Re: “Schools will build our future,” editorial, May 6.
This is a truth we cannot afford to ignore. Yet Premier Christy Clark does not subscribe to it.
She was the minister of education in 2002 when she started the process of starving public education in B.C. for funds to the point where we now spend the second lowest amount on our children’s schooling of any province.
Our schools and our children lost teachers, counsellors, special-needs assistants and “frills” such as music and arts instruction, and gained larger classes. Clark continued on this path when she became premier, spending millions of our precious tax dollars fighting a losing battle in the courts.
All of us who are parents and grandparents surely will not forget the recent past, where our public schools were closed for five long weeks of the new school year and we were left scrambling for child care and, more importantly, our kids were deprived of their right to education.
A well-funded public education system is indeed the key to our future. There is no better investment in terms of jobs, economic prosperity, personal fulfilment and quality of life. Clark never did get it and still doesn’t.
Maggie Wood
Sidney
