On October 28th, an unusual joint statement was released by the University of Manitoba (U of M) administration and the union representing faculty, the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA). Unusual because these two entities are in the middle of bargaining a collective agreement and one would expect each side to be posturing against the other. No, they haven’t reached an agreement.
Education
The fall 2016 issue of OS/OS focuses on history: how it’s taught in classrooms across the country; how it could be taught; what’s left out; and who is challenging convention. The issue brings together students, teachers, academics and administrators in a conversation about how the teaching of history has evolved, how the past and present interrelate, and how grand narratives are both created and disrupted.
First published on CBC website October 14, 2016
First published in the Winnipeg Free Press, Sept 28, 2016
The recent death of Larry Morrissette is a major loss, not only to his family and friends but also to the many Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that he has worked closely with in recent decades in efforts to re-build Winnipeg’s inner city and revitalize Indigenous cultures.
Our public finance policy analyst Alex Hemingway discussed BC school funding at the PANVancouver forum of August 31, 2016. Read his analysis of BC's education funding crisis here.
For families getting ready to send their children back to underfunded and overcrowded classrooms, it’s no secret that BC’s public education system is stretched to the breaking point. Yet our Premier and Minister of Education like to brag that provincial education funding is at "record levels,” pointing the finger at local school boards as the culprits for school closures and other cutbacks. But the government’s claims simply don’t add up.
This short paper challenges the BC government's rhetoric that education funding is at "record levels", and shows that BC can afford to reinvest in public education. It originally appeared as a post on our Policy Note blog.
Click to enlarge (files open in a new window).
(Vancouver) Contrary to provincial government claims that education funding is at “record levels”, new analysis released today finds that education funding has dropped by 25% since 2001 as a share of BC’s economy (GDP).
If we are as passionate about justice as we are about our ideas, then we need to seriously invest in and support those who are coming into this work. We have to foster new and developing leadership. We need a way to provide people who may not think of themselves as leaders or even as activists, with the right support at the right time, so that they might connect what they care most deeply about with what they are good at and what their communities need, and figure out where to place their energies around those issues for maximum impact.