Dear Editor:
As both a school board trustee (in Burnaby) and a public school teacher (in Surrey), I'd like to declare my personal conflicts in the current debate over the direction of public education in B.C.
My conflicts are with choices that undervalue, underfund, understaff and undermine our education system. My conflicts are with decisions that use brushstrokes like "more flexibility" and "net zero" to paint our schools in an increasingly corporate image - where results are measured in short-term economic savings, not longterm academic and social success.
My conflicts are with priorities that have reduced government spending on education from 26.36 per cent of the provincial pie, when I was in high school 20 years ago, to 15.34 per cent as of 2010. My conflicts are with ledger sheets that have us on track to becoming an educationally have-not province, with per-pupil funding in B.C. now markedly lower than in Alberta and Ontario. My conflicts are with tax dollars being spent on government ads that have insulted the professionalism of teachers to the point that even the most passionate of volunteer coaches are painfully deciding to walk off the playing field for the first time in their careers.
And so, having now declared these conflicts, I find that I have no choice but to do the honourable thing: raise my voice more than ever before in support of our students, parents, teachers and anyone who shares the view that education is the most prudent investment a society can make.
Harman Pandher, Burnaby
