New education minister faces a full agenda

Avery 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, he or she 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 much less job security for senior public servants. I hope that inertia will not last too 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 the issue of relationships within the system.

Politically, the connection between boards of school trustees and government needs a major session of relationship counselling. An incoming minister will need at least to recognize the troublesome differences and the causes of stress on the relationship between public education’s local and provincial elected bodies.

The same could be said for the severely fractured relationships between the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation and government. While there will be inevitable differences of opinion about conflicting interests between the BCTF and government, the bitterness and profound distrust that have arisen over recent years have served nobody well — not parents, not kids and not teachers.

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

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

In 1972, the newly elected 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 B.C. Liberal governments, while critical of school boards to the point of firing some, made no move to improve their own relationship with school-district CEOs.

There was a time, even after local employment, 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, resulting in a loss of confidence and trust on both ends of the phone line.

A restoration of that connection would be beneficial to both government and school districts.

Changes and updates in the area of 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 in the system, 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, a loose connection between education planners and teacher-training institutions, and even outdated school and classroom design.

School and classroom design has changed relatively little since the 1960s, while the world has changed. That change includes technological pedagogical approaches that can be delivered effectively by teachers.

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 — teachers, parents, trustees and even politicians themselves — defeats new ideas every time.

Now a new government, with the wind at its back, has the opportunity to consider the implications of what to do and 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.