OPINION: Plan B needed for Bill 64

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/06/2021 (1424 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Summer is here and Bill 64 won’t resurface until October 2021. If Bill 64 becomes a law, its implementation will not begin until July 2022; that is, on the cusp of the 2022-2023 school year. Manitoba’s next provincial election will be on 03 October 2023; that is, within the 2023-2024 school year.

How did such abysmal time-management happen? It defies three political truisms. First, the party in power shall deliver all its bad news simultaneously and as early as possible in its mandate. As for good news, the party in power shall deliver it piecemeal, but with a crescendo towards the end of its mandate — except, as regards Bill 64, I’m not seeing compliance with either aspect of that truism. Second, right-wing parties have horribly narrow, constrained vision, but they deliver that vision with impeccable finesse — except for Bill 64, it seems. Third, left-wing parties have a horizon-wide vision, but deliver it with fumble-fingered ineptitude — except, as regards Bill 64, I’m seeing only the latter.

Does neither side in this impasse have a Plan B? If either or both do, are there some back-channels where discussions of Plan B are occurring — and amply before October 2021? If not, the absence of credible Plan B (or Plans B) poses two incredible problems.

First, if Bill 64 passes, all of Manitoba’s current board office management personnel will receive severance buyouts (a considerable expense) during summer 2022. Indeed, there might even be financial consideration for termination of the MSBA (also a considerable expense). Let’s suppose NDP wins in October 2023. The earliest it could reverse Bill 64 would be July 2024; that is, for the 2024-2025 school year, by which time Bill 64’s provisions would have been in effect for two full school years. A revanchist reversal of Bill 64, by July 2024, would surely entail severance buyouts for managerial personnel within Bill 64’s ambit (another consid-erable expense). Would the NDP (keen to slay its “tax and spend” reputation) really have the stomach to un-dertake that second bout of costly buyouts? Somehow, I think not…

Second, there’s the cynical issue of not wishing to waste one’s political opponent’s “heavy lifting”. Therein, consider an example from the Mike Harris era in Ontario. More than two decades ago, the otherwise egre-gious Mike Harris made the wise move of removing school boards’ taxation powers. How did the opposition react? The crocodile-teared protests were eerily similar to the sorts to which all Manitobans are accustomed. However, when the electorate turfed the Tories, did the new government restore school boards’ taxa-tion-powers? Well, no… Did Harris’s “wise move” remove school taxes from real property? Well, no to that also… For the record, 25% of the municipal tax bill on our condo is (wait for it) school taxes. The only dif-ference is that it’s the Ministry of Education, rather than the school board, which sets the mill-rate. The moral of the story is that the Tories did the heavy lifting, the opposition’s crocodile tears occurred at the time, but no changes occurred when the Tories suffered defeat. Is it possible that the NDP might be prepared to offer similarly tacit thankfulness for a defeated party’s “heavy lifting”? It’s not something that I would dismiss out of hand…

As for Bill 64’s details, they resemble a waggish definition of a camel; namely, “…a horse designed by a committee…”

Is there a better template that the Pallister government could have used? Yes, there is. From January 1976 until December 1981, my wife and I taught in Brisbane, Australia. Public schools in all Australian states are directly managed by their respective states’ ministries of education. Therein, Queensland was no exception. Key features of Queensland’s system are as follows…

• The Queensland College of Teachers controls teachers’ certification (probably similar to the way that the Ontario College of Teachers does in Ontario).

• Curricula and expectations are the responsibility of the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Author-ity whose seven-member governing board comprises three school system nominees (State, Catholic, and independent) and four ministerial nominees. During our time in Brisbane, my wife and I had a very high opinion of this separate entity’s stewardship of curriculum and student-assessment.

• As for unionisation of public schools’ teachers, the Queensland Teachers’ Union (QTU) has existed since 1889 (long before Canadian teachers even dared to contemplate unionisation). Membership is voluntary (as it is in Manitoba). The QTU claims to represent 90% of the teachers, principals, and administrators that the State of Queensland employs. Surely, this begs a question. If a highly centralised public school system considerably larger than Manitoba’s (574,000 students; ie, more than twice Manitoba’s pu-pil-count) can continue to allow administrators to be in a teachers’ union, I see no reason why Manitoba cannot do so.

• As for parental involvement, each public school had a Parents’ and Citizens’ organisation, and such asso-ciations were invaluable for their fundraising and other supportive efforts. However, they had absolutely no governance powers. Indeed, the current Queensland documents are unequivocal in saying, “An Asso-ciation must not exercise any authority over teaching staff, or over the control or management of the state school.” Queensland’s schools operated very well, indeed, with a centralised system that was, nonetheless, devoid of Bill 64’s over-arching conferral of institutionalised parental power. Therefore, I have no difficulty supporting my former colleagues’ comments on parental governance aspects of Bill 64.

As for the overarching issue, centralisation of control, I remain ambivalent. Executed properly, centralisation is neither good nor bad. Rather, it simply “is”. Bill 64’s detractors need to bear in mind that many (if not most) of our Queensland colleagues were at least as averse to the idea of “local control” as many Manitobans are to “central control”. (Possibly, Queenslanders’ aversion to local control reflected their British colleagues’ horror-stories about the UK’s borough councils’ educational policies.)

Bill 64 ineptly implements centralisation. However, once it’s in place, it will be devilishly difficult to disman-tle. Therefore, its detractors need to propound and lobby for a Plan B that has fewer rough edges and that allows the current government to save face.

 

Keith Bricknell served as superintendent of the former Boundary School Division from January 1989 to July 1997. He currently resides in Toronto.