Education Policy
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BC schools are designed to fail disabled kids—and make you blame them for it
The playground closes. Your kid loses recess. The field trip gets cancelled. And the school says it’s because one child’s behaviour made it “unsafe for everyone.” Sound familiar? Here’s what nobody tells you:…
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BC teacher negotiations: what parents need to know
Negotiations between BC’s 52,000 public school teachers and the provincial government reached an impasse in mid-January 2026, stalling over classroom conditions, workload pressures, and the resources required to meet student needs. The contract…
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Why are disabled children still being excluded from BC public schools?
The BC NDP inherited a crisis and chose to manage its appearance rather than confront its scale For eight years, the BC NDP has governed this province promising investments in social infrastructure, commitments…
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FAQ on school exclusion economics
Why are disabled children still being excluded from BC public schools after 8 years of NDP government? The BC NDP inherited a profoundly broken system from 16 years of BC Liberal austerity and…
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Reframing the crisis: a summary of Parker’s critique of neoliberalism in education
In her 2022 article for Critical Education, Parker examines the deep entanglement between neoliberal economic ideology and the governance of public education in Canada. She argues that this ideological framework, which privileges market logic,…
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BC schools: the highway to prison and suicide
This is not a pipeline. It is a conveyor belt greased with neglect. Children are vanishing from classrooms and showing up in courtrooms because of what they learned at school. They learned that they…
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Why the benefits of split-grade classrooms collapse under austerity
Differentiated instruction, student-centred pacing, and inclusive classroom strategies are frequently celebrated as hallmarks of modern pedagogy. In their 2022 article for Academic Matters, UBC faculty Siobhán McPhee and Michael Jerowsky describe flexible teaching models…
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When budget decisions shape classroom design, pedagogy becomes a casualty
While proponents of blended classrooms may cite research suggesting positive academic or social outcomes, we must ask—positive for whom, and at what cost? The data may reflect aggregate gains, but it rarely disaggregates…
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Public school districts often claim they are woefully underfunded while simultaneously sitting on enormous real estate portfolios.
For example, the Vancouver School Board (VSB) owns 223 properties assessed at over $9.5 billion, including not only school buildings but also apartments, a shopping mall, daycare sites, and more reddit.com. Yet the district regularly faces…
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Reversing the decline of inclusion in BC’s schools
In earlier years, BC school districts made earnest efforts to improve accessibility and inclusion for students with disabilities. However, as funding pressures mounted, many districts began viewing supports and accommodations as costs to mitigate rather…
