The government and teaching unions are at the heart of a sprint of negotiations described as crucial. Will there be an agreement before Christmas or not?
I know, the question arises for all unions. The question arises for Quebecers: we are all fed up.
The question of school arises differently. Pediatric doctors are calling for the immediate return of children to school this week, in the name of their academic progress and their general well-being1. They point out the obvious: children with learning difficulties suffer more than others from lost school days.
I am, I approve.
Do you feel the “but” coming?
Here it is…
But I have this fear that this negotiation will not resolve any of the fundamental problems of the school.
There will eventually be an agreement. The strike cannot last forever. Both sides are exhausted.
On the one hand, teachers (those of the FAE) do not, for example, have a strike fund. Some live on charity2. It weakens them as a group. They sting in the cold.
On the other hand, the government is far from winning the battle for public sympathy. Every day he is portrayed as sexist, heartless. These strikes crown the autumn of all debacles for François Legault, as the polls show.
The longer the strike lasts, the more both parties have an interest in settling.
I am afraid that between the salary and flexibility issues, this negotiation will have little effect on the fundamental problems of public schools. These evils relate to the famous “class composition”.
I recall what “class composition” is, before going further: there are fewer and fewer ordinary classes. “Regular” teachers have to deal with more and more students with academic difficulties, whether diagnosed or not.
If your class has 10 out of 26 students who struggle with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder or dysorthography, you are not teaching regular. But the school service center considers yes, faithful to its “small boxes” vision.
If your class has 10 students living with a learning disability, as a teacher you must do what is called “academic adaptation”. Teaching adapted to these students: it works miracles, when it is well applied. See the Vanguard school, in Saint-Laurent.
This negotiation between the State and the teachers’ unions will not be able to invent teachers available there, right away, to create smaller classes, which would relieve current teachers.
We will not be able to invent remedial teachers right away to support teachers in the classroom. Those who were successively disgusted by the PQ and PLQ governments are very happy in the private sector and they will not come back.
We will also not be able to invent special education teachers for ADHD students: there are signs of recruitment problems in teaching faculties, as reported by The duty few months ago3.
We will therefore not be able to invent special education classes to better serve these ADHD students and better serve regular students in regular classes: we lack resources there too, as reported The Press last August4.
Another concern: the Legault government has already sent the signal that it will never touch three-tier schools, another evil that is ruining the life of public schools. The question of three-speed schools is not even part of the negotiations.
What is the three-tier school?
Take a sample of 100 students. You used to have a handful in private schools. Another handful ended up in special programs (sport-studies, international program) for the public. This left a critical mass of students of all levels in regular classes.
Today, private schools and numerous special programs are taking over from ordinary public schools.
This gives the school three speeds. Two beautiful ecosystems, that of the private sector and that of the private public. Then, the third gear: the “regular” public, a catch-all of varying quality (often depending on the postal code).
Bottom line: regular public classes now often have a critical mass of students with special needs. It makes the class unmanageable, which exhausts the teachers.
In short, I agree with the pediatricians: students in difficulty are the great neglected ones of this strike… I only say that they are always neglected, strike or not, pandemic or not, year after year.
For all these reasons, I am pessimistic about the concrete effect in the classroom of this negotiation between the State and the teachers, negotiation sprint or not, agreement within reach of a pen or not.
I hope I’m wrong.