To the editor:
Recently Premier Christy Clark said her government will be putting $200 million into classrooms specifically for special needs kids, starting in September.
That’s welcome news, but where was additional funding for B.C.’s special needs kids when teachers were requesting it years ago?
The $200 million figure is considerably less than the estimated $300 million per year the Liberals have removed from public education during their time in office—a grand total of $3 billion.
During this same period, there have been steady increases in funding for the private education system, where Ms. Clark has enrolled her own son.
The draconian Bill 22 legislated B.C. teachers back to work in April from a legal strike, and removes all limits on class size and composition, which will negatively impact students. The Liberals did this in spite of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Griffin’s 2011 decision that stripping class size and composition language from teachers’ collective agreements in 2002 was unconstitutional.
Who was B.C.’s education minister back in 2002? Christy Clark.
David Buckna,
Kelowna
