The B.C. Liberals, including Premier Christy Clark and Education Minister Peter Fassbender, seem intent on impoverishing the province’s public schools, writes Daphne Bramham. File photo. Photograph by: Arlen Redekop , PNG

A blunt reading of the B.C. government’s plan for public education is this: Impoverish it, neuter critics (including teachers and elected school trustees) and centralize control.

Once control is centralized, the blueprint seems to be to move to the American model where public school funding and teachers’ pay are linked more closely to students’ test scores.

The impoverishment part is well underway and the benignly named education amendment act introduced this week is devilishly full of details to get the rest done.

For the past three years, funding was capped at less than inflation. Over the coming three, the government has already decreed $137 million more must be cut and, this year, there is no extra money for higher medicare premiums for staff or to cover BC Hydro rate increases.

Neutering the critics, so far, hasn’t been working out too well for the government that has tried to strip teachers’ right to negotiate class sizes and composition. After 13 years of litigation and no wins, the legal costs have been huge.

Apparently, it’s preferable to pay lawyers than provide the best possible learning experience for kids whose parents can’t afford to send them to private schools.

A B.C. Court of Appeal decision from an unusually large panel of five judges is expected soon. But odds are that unless the lower court rulings are overturned, the stubborn B.C. Liberal government will buy more time by spending millions more going to the Supreme Court of Canada.

As “co-managers” (as the province call them), trustees will have even less power under the new legislation. It comes just as trustees finally seem united in their belief that after a decade of cutting, this year’s mandated reductions are too much.

Earlier this month, Education Minister Peter Fassbender paid $180,000 to hire a special adviser to to tell Vancouver trustees how to cut $14.77 million.

The amendments would do away with that nicety. The minister could simply issue “administrative directives” if he “believes” the board hasn’t met its obligations; that “it is in the public interest to do so;” or, because the minister wants the board to “participate in or undertake a project in respect of the improvement of student performance or another matter specified by the minister.”

Refuse and the minister can replace those democratically elected trustees with a hand-picked administrator.

Pause and think about that for a moment.

The minister can override decisions of a democratically elected board because he “believes” it is in the public interest or because he’s got a big idea that he wants implemented.

And, by the way, there’s no oversight or appeal.

Another amendment allows the province to use information collected about students to “evaluate the effectiveness of boards, francophone education authorities and authorities governed by the Independent School Act and the programs, courses and curricula delivered by them.”

Presumably, those evaluations could be the basis of administrative directives. They could also be used by parents eager to take advantage of the government’s rules allowing them to move their children outside their neighbourhood to go to schools where test scores (a.k.a. learning outcomes) are deemed to be best.

And, if the American experience is any guide, that information coupled with the amendments related to how teachers spend their professional development time could be used as a means to link teachers’ salaries and even individual school funding to students’ test scores.

Coincidentally, the privacy section opens a Pandora’s box that two U.S. congressmen are trying to put a lid on after the world’s largest educational company, Pearson, was found to be covertly monitoring social media sites to identify American students who might have disclosed questions from its assessment tests.

Among Pearson Canada’s many products is PowerSchool, which it describes as “the fastest growing, most widely used, web-based student information system.”

As the New York Times reported, the bipartisan bill proposed this week would prohibit companies operating U.S. school services such as online homework portals, digital grade books for teachers or student email programs from collecting or using student data to create marketing profiles.

Meantime, while public schools face cuts, private schools will get more money this year. Last year, the government extended special education grants beyond public schools to include private schools, offering up to $20,000 each for students with disabilities.

And, for several years, it has not only provided annual funding for a lobby group, the Federation of Independent Schools, it has had a parliamentary secretary for independent schools at the cabinet table.

What’s underway is a massive restructuring of public education. What remains to be seen is whether anybody cares enough to stop it.

dbramham@vancouversun.com