Dear Editor:
The government keeps insisting that the teachers' demands are "unaffordable."
Actually, the government has been spending $1,000 less per student than the national average. If the government spent the national average on our students, they would have over $500 million more every year for education. This is the amount that the government has been siphoning away from the education sector for more than a decade.
When Peter Fassbender claims that teachers' demands will cost over $2 billion, he is not mentioning that the $2 billion is spread out over five years. If you do the math, $500 million more over five years does make more than $2 billion. So if the government continues to hold the line on spending, they will be shortchanging our kids over $2 billion over five years, compared to the rest of the country.
B.C. has the worst educator-student ratio in the country. Other provinces have hired more teachers (per student-capita) while B.C. continues to have less.
B.C. teachers have had enough. If other provinces can afford to spend more on their students, then so can B.C.
So whenever the government says the word "unaffordable," what they really mean is they think B.C.'s students deserve less than students in other provinces. Is that what the citizens of B.C. want?
B.C. teachers help prepare students to become contributing members of society. What price do you put on that service? Don't our kids deserve the same as other Canadian kids?
B.C. should at least spend the national average. Anything less continues to rob them. The 12 years of underfunding has got to stop.
Jennifer Heighton, Burnaby teacher
