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The Rashomon of Education Funding
Cut People are now asking: Was BC education minister Shirley Bond lying when she said education funding had been increased instead of it being cut? The education industry, the media and the Opposition were saying that the mid-year funding formula change resulted in a funding cut, while Bond said BC?s overall funding to education had been increased. What both sides said are correct, but they?re not talking about the same thing. What the critics referred to is the provincial funding for kindergarten to grade 12, i.e. the FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) grant. This grant supports the operation of our public schools, from the payrolls of educators, to administration, running of the schools, etc., but it does not include summer school. What Bond said is that BC?s overall funding for education has been increased (FTE grant is only one of the items in the overall funding and there are other items like infrastructural items like building new schools or anti-earthquake renovation, internet learning, private school funding, etc.). Rick Humphreys, the Deputy Secretary-Treasurer of the Richmond School District, has released a report recently and it clearly illustrates that most of school districts across the province received less funding after the funding formula change. The figures he used are from the Ministry of Education and the result shows that in the 2007/2008 school year, the total FTE grant funding and the FTE grant per student enrolment have been cut. The report compares the funding which school districts would have received in the beginning of the school year under the previous formula and the funding school districts would receive under the new formula. It reveals that the majority of the school districts across BC receive less FTE funding from the ministry. In total, the FTE funding is reduced by $3.6 million, while the average grant per FTE enrolment is reduced from $8,058 to $7,963, i.e. $95 less per student. Among all the school districts, the urban districts get bigger cuts: School District / FTE Grant Difference / FTE Enrolment / Change per FTE Enrolment Vancouver / -$2.98m / +606 / -$144 Richmond / -$2.65m / +49 / -$138 Coquitlam / -$1.4m / +294 / -$121 Surrey / -$6.34m / -116 / -$87 Burnaby / -$0.92m / +113 / -$77 North Vancouver / -$1.7m / +88 / -$150 Abbotsford / -$1.53m / +97 / -$123 The Ministry of Education?s FTE funding cut directly affects the public K-12 education our kids receive in school. Under the pressure of inflation, pay and pension hike for teachers, administrators and school workers, rather than increasing funding, the ministry has cut the funds to our schools. No wonder our education industry is furious. Bond often said that student enrolment reduction led to a funding cut, but the above figures show that all the districts listed except Surrey had an increase of enrolment between the beginning of the school year and the time after the change in funding formula, but the funding that the districts and per student enrolment received has been reduced. So was Bond lying? Not exactly. It is because what the education minister was comparing was student number enrolments in 2006/07 and in 2007/08, whereas the enrolment increases shown above refer to the differences before and after the introduction of the funding formula change in this school year, 2007/08. Bond was asked about the consequence of the funding formula change mid-year in 2007/08, and her answer was that the number of student enrolments in 2007/08 is less than the year before. Okay, let?s compare the school years of 2006/07 and 2007/08. The result shows that the ministry?s overall FTE funding to school districts has been reduced $163 million. Although enrolment reduction is one of the factors, if we compare the average FTE funding per student in these two years, there?s clearly a cut. In 2006/07, the average FTE funding per enrolment was $8,182. It dropped to $7,963 in 2007/08, meaning a reduction of $219 (or 2.7%) per student. That, multiplied by 541,182, the current number of students in BC, results in a reduction totaling $118 million. If the media don?t want to be fooled again, next time they ask Ms. Bond a question about funding, their questions need to be more precise, e.g. 1) Is the total FTE funding school districts receive in 2007/08 less than what they were supposed to receive in the beginning of the school year, prior to the change in funding formula? 2) Is the total grant per FTE Enrolment in 2007/08 less than that of the year before? Lying and misleading are different: a lie tells an untruth and a misleading remark is made up of facts. But in this case, their purposes are very much the same. In quotes - what they're saying this week On the ongoing political corruption trial following the raids on the Legislature Why won't the Campbell government come clean? "In my view that should end the government's fight to keep these emails off the record. This case has gone on for 4 years, it involves allegations of political corruption, it's connected to the sale of the government railroad and it started with a raid on the Legislature Buildings. If this evidence, this stack of documents, together could affect the question of guilt or innocence in the case - and the judge said it could - then it should be part of the evidence and if the government continues to fight to keep this evidence off the record, as they have been doing, I think you're going to hear allegations of political cover-up." "The judge's statement yesterday, her assessment that these [emails] are critical to the case is going to make it very very hard for the government to make the case that they should be kept out." - Vaughn Palmer, View from Victoria (CNKW), Feb. 1, 2008 On the $85 million settlement of the Bill 29 debacle Premier Campbell breaks a promise? Say it isn't so! "Gordon Campbell promised, running for office, he wouldn't do this. He specifically promised the HEU he wouldn't do this in their newspaper: I don't believe in tearing up contracts" -- and then he did. So he outrageously, and against good advice from his own officials, tore up those contracts -- and the result is massive legal bills for the government, we don't know what that will all cost, and an $85 million bill for taxpayers. This is Gordon Campbell's doing." - Vaughn Palmer, Cutting Edge of the Ledge (CNKW), Feb. 1, 2008 The Liberals have treated just about everyone harshly "But the settlement still stands as a reminder of how
harshly the Liberals treated thousands of female, lower echelon workers in
their first term. - Les Leyne, Times Colonist, Jan. 31, 2008 On the Premier's latest pet project -- his bio-energy plan Open -- in a secretive kind of way "Premier Gordon Campbell travelled to the centre of
the province Thursday to announce his latest strategy, a plan to turn
waste into electricity. - Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun, Feb. 1, 2008 Finally, truth in advertising "But you will be happy to learn that authors of Thursday's publicity brochure have managed to rustle up a catchy title for this enterprise: 'Manure to power.' "Has a nice ring, doesn't it? Maybe the Liberals should adopt it as their re-election slogan." - Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun, Feb. 1, 2008 On the Premier's forestry roundtable What people in forest-dependent communities already knew "And while the government will point to lots of
funding announcements and initiatives like the round table, the fact
remains that the Liberals' [forestry] policies over the last seven years
haven't worked." On plans to give income assistance recipients socks and hats Government shows its true priorities "... it really makes me angry that the government has let welfare degenerate so much that people can actually be bribed with things that they should have enough money to buy." - Jean Swanson, Raise the Rates, Times Colonist, Feb. 1, 2008 On the rapidly increasing transit fares Tell it to your old boss "I think we should really be moving towards free transit... if we want people to use transit we should make it free." -
Christy Clark, CKNW, Jan. 28,
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