How I really feel....part 1

 

I wasn’t surprised to hear news today of a pending announcement by Manitoba Education Minister Cliff Cullen.  We’ve been waiting for the release of the recommendations of the K-12 review and I was not alone to think that on this sunny March Friday we might finally be able to relax the collective breath we’ve been holding and hear what the future would hold for public education in Manitoba.

Nope. 

Instead we heard an announcement. Of an announcement. To be held the afternoon of Monday March 15.

Afterward, social media exploded with comments, critique, and criticism of a few short minutes that exemplified the complete and utter lack of understanding and empathy of what public education in Manitoba has been like over the last year, never mind the last decade.

To hear that the recommendations were going to put students first made me gag.  What in the blazes do staff, teachers, school leaders, senior administration and school boards do if not consider students first and foremost in every conversation had and decision made? 

Every. Single. Day.

In a follow up interview on CJOB, available here, Manitoba School Boards Association President Alan Campbell referenced a lack of caring and understanding in Minister Cullen’s comments. I agree completely.   Alan then went on to liken today’s announcement of an announcement on Monday to be tantamount to pouring gasoline on the anxiety and stress being felt by students, families, parents, school division communities and the education system as a whole. I agree with this analogy as well.

I’ll save anything more for Monday when I anticipate I’ll be commenting on the removal of locally elected voice, centralized decision making, and the waste of taxpayer dollars in doing both.  Or d) all of the above.

Or, I may be scratching my head, yet again, trying to understand how a government so focused on student outcomes continues to demonstrate an inability to comprehend and then address the impact of poverty on student success.

Or maybe I’ll just tell you how I really feel.