Education as a Common and public good

“What we’re attempting to do with Bill 20 is actually make sure that we improve student results in British Columbia.” So said British Columbia Minister of Education Shirley Bond in introducing the School Student Achievement Enabling Amendment Act in May 2007. As an elected opposition member of the legislature, a public school teacher with 30 years experience, and a former president of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, I was an eager participant in that legislative debate.

The word achievement loomed large, both in the wording of Bill 20 and in the minister’s advocacy for it in the legislature and in the broader community. Those who follow education policy discussions will recognize the code words the minister was using—and the implications that arise from those code words. Within the introduction to the bill (which was subsequently passed into law by the legislature) is a woefully inadequate definition of literacy: “‘Literacy’ means the ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities, at home, at work and in the community.” It doesn’t take long to see that the bill was less about literacy and more about defining narrow curriculum goals that could be easily tested and quantified. Regarding the substance of that introduction, I commented in parliamentary debate, “There’s a definition of literacy that comes straight out of the 1940s. It’s as if somebody went to sleep and didn’t wake up for 60 years.”