I find Tina Couisin’s comment a bit strange:

For the past two weeks, teachers have staged rotating walk-outs at school districts around the province to press their contract demands. Last week it was revealed the BC Teachers Federation’s strike war chest is low on funds, news which Cousins says was suspected “We all knew that, but of course it’s always surprising. People are losing money, but realistically, $50 dollars a day, it’s not a lot of money and we have 41 thousand members so we knew the money was going to run out eventually.”

So far our teachers have been on strike with each teacher now being off the job for a total of days. 41,000 members at $50.00 per day times 2 days equals $4,100,000.00!!

The BCTF collects something like $74,000,000.00 each year from it’s members. Perhaps they need to review how much they pay their own staff and how much they spend on other issues, all seemingly without the ability to set or stay within a budget!!

Ummm since you are union illiterate Hart Guy court cases are expensive. That includes the cost of resolving greviences if they get that far. Not all union dues go to the strike fund. Do you think union staff work for minimum wage?

That guys sign needs an asterix:

*unless they are waiting for me, then its ok apparently

It will be interesting to see if all teachers are on the picket line in PG – it could be a 3-day weekend for many of them.

$74 million annually amounts to three quarters of a billion over ten years!

No chump change by any standards, this is serious money!

Hopefully the 74 million/year is an incorrect number?

How many of our MLAs send their kids to private schools ? If it’s more than half they have no skin in the game as it were . Is it a good idea to have a failed student like christy Clark negotiating with teachers . Could she be clouding her thinking with vendetta in mind ? She went to three prestiges universities around the world not getting a degree from any of them . Something is starting to really stink . our kids eduction is more important to future of our kids and province . If the MLAs for most part have their kids in private schools why would they care ? The tyee tried to ask that question about private schools with very little success . I wonder why ?

I wonder how much teaching will be accomplished with this BC Liberal strategy?

So the BC Liberals lockout teachers before school, recess, lunch, and after school and then apply to the LRB to make finals and report cards “essential service.” …..By locked out meaning no exams can be marked during these lockout periods and no report cards can be prepared, seems the only time available would be during actual classroom time. Of course the teacher haters can all claim that the teachers can take the work home with them and complete these two tasks there…nope, not even if the teacher has their own computer…..BCeSIS is the Provincial data base and when a teacher logs in users are tracked at what time and length they are on the system……under the lockout rules, logging in during the lockout times is a violation of the lockout and those teachers would then be open for disciplinary action….so not having access to the school computer and data systems makes these tasks impossible

If the BC Liberals succeed in getting their board appointed LRB to side with them on “essential service” there will be no doubt these two tasks will have to be completed during the only available time and that is in the classroom. Pretty obvious that will be taking valuable teacher time away from performing any lessons, any one on one, or any actual teaching.

Between the lockout, exams, and report card essential service looks to me like the BC Liberals strategy has the kids completely out for what is left of the school year?

Seems the BC Liberals lockout was not very well thought out as everywhere Fassbender turns his lockout creates problems he and his experts obviously never thought through.

Where is the queen bee with her bullhorn? Is this a swarm of rogue worker bees? Who will lead them in the requisite chant? The hive cannot allow worker bees to engage in any unsanctioned chanting.

Generally people seem to support the teachers, but do you really know how much they cost. Stats Can says 2.3 million people work in B.C. There’s 41,000 teachers, assume an average salary of $60,000.00 with benefits, and you’re looking at a payroll of about 2.5 billion dollars. That’s about $1,070.00 of every worker’s taxes goes to pay teachers. So when a teacher says, I want 15% more, they want $160.00 from all of us, including the rich doctors, and the guy working minimum wage. And when they say, they want to reduce class sizes – by even 1 student, that’s a 3% increase in wage cost, or another $32.00 from every one of us.
Now of course there’s corporate taxes, sales taxes as well, but it’s important to know on a per person basis, this isn’t chump change. And yes, you can point to government waste, and rightly so, but even if the government never wasted a penny, it would never come close to covering off what’s being asked for here. 50 years ago we were a country with lots of resources, a young population, and a fairly homogeneous society. My grade 3 class picture has 43 kids in it, all the same colour, all spoke English as a first language. Today’s classrooms reflect a different reality, and I don’t dispute the job is tougher, but with more of our population on fixed incomes, where do you want the money to come from? Or maybe, teachers will just have to do a tough job, with what they have, and if they don’t think it’s fair, move to Alberta, and we can hire some of the recent graduates who do want to do that tough job, for less.

Prince George writes:
$74 million annually amounts to three quarters of a billion over ten years!

No chump change by any standards, this is serious money!

Hopefully the 74 million/year is an incorrect number?

——————————————-
Hart Guy’s figures are way off base. he based his figure off of one person who said he paid $1,800 a year in union dues. The BCTF collects dues based on Full Time Equivalent positions. That works out to about 31,000 positions. Union dues are a percentage of a member’s salary, and not all salaries are the same. This sum is SIGNIFICANTLY less than what Hart Guy has calculated. In fact, it is less than half of what he has calculated.
Dues get spent in many ways. The BCTF has an office with a staff that provides a huge number of services to its members. These people are paid out of dues collected. There are educational programs that are run through the office for the assistance of members. The list of expenditures is quite extensive. There has also been a significant amount of money spent in court fighting to get illegally stripped contract language back into contract. This has been and continues to be a major concern for public school teachers across the province. It should be a concern for all union members across the province, but that is not always the case.
The former Premier said one thing about collectively bargained contracts, then got the current Premier – then the Education Minister – to do just the opposite to the contract in educations. The same happened in the health care sector. The BCTF is continuing to fight for this with considerably less funding than some pundits seem to think they have.

Thank you.

This problem of accountability is easily solved without speculation, Just have the BCTF publically post what the accountants say the federation brought in and how much was put out

Don’t think for one minute that teachers are stupid or have no idea when it comes to where their union dues go. Many are asking the hard questions regarding the amount of money in their war chests.
They need to stop trying to negotiate an element of the process that is hung up in court appeals. I say table the class size and composition portion of the bargaining and give the courts a chance to work through the appeals process. Make the negotiation strictly about the wage, cost of living, days off etc. and get a deal done on that particular function.
The BC government should stop funding private schools altogether. If a private school can’t operate on it’s own then they shouldn’t be in the business of educating people. I believe that this is a bigger issue than class size and composition. When the government needs to buy something they put it out to tender and usually pay the lowest price that they can get it for. They can’t use the same ideology when it comes to funding health care, education, roads etc.
You can’t send your kids to an expensive private school and moan about how bad the public system is when you’ve under-funded the system and made every teacher a special needs teacher regardless of their qualifications. I’m not chipping in with my tax dollars for any fat cat to send his kid to an uppity private school. You got money, go spend it and leave our tax dollars alone.

The BCTF is an industry in it self. If they are not causing 30 years of labor unrest, their point for being becomes muted. Can’t have that. The bureaucracy must be maintained.

So….As long as the government is only funding private schools 50%, private schools are going nowhere. They currently save the government hundreds of millions of dollars by not having to pay private teachers, all support staff, only half funding for students and upkeep of buildings.
If the government stopped funding private schools, most would close down! (most private schools do not charge 10-15 K for tuition, 2-3 grand at most). Who would pay for these new public teachers and students?? The tax payer! Am I wrong???

PGguy1234 – I see this private school argument often, and I’m not sure what you see different than I do. If SD 57 get’s $9,000.00 a student (and I’m not sure if that’s the right number), and funding for capital – like buildings, etc., a private school, whether it’s an upscale boarding school, or Cedars Christian school – get’s $4,500.00 per student – nothing else – no capital. The difference is made up by parents paying tuition. So the general taxpayer is better off by $4,500.00 plus they don’t have to build the school – because this kid isn’t in the public system costing $9,000.00, as well as a building to put him in.

So if we cut all funding to private schools, many of which are religious based and run on shoestring budgets, and those kids show up at public schools because their private school couldn’t run without the government cash – how do we win in all this? Seems now we got to lay out even more cash for education – cash parents use to voluntarily pay. Seems the only winner would be the BCTF because most private schools are non-union.

And I’m being sincere, I really want to know what it is I’m not understanding in all this, because to me, it seems a no brainer to keep private schools open.

If you can’t stand on your own 2 feet as a business educating rich kids than you’re in the wrong business. Fund the public system and forget about the private one.

I enrolled my children in a private school, paid the extra tuition fees on top of my tax dollars and I am far from a fatcat. I did this for the quality of the education and the fact that there was not an instruction day lost every other week for some lame reason, there was ample supervision before, during and after school and that the staff honestly smiled and waved to you without having a cardboard sign around the neck

PGguy1234 –

From BCTF website:
There are 72,014 students enrolled in 347 BC independent schools in 2010–11, representing 11% of all K–12 students. Of these students:
• 78% are in Group 1 independent schools, which are funded at 50% of the local school district’s per-student operating grant;
• 20% are in Group 2 independent schools, which are funded at 35% of the local district’s per-student operating grant;
• 2% are in schools that are not funded by the province.

The point, is how does shutting down the private system, help the public system. Currently – assuming $4,500.00 a kid, the province is paying the private system $300 million. If you shut down the private system, and gave the $300 million to the public school, they’d be screaming their heads off, because they’d have 72,000 kids to teach, with only $4,500 per kid, and no school buildings to put them in. So as I see it, the private system allows the government to reallocate $300 million to the public system.

The fact the private system may not be able to survive is not relevant, if by killing that system, you shoot yourself in the foot.

PGguy- I hear what you are saying but… MOST private schools, especially outside of downtown Van, are not full of rich kids which is why tuition is not 10 grand + in most schools. The kids I know who are in private school are certainly not rich kids! Far from it.
So, lets see…
Something like 70,000 kids in private school. Even if only half of these kids left for public schools tomorrow (which would occur if funding was cut from private schools) that’s $$$157,500,000 just in more funding from the government (35,000 x 4500 for full funding). AND that’s only for the new kids in the system, forget about paying more staff.
It’s a case of pay a little now so you don’t have to pay a lot later.

Ski- I agree. Like it or not, Private schools will be funded 50% for the foreseeable future, no more, no less. If thousands of students suddenly switched to public schools,IMO the government would decrease the funding per student because, where would the $ come from?? Less $ and more students means smaller wages for all involved in education.

SO I will apologize for the “Fat cat” moniker that I used. My point is that the reasons why people send their kids to private schools are usually their way of saying that they aren’t happy with the public schools. Whatever they base that decision on, I respect their rights to do so. Will the public schools get better by sending kids to private schools? I would say not. I wonder what the percentage of people sending their kids to private school have nothing to do with quality of the public system and have everything to do with being brought up with a religious background. That, in my opinion is a different animal. If you feel that your child should have some religious studies mixed in with their general education or if you sent your kid to a Christian school because the kids are nicer and there are less kids in each of the classes, that is not the fault of the teachers in the public system. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a teacher in any system public or private.

PGguy- I totally agree with your last points, its not the fault of the teachers and I fully support them!! From what I have seen and heard, teaching is one tough gig these days!

There seems to be a bit of finger pointing at the private schools!

I wonder….what would the debate be IF the private school’s educational performance was worse than the public school’s performance?

The way I see it, private schools cost ME less than the public schools do, so I don’t have a problem with them!

So, Hart Guy, for you it is all about the money. The kids education doesn’t come into it, just your pocketbook.

In another thread you focused on the large amounts of money involved to criticize what the teachers are asking for, pointing out that it would increase costs about $245,000,000 over four years (if I remember rightly). In another thread it has been pointed out that grants to private schools from government cost over $250,000,000 annually. That is where the money to pay teachers’ increases could come from without affecting your taxes at all. Simply decrease funding of private schools by one quarter of the current yearly amount and transfer it to the public system. After four years the full amount will have been provided without any impact on you. Doesn’t that make you happy?

I would also like to point out that the public system is required to provide a place for every student who wants one, right now, without that funding. If increased numbers of students were to transfer to the public system, surely one of the effects would be to stop the closing of schools from lack of students that we have seen so much of under the Liberals. However, I don’t think that transfer would be likely. After all, we are always told that private schooling is for the benefit of the students, not because the government pays half the cost.

If I were given the choice . I would like to see none of my tax dollars going to a bias point of view in private schools regardless of the stripe of political or religious vent . I also think it is criminal for us spend so little on our best and brightest by making it a race for them of cash or debt . I also find it strange that now that we have fewer kids and we are closing schools . People are whining about how much it costs but no one is mentioning that with fewer kids we should be able to spend much , much more on the treasures we have . The kids in our award winning schools have to practice on their own time and peg for money in front of the liquor store so they can win another trophy . What a country . The kids are the future . They need all the help they can get .

Ammonra, it’s always “all about the money”!!

Funny how the vast majority of increases to the Provincial Education Budget always seem to find it’s way directly into the pockets of the teachers. So much for “it’s all about the kids”.

Seriously, you have got to be kidding if you think this is all about the kids!

The approximate amount of $245,000,000.00 that I quoted was my estimation of the cost of the BCTF wage demands over the next 4 years. This is NOT the total wage costs over 4 years, it’s just the increase!!

You suggest that private schools should not receive any public funding. Why not?? The parents of private school students don’t get an exemption from paying Provincial School Taxes on their property tax bill. They pay school taxes, Shouldn’t their children’s schools get some of the money that the parents pay??

Parents of children in private school pay both provincial school taxes AND tuition for their children. Somewhere earlier today, I read that private schools only get 50% of the per student funding that public schools get, and some only get 35% or so (read Ski50’s post above).

Instead of criticizing my opinion and the figures that I post, perhaps you might want to direct some of your efforts to the ongoing B.S. that so many teachers and their supporters keep spouting!

I keep hearing that “it’s all about the kids”. Yeah, right!!

I keep hearing that teachers haven’t had a raise since 1998. Yeah, right!!

I keep hearing that the vast majority of classes exceed 30 students and that there is a huge number that exceed 40!! Yeah, right!!!

How many times have I stated Ammonra, that it would be nice to have the facts, all of the facts from both sides of these disputes!

You keep believing what the BCTF keeps telling you! Me, I want the facts!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q09HF5G5u3I&feature=youtu.be

BC Teachers do not make 60,000. They make on average 73,000 plus benefits of 18,000. That is a nice 91,000 ON AVERAGE. When we talk about payroll loading it is easy to see the AVERAGE teacher costs us about 100,000 a year.

Of the 2700 teachers that graduate every year about 1000 find jobs, leaving a pool of many thousands seeking work.

Drop classroom sizes, drop salaries, increase the quality of education.

In Norway teachers make half of what they do in BC and their average class size is 10.

In a previous discussion about the use of pressure tactics, as a form of bullying, I asked; who was the first to use threats and pressure tactics? Of course Hart Guy, and the other blind lemming Lib-Con government supporters, thought the 10 % reduction in teachers wages were a result of them not doing 10% of their work. Which is wrong of course, and does not even answer my question; “who was the first to use threats and bully? The answer to that question is simple; it was this Lib-Con government that was the first to use threats and bullying tactics!

“BC’s lead negotiator for BC Public School Employers’ Association Peter Cameron “threatened” to roll back wages five percent for teachers if they don’t agree to a new deal. That rollback would escalate to ten percent if their job action increases to Phase Two.”

http://www.cknw.com/2014/05/16/bc-3/

Imagine that!!! Using threats and bullying the teacher right from the start; take this deal or we will “punish you”! How about treating the other side with some decorum of respect and civility? But that’s the Lib-Cons for you; no respect, and no class!!! No wonder these teachers are looking at a full blown strike, it’s time to stand up to this bully government!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q09HF5G5u3I&feature=youtu.be

BC Teachers do not make 60,000. They make on average 73,000 plus benefits of 18,000. That is a nice 91,000 ON AVERAGE. When we talk about payroll loading it is easy to see the AVERAGE teacher costs us about 100,000 a year.

Of the 2700 teachers that graduate every year about 1000 find jobs, leaving a pool of many thousands seeking work.

Drop classroom sizes, drop salaries, increase the quality of education.

In Norway teachers make half of what they do in BC and their average class size is 10.

Hart Guy said, “The approximate amount of $245,000,000.00 that I quoted was my estimation of the cost of the BCTF wage demands over the next 4 years. This is NOT the total wage costs over 4 years, it’s just the increase!!”

Yes, precisely my point. The increase is less than the yearly amount of $250,000,000 given to private schools, so that money could pay for the increase for teachers and still leave money over for something else, and it would not increase the costs to your pocketbook by a single cent.

Why shouldn’t private schools receive government funding? They are private schools, public tax money should be spent on the public school system, not used to subsidize a competing school system which is all too often religiously based. Public money should not subsidize religion, no matter how obliquely. We have a separation between church and state in Canada. Tell me, why should atheists be compelled to give money to religious based schools so the children of religious parents can be taught about their religion? That’s the responsibility of the parents and their churches. Let them pay for it, not me.

Grrrr, why does my computer or this site flicker, causing me to lose my response to ammonra??

Will have to try again! Stay tuned ammonra!!

AS for your Peeps, BeingHuman or whatever you call yourself now, I had to work late the other night and I wasn’t able to respond to your “not building schools” balony before the thread closed to comments. Don’t worry, I saved my comment and I’ll paste it below in my next response. Then I’ll get back to my response to ammonra!

Ok BeingHuman, Peeps or whatever, here’s the response that I had tried to post for you a few nights ago regarding your ridiculous comment that this government isn’t building schools, they are only closing them!

Here goes…

Ok BeingHuman, formerly People#1 aka Peeps, if you were 1/10th as smart as you think you are, you’d be scary!!

For your information, I used schools, books, playground equipment, etc. as examples of all the things required for “education” other than just teacher salary and benefit packages!

Speaking of building schools, you state that “everyone and their dog knows this government has been closing schools and not building them! Over 24 of the schools, in School District 57 alone, have been closed since 2001. Over 200 schools in the province have been closed during that time as well! And Hart Guy talks about building new schools? What new schools compared to the massive closing of so many Hart Guy???”

Sorry that you and your dog don’t know what you have been talking about Peeps, but this government has been building schools. If fact, right here in Prince George, we recently opened and now utilize a fancy new school! Have you not heard of Duchess Park Secondary School?? It opened on March 16, 2010!!

I took only a few minutes to search out the following information and links for you Peeps. Hope you actually have a look at what my very quick internet search revealed, including the following:

From the Surrey School District website:

Founded in 1906, the Surrey School District provides educational programs and services to more than 70,000 students in Surrey, White Rock and the rural area of Barnston Island.

Elementary schools: 101
Secondary schools: 19
Learning centres: 5
Adult education centres: 4

All secondary schools are relatively new; 13 were built and six were substantially renovated in the last 20 years.

There have been 24 new elementary schools built in the district over the past 15 years.”

Hmmm, Surrey is in B.C. isn’t it, Peeps??

Here’s an article from 2011 that might interest you Peeps, “Nine new schools to be built in B.C”:

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/10/31/42296/

Here’s another link, this one showing Completed Capital Projects (1996 – 2013) in the Vancouver School Board:

http://www.vsb.bc.ca/sites/default/files/shared/Status%20of%20Capital%20Projects%20Map%20%28updated%20Sept%202013%29.pdf

Peeps, you also complained about all of the schools that were closed. With declining enrollments, what would you expect? Come on Peeps, you seriously can’t be that stupid, can you??

Only a left wing “wingnut” like you would think that it’s a terrific idea to have half empty schools all over the place. I don’t think that it is a very responsible use of tax dollars to operate numerous half empty, or less than half empty schools! But you seem to think that it’s fine to heat and maintain a building and have a Principal, Support Staff, Custodial Staff and of course Teaching Staff on the payroll, all for the sake of continuing to operate a school with far fewer students than it was built for when it makes far more sense to combine student populations into one school while closing another!

You suggest that I have absolutely no clue on how the public education system operates, yet you fail to grasp even the most basic financial management skills! Tell me Peeps, are you secretly the BCTF Treasurer that has frittered away all of the BCTF Strike Fund! Way to go!!”

Peeps, it’s late, I’d like to continue to poke holes in your feeble arguments, but I’m tired, tomorrow is a long day and I need to hit the hay. I will leave you with one last comment concerning my ability to have a clue about anything and everything:

“I’m intelligent enough to realize that I’m some time’s not be as smart as I think I am, but I’m also smart enough to realize that I’m more often than not, more intelligent than the people questioning my level of intelligence! “

St George’s private school in Vancouver tuition for grade 1-7 $18,000 per year!

Hey Ben, we did not mind Gus’s use of band width on this site, because even though his posts were frequent and sometimes lengthy, at least they made some sense, and were often well researched and fact based.

Hart Guy’s comment frequency and length are creeping up there, I wouldn’t mind that so much if his comments were above grade school level, but alias, they are not even close to gus material.

Is there not a Dr. Seuss blog that we can refer Hart Guy to?

hey look, peeps is back to personal attacks when his argument is shut down…

As for building a “new” school; Duchess Park Secondary… ummm we closed the old Duchess Park to open the new one… simpleton! That called replacing a school… groan… hammers head against a brick wall.

You were the one that stated the lions share of the Provincial Education budget was going towards teachers salaries and benefits instead of building news schools, buying playground equipment, etc. A hair brained comment, based on no facts what so ever. Every time you comment, you show us your ignorance. You of all people, should be support our teachers and championing a better public education system Hart Guy, you are the walking talking proof that we desperately need it!

Beeps, Peeps, whatever, you whined about this government not building schools! I provided ample evidence to the contrary and here you are, still whining!!

Sometimes Peeps, I really do wish that this site has a Mute Button, haha!!

As far as my level of intelligence, well I am 100% confident that I can hold my ground with you, my “grade school level” against your “grade school level”! ;-)

And by the way, I have never felt the need to run and hide, only to reappear under a new moniker, like some posters eh Peeps!!

Hmmm…new to this comments section-very curious of who you feel is worthy of $74,000 a year Hart Guy?

Y, it’s time to hit the hay, so a very quick comment to you as I had a very long day today and expect another one tomorrow!

Some teachers are worth every bit of that $74,000.00 per year figure that you have posted, but some teachers aren’t worth $7.40!!

The BCTF thinks they are all worth more than $74,000.00. I disagree!!

This is an opinion site and that’s my opinion!

Here you go ammonra!

The $240,000,000.00 figure that I posted was the total additional cost to taxpayers for the BCTF’s current wage demands over their proposed 4 year term. This is new money in wages, this is over and above their existing wages over the 4 year term. This also does not factor in their addition wage demands for a Cost of Living increase each year!

I simply, try as I might, cannot understand your logic in suggesting that we use the current private school stipend to pay for increases for public school teachers and not increase costs to my pocket by a single cent??

The children attending private school live here in BC, just like the children attending public school. Their parents pay property (school) taxes, just like the parents of children attending public schools. The private school taxpaying parents certainly have a right to expect that some of their hard-earned tax dollars will be used to support their children’s education. As it currently stands and as pointed out in ski50’s post at 3:40 p.m., the BCTF’ s website indicates that there are 72, 014 students enrolled in 347 BC independent schools in 2010–11, representing 11% of all K–12 students:
• 78% are in Group 1 independent schools, which are funded at 50% of the local school district’s per-student operating grant;
• 20% are in Group 2 independent schools, which are funded at 35% of the local district’s per-student operating grant;
• 2% are in schools that are not funded by the province.

All of these children are costing the taxpayer less, except for the tax paying parents of these children. The parents of private school students pay tuition to offset the lower per pupil funding that private schools receive from the government!

Yet in spite of the fact that the per pupil funding formula is less for private schools, and in spite of the fact that the parents must pay tuition to have their children attend private school, and in spite of the fact that parents must fund raise to provide capital costs to private schools, in spite of all of that, many parents and not necessarily “wealthy” parents are making the choice to pay tuition and raise funds for all capital costs. For reasons why, please refer to proudtobepg’s post from 3:08 which states:

“I enrolled my children in a private school, paid the extra tuition fees on top of my tax dollars and I am far from a fatcat. I did this for the quality of the education and the fact that there was not an instruction day lost every other week for some lame reason, there was ample supervision before, during and after school and that the staff honestly smiled and waved to you without having a cardboard sign around the neck”.

Ammonra, I make a point of reading every prior post on a thread both before and as I prepare a post of my own. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Peeps, BeingHuman, er what’s his face doesn’t bother to do so. Peeps just blurts out any sort of reactionary response!! You strike me as far more intelligent and rational than Peeps, so I think that I’m safe in assuming that in general you tend to take a more disciplined approach. However, in this matter, I can’t support your premise!

In my opinion, the BCTF would like to see the private schools abolished, with all students being redirected to the public school system. While this would result in a far greater hit to the public purse than the private school system and current funding formula, the BCTF wouldn’t and couldn’t care less because it would result in a drastic increase in teacher staffing levels in the public school system and the BCTF would benefit from a dramatic increase in the dues that it collects.

Obviously the BCTF is incapable of managing the $70 million or so that they currently collect in dues each year, so the more money to the, the better, right?

So why should we shut down or try to shut down the private schools or the funding to private schools. The fact of the matter is, we shouldn’t! After all, as ski50 posted at 3:40 p.m.:

“The point, is how does shutting down the private system, help the public system. Currently – assuming $4,500.00 a kid, the province is paying the private system $300 million. If you shut down the private system, and gave the $300 million to the public school, they’d be screaming their heads off, because they’d have 72,000 kids to teach, with only $4,500 per kid, and no school buildings to put them in. So as I see it, the private system allows the government to reallocate $300 million to the public system.”

The BCTF and it’s supporters keep crying about “democracy”! Ammonra, what gives you the right to deny a parent the right to send their child to a private school and PAY EXTRA to do this, while at the same time force them to pay taxes to support BOTH systems, the public school system to a much greater degree and the private school system, to a much lesser degree?

Good night, sleep tight!

Hart Guy writes:

I make a point of reading every prior post on a thread both before and as I prepare a post of my own.

And then he writes:

Obviously the BCTF is incapable of managing the $70 million or so that they currently collect in dues each year

———————————————–

Sorry to make you eat your own words, but you would be incorrect on your personal assertion of infallibility. Please refer to my earlier post at 11:31 a.m. if you need clarification as to what I am referring. Don’t worry, we all make mistakes.

Some more information for you:

You will not get updates regarding the state of negotiations between the BCTF and BCPSEA because they signed an agreement last March to not bargain in the media. The government then fired the board of BCPSEA and replaced it with a single solitary member, partially because of this issue. All updates regarding bargaining are given to members only behind a secure web portal. If you wish to be privy to this information you can follow these easy steps: 1. Go to university and get a Bachelors’ Degree; 2. Get an Education Degree (or a Professional Teaching Certificate) 3. Get hired by a public school district to teach in that district; 4. sign your union card with the BCTF, and then, after a 5-7 year process, you too can have access to all of this information. Or…become part of the BCPSEA bargaining structure. Choose your poison, as that is the only way you will get the ‘inside scoop.’ Speaking from an informed position – I have read reports from both sides – they are neither informative nor full of ground breaking and earth shattering information.

Thank you.

billy68, still awake, too much on my mind regarding tomorrow’s workday, so I may as well respond!

Thanks for pointing out my error and making me eat my words. Obviously, I was using a lower average salary figure than what might be correct and I may have been provided incorrect information regarding how much BCTF members pay in dues. If you are privy to how much the actual average salary is for a BCTF FTE, please provide concrete proof so that I can get all of my opinions and numbers correct.

As you seem to have the inside track to the BCTF, perhaps you could also provide accurate up-to-date information regarding the dues collected each year over the past few years.

You state: “Speaking from an informed position – I have read reports from both sides – they are neither informative nor full of ground breaking and earth shattering information.”

Perhaps you can provide us with details of the as you say neither informative nor ground breaking and earth shattering information?? That way, we can all decide for ourselves how neither informative nor ground breaking and earth shattering the information is. We pay the bills, shouldn’t we have all the information?

I have on many occasions stated that I would like the facts, the facts from both sides. You suggest that you have the facts, so let’s have them!

Lastly, if you have read any of my previous posts over the past several months, you will see that on many, many occasions, I have stated “I might be wrong”, “Correct me if I am wrong”, “In my opinion” or something along that line!
I’m no smarter or dumber than anyone else here and I’m just fine with that because while I know that I’m not always right, I also know that I’m never always wrong!!

But, (as I’ve said many times) I could be wrong!! ;-)