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For some, teachers are an easy target when it comes to pay cuts.

They start work at 9 a.m. and are done by 4 p.m. They get hour-long lunches and time during the day to prep for classes. They also get weekends, Reading Week, Easter Break, Christmas Break and that two-month summer vacation. It seems to some like a part-time job. At first glance, it seems like they are a part of the provincial budget that could be easily cut.

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When faced with big deficits, jurisdictions have to make hard choices. Education is often targeted and cut back because politically the cost isn’t as high as long surgical wait times for hip replacements or emergency room waits. Voters get more upset over crumbling highways than old equipment in a computer lab or a few more children in a classroom. For conservatives, attacking “greedy teachers’ unions” plays well to the base. Yet cities and provinces that spend more on education are seeing some significant results from that investment.

In North America, a city’s decline is often sudden and unexpected. In part because we are so connected to export prices like oil, steel, or manufacturing, when those markets change because of cheap competition from Asia, fracking or improvements in automation, cities here have found that unmanageable growth can quickly turn into unmanageable decline that few saw coming.