking at relationships within the system.

Politically, the connection between boards of school trustees and government needs a major session of relationship counselling.

The same could be said for the relationship between the BC Teachers’ Federation and government. While there will continue to be differences between the two, the bitterness and profound distrust that have arisen over recent years have served nobody well.

Worse still, the ongoing “education wars” have eroded public confidence in public education.

School district superintendents would be next in line for realignment of their role, standing as they do between government and their employers, the school boards.

In 1972, the new NDP government decided to hand over its representatives in school districts, the superintendents, to the impulses of locally elected and sometimes inexperienced boards. Since then, the relationship between the chief executive officers and the governing boards has slowly deteriorated.

A succession of BC Liberal governments made no move to improve their own relationship with schooldistrict CEOs.

There was a time when superintendents could, with confidence, call directly to the deputy minister or assistant deputy minister and discuss provincial policy as it affected individual school-district operations, and subsequently advise their trustees. That open communication has not existed for some time.

Changes and updates in curriculum and instruction will be close to the top of a new minister’s list of priorities. B.C.’s widely announced education plan was well received, and pockets of innovative practice were publicized, along with talk of a new K-12 innovation strategy.

In practice, however, the plan has been sporadically implemented and has been hindered by inadequate updating opportunities for teachers and even outdated classroom design.

School and classroom design has changed little since the 1960s. We know more about how kids learn best and the value of active learning. The notion of tailoring learning material to individual student needs and learning styles was identified 30 years ago by the last royal commission. Those ideas are still waiting for full implementation.

Effective change and innovation are difficult in public education. Suddenly announced change that scares everybody defeats new ideas every time.

Now a new government has the opportunity to consider where to go next with a very good existing education system.

Let’s hope the new minister will have both the long-game support and confidence of government, as well as the experience and the skills needed to engage with the system at every level while getting on with the job at hand.

Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools. He wrote this for the Victoria Times Colonist.