Perhaps some bright spark out there in the academic world is looking for a research topic that will pave the path to a master’s degree or even a PhD.
Here’s a suggestion: What, considering all available evidence, is the collateral damage sustained by the province as a direct result of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation versus government no-holds-barred event?
Easy enough to identify the loss of school time for 500,000 kids. A mitigating factor, at least mathematically, is that few kids have a perfect attendance record and most miss a number of days each year.
It has now been made clear to any kid with half a brain that what adults say about the importance of being in school every day and what they do about it are two completely different things. It is reasonable to assume that kids who were in the habit of taking the odd Huck Finn day off will understand that being in school every day can’t be as important as the adults had been claiming.
More difficult to track, at least in the short term, will be the economic impact.
In many smaller communities, teachers are among the most reliable wage-earners in town. They buy stuff, pay mortgages on time, buy cars, buy gasoline, pay off credit cards on time and are generally pretty good financial risks.
But when teachers stop spending money or default on loans, everything changes.
Small business feels it first and then, eventually, the larger financial institutions realize that at least one of the cylinders of the fiscal engine is beginning to sputter.
When the premier said she wanted the dispute resolved before her trade mission to India, lest moneyed international parents lose confidence and send elsewhere their kids and the largesse that comes with them, she might have forgotten 500,000 students, their working parents and 44,000 teachers who were beginning to create a minor recession at home.
If that is not enough for an eager post-grad student to sink his or her teeth into, there are the values-based questions about what happens when people lose faith in institutions they have always felt were sacrosanct.
Bad enough is the loss of faith in the professional integrity of a professional teachers’ union that calls its members out late in June as arrangements are being made to finalize grades and ensure a smooth start in September. Keeping them out for that start-up period in September is enough to have convinced some parents who can afford it to seek a safer harbour for their kids in a private school — especially if those are Grade 12 kids who have post-secondary scholarship ambitions.
More potentially profound is the loss of faith by people in the government itself. The School Act insists that attendance at school is mandatory for kids up to the age of 16, but the government appears to have forgotten that it is also mandatory for the government to make sure that can happen.
When the government demonstrates that, despite two court rulings saying it has acted illegally, it has no response other than to lawyer up and go at it again, the lesson is clear: Justice delayed might be justice denied, but the government has the resources to delay until the ice age returns.
Historically, in countries less complacent than ours, loss of faith in the integrity of the government has resulted in some ugly uprisings, not all of which have waited until the next election to make a few changes.
Apparent failure, lack of desire or plain old inability to take charge of a difficult situation on the part of leadership shakes people’s confidence, especially when brief appearances by elected leaders on both sides of the issue are simply media events that pour more gasoline on the fire.
For any kind of politician, reassurance is an important factor in getting and keeping power.
It is the absence of that reassurance that confirms suspicions that some other agenda is at play for leaders who put 500,000 kids on the street and steal from them that big day — the first day of school.
Research into collateral damage to the economy, diminished trust in the integrity of government and loss of confidence in those who provide public education should provide the basis for more than one post-grad thesis.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
