Funding Cuts in B.C. Education
Years ago amid great fanfare Gordon Campbell made a promise to make B.C. the best educated and most literate jurisdiction in the world.
His grade? Whether one assigns an "F" for fail, or "Did Not Complete", the result is the same.
The recently minted education minister gets to wear the problem but won't have the clout to do anything about it.
B.C. schools face cuts to libraries, lunch programs (Globe and Mail, Wednesday Sept. 9, 2009) Maintenance, extracurriculars had to be cut to protect core funding, Education Minister says -- Ms. MacDiarmid said this is an "unusual year" and suggested money will be found if emergency repairs are needed. "The ministry is not suggesting that maintenance never be done again," she said. "If student safety could be in jeopardy, clearly we will work with the school districts."
I wonder if Ms. MacDiarmid, a medical doctor, believes that seismically unsafe schools - more than 300 in the province, almost 100 in Vancouver alone, some at high risk of collapse in a major earthquake - puts "student safety" in "jeopardy"?