B.C. kids not doing well on education basics

Re: “Schools will build our future,” editorial, May 6. Despite what we’d like to believe, B.C. kids are not doing very well when it comes to the basics of education.

Irrespective of how B.C. students placed on international assessments, one needs to examine their scores and compare them with previous years. Results indicate a significant decline in student performance in math skills since 2003, and science performance has remained stagnant since 2006.

Translation: Kids a generation ago had a much stronger grasp of their foundational facts than children do today. This, despite an increase in education funding and skyrocketing increases in tutoring enrolment.

The abysmal decline of elementary-level foundational skills is truly shocking. Poorly written curricula are to blame, and you can thank the gross incompetence of misinformed bureaucrats and their slavish commitment to educational fads for the decline.

A historical review of B.C. curricula confirms a consistent and negligent dumbing down of facts, all in pursuit of inquiry/21stcentury learning. The latest BCEd plan is the worst one yet.

Parents have been filling the void through “after-dinner math sessions” and tutoring centres, thus increasing the gap between the haves and have nots, creating a two-tier public-education system.

In order to prepare our children for an unknown future, as we have done in every previous generation since the beginning of time, we must ensure that our children have a firm foundation. This is what is sorely lacking in our education system today. We’ve known what the problem is for more than a decade. Tara Houle North Saanich