It is not normal. All Quebec parents are awaiting with a dose of anxiety the results of the votes of the teachers’ union assemblies. Not just to reassure ourselves that there will be no strike days to come. But to understand what will happen in their toddlers’ class if too many students in difficulty monopolize the teacher.
It is not normal that union pressure is needed to obtain, through a collective agreement, better support for children. This should come naturally, be the usual task of each school team, each service center, and the ministry. It is absurd, in a society which claims to value education, that it is necessary to force, through pressure tactics, a new class to be opened if more than 60% of the pupils in a primary group (50% in secondary) have special needs. The very existence of this threshold is an insult to the quality of education. I am told that it is rare, that there is not one class per school that reaches this level of difficulty. But thanks to this union gain, we will be able to draw a complete picture of the situation and finally know how many such cases exist.
This mechanism is that proposed by the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE). If we cannot find a teacher or premises to open a second class, we will find an education technician or a psychologist to lend a hand, and the teacher will obtain a bonus of $4,000 ($8,000 if we have not found person). Once these cases have been resolved, if there is money left, we will help the classes which are below these thresholds.
At the Federation of Education Unions (FSE-CSQ), the mechanism is different: when a teacher reports too much difficulty in a class, a joint union-administration committee looks into the case. A sum of several tens of millions, increased to 74 million in the latest agreement, is used to meet needs. There is no bonus for teachers.
I wonder why FAE teachers are not offered the choice between the two formulas. And I repeat: why is this even the subject of negotiation, when it is the very mission of education? (Same comment in health for the negotiation of ratios of patients per nurse. The thing should not be determined by a balance of power in the heat of a labor conflict, but by criteria of quality of care, as is the case in certain European countries. The Quebec Interprofessional Health Federation has long called for a law governing these ratios. It is right.)
It’s not normal that, returning from an autumn where, on every strike picket, we heard teachers pleading for better care of our children, we discover that, in entire schools, no teacher has proposed to support students in the paid plan which is proposed to them by the minister and which their unions have received positively. “The response is mixed,” the Federation of School Directors tells us. Students will be left behind, part of the $300 million released by the minister will be left in the drawers.
It’s not normal to learn that school educators and education technicians are being refused full-time positions because the schools’ budget horizon does not exceed 12 months. Ever since we heard education ministers complaining about the labor shortage, we had the impression that anyone who wanted to help would be taken by the hand, welcomed with flowers and balloons, and a concrete contract for his entire life. But no.
It is not normal that union democracy allows 600 people to decide whether 9,500 teachers are going to go on an unlimited general strike, as was the case in Montreal. (You know that I am both pro-union and pro-democracy. I believe that at this level of pressure tactics, the Labor Code should require a 60% participation rate.) It is not normal that, to vote at 52% for acceptance of the agreement, still in Montreal last Thursday, the assembly began at 5 p.m. and the vote was held at 2 a.m., after 1000 of the 5000 teachers present had gone to bed.
A “demotivated and angry” young teacher wrote to me: “We had our day in the tank and we knew we had to work the next day. My colleagues and I were commenting via text messages and motivating each other to stay awake. The vote took place around 2 a.m. We were beyond burned! Charred! Two of my colleagues fell asleep and woke up in panic too late! The voting period was over. »
Given what is at stake – the quality of education – should the ministry not give an “educational” day to the teachers gathered so that the discussion is calm and daytime?
It’s not normal for two new solitudes to set in in Montreal’s secondary schools. Private ones, where French is the common language, and now several public ones, where Arabic predominates in the corridors and playgrounds, according to the latest socio-cultural portrait of students enrolled in Montreal public schools. This ethnolinguistic decoupling adds to the public-private decoupling of resources and success. One more argument for proceeding with the only electroshock available to reverse the trend: integrating private schools into the public network and mixing all these children into a common network, as proposed by the organization École ensemble.
Not normal, ultimately and in the opposite direction, that, despite all these pitfalls, our young people still rank so well in international academic success competitions. Imagine the results they would have if they went to a normal school.