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Scenes from a near-empty school
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/in-pictures-scenes-from-a-n...
As money moves west, empty schools on the rise in Atlantic Canada
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/as-money-moves-we...
I'm not sure if I should be saying this...but Hunky_Monkey and NorthReport, don't you both think you're being a bit meanspirted towards KenS in the last 3 posts? I'm not sure now is the best time to be diving into political/economic arguments.
Even if money is being demonstrably misspent, that doesn't justify cutting funding. If you are lucky enough to save a little closing an unnessecary school, then you can put that money back in somewhere else. I haven't been following this, but the NSNDP sounds like it's up to some serious shit to me. They're idiots if they think they can buy the voters off with tax cuts, because the opposition will always offer bigger cuts because they don't care about the system. You don't want the discourse to become about who can give the most money away. If they're going to bribe voters, they should do it with services, which at least distinguishes them politically.
Well your impression would be bad enough, but the cuts were 2.65 last year and 3 this year. And the population decline is not 1.7% in one year.
Those cuts are on top of cost escalations in the same two years. Salary increases, heating fuel, etc go up. I dont remember the number, but thats over 10% in costs that have to be cut out in 2 years [and we arent done yet]. And you subtract some small percentage points for the population decline in that time, and you still have over or close to 10% that has to be carved out.
And that even the small portion that IS attributable to population decline, its not like there is a straightforward mechanism for doing that. Real costs only operate loosely on a per student basis. Even if you accept as I do that those per student costs have to stop growing regardless of how difficult it is, effecting that in 1 or 2 years is itself draconian.
And it isnt all about belatedly 'adjusting' costs to population decline. The government is making the school boards pay all at once for years of population decline, and for program growth required by the province. The province in turn just working on Nova Scotia scools belatedly catching up with national standards.
But those were Liberal and Tory governments. This is the NDP. We're going to roll that all back because we 'have to'. And we're going to do it really fast, without changing the basis of delivery of sevices... because not only do we have to slay tha deficit, 'we' have to keep going to make fiscal space for those tax cuts.
I've got no problem at all diving into economic arguments. Its the government that likes the narrative of this is unfortunate but we have to do it.
Now I see where the savants around here got the 'empty schools' narrative to latch onto. Good old Jane Taber.
North Report's old shill for the Conservatives. But its different eh, when she offers 'useful' impressions.
And interesting that someone here would focus on an inner city school closure where the kids only have to go 2 minutes further to a new school, when more than 90% of prospective school closures the extra bussing distances are much greater. Replacing small urban elementary schools with gleaming new big ones is a teacup thats going on for years now. Of course some people will not want that, but generalizing around them is disengenuous.
School closures is very complex financially. And I'll agree that a government and the boards cannot let themselves stop merely because the communities doont like it and it creates holes in communities.
But school closres is a seperate dynamic than yearly budgeting. It goes on all the time anyway. And one of the reasons it goes on slowly, on top of community opposition, is that it does not save the Boards money in the short term- which is all their budgeting isd about. Plus it means in a high proportion of cases that the province, who provides almost all capital costs, has to chip in big bucks for new schools. So annual operating costs go down as the province REQUIRES of the scool boards, but only with the provincial budget costs going up a lot in the short term. Even when new schools dont have to be built with rural school consolidation, there are non-trivial renovation costs.
The financial incentive to school boards is to stop the financial bleeding down the road. It does nothing to solve the severe pressure downloaded on them right now by the allegedly social democratic government.
Largely empty school buildings is an unecessary cost. But it pales in importance compared to staffing and service delivery.
Not to mention thet the province has to provide most of the money to fix that.
But it makes for nice pictures to support their snow job.
I stand on my earlier comment.
But on second thought there may be a difference. Darrel Dexter never even talked or tilted left wing. Mulcair is mostly aggressive in opposition to the 'being' and ideological raison detre of the government. I dont know if that makes him 'more left wing'. But whatever, that was never Dexter either. And Mulcair clearly has created more expectations among the base.
I think you are all way too snaguine that will make a difference, but at least its possible.
Mind you, I hung hopes on the Dexter government not meeting what I knew to be my well grounded expectations of them. As it turns out, I did not succeed even in picturing how bad they could be. And that goes for a lot of other long time activists I know.
The past practice in the NDP is that the base does not speak effectively when they dont like what they see. Intrnally, they dont even speak much at all, let alone effectively.
So far, places like Babble have just been locations to get into the griping deeper. That all still remains marginal to the party processes. It rarely makes more than a mention at Council. And when it rarely goes beyond that, does not last. Same even for riding associations, where ther isnt the heavy institutional weight and just 'we dont do that' against vocalizing dissent.
But outside forums are getting more developed. I can see easily how that can work its way inside. Otherwise, I wouldnt bother ranting. I dont need this for venting. [It actually doesnt help as a persoanl escape valve.]
Discussions developing in scope and depth outside the traditional channels is actually a condition of effective dissent on the inside. But whether it is sufficient, we have not seen that yet.
Don`t you find those tactics crass and patronizing? Sure, I have seem them used, but I cringed every time.
That seems to be the only reasonable solution to me. Perhaps seeing a continuing preponderance of white men in the background will also serve NOT to hide from view the fact that the NDP still has a lot of work to do to make itself more inclusive and reflective of Canada.
Yes, actually, I do find those tactics crass and patronizing, and it's too bad that that might be the only way to get a good shot of a broad cross-section of the population in NDP publicity photos.
I think arguments can be made on both sides of such an issue. For instance, think of the business section (or any section, really) of your local paper. How many racialized people do you see in that section? Newspapers for years have been making the excuse that the reason there are so few stories featuring racialized people, or columnists or reporters who are racialized, is because there are so few racialized people who become big players in the financial industry.
However, this perception that racialized people aren't in finance (along with the unspoken and perhaps subconscious belief that they don't want to be in it and don't really belong in it) becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when the only thing the general public sees in their media are white people in finance and business.
Should the NDP strive to ensure that their publicity shots include more racialized people in them when their candid shots show that there really isn't much attention paid to ensuring that racialized people are included on the stage at a leadership rally? Would it be just patronizing tokenism to portray the inclusion that isn't actually happening on the ground all that often? Or would it be an attempt to encourage and welcome racialized people to the party, and to normalize the idea and the image of the party as one where everyone is represented?
I don't know the answer to that question. I'm sure there are arguments on both sides. But I don't think it's just the luck of the draw that there were no racialized candidates in the leadership race, and that the one Aboriginal candidate ended up dropping out early because it became clear by lack of funding and support that he would be unable to win. And whether that picture on the splash page simply reflects this lack of inclusion in the party, or contributes to it by normalizing such a lack of inclusion by proudly displaying it in publicity shots, the outcome is still that racialized people still aren't running for top leadership positions in the party. And they probably don't end up as candidates in winnable or relatively safe ridings very often either.
Would a deliberate photo shoot with a good mix of people in it change things? I don't know. Tokenism doesn't work if that's all you do. But pictures of a sea of white, mostly male supporters on the splash page probably doesn't help either.
I missed this story yesterday. Good to see that our NS government's doings are transparent to at least some journalists. Most of them are falling all over Dexter and Co.
Brutal Education Cuts Stock Up the Jobs Buying Election Buying Fund
Read the whole column. But here's one gem:
We know the arguments that are routinely used to defend government grants to NewPage Port Hawkesbury, Michelin, the owners of Bowater Mersey and so on. We heard them again the other day when the government announced $304 million in financing for Irving Shipbuilding, most of which will be a straight grant if certain conditions are met.
What we never hear from government at budget time, or election time, is the cost of taking money from other productive social uses - in this case, education - and handing it to companies like Irving Shipbuilding that don't need our money at all.
Not only did I miss this story, but she caught a 'little' line item in the budget of $70 million- the education cuts were $60 million. A vastly expanded sluch fund to dole out money from now to the election.
Thats on top of the Irving money, etc.
Like I said, phoney and sick industrial strategy- buying expensive jobs with money from cutting servises and the jobs of workers, many of whom will feel compelled to leave Nova Scotia.
And if you havent seen it already and want to get more into this cautionary tale for Canada's NDP- this thread.
Why don't we put this stuff in a provincial thread where it belongs.
You wouldnt care about tidyness. Its burial you want.
There's a new cheerleading thread, and this one is nearing the end of its life, so what's to worry?
But the answer to your question is that its relevant to the national NDP as a very fresh cautionary tale bearing on choices about direction that Cananda's NDP now faces. If you dont think its relevant, dont read it.
So the leadership campaign didn't turn out the way you professed it would, day after day, week after week, month after month. But it is now time to get over it.
Sad you think this is about the leadership campaign. But then you've always been a 'with or against us' guy.
And for the record, I didnt strictly speaking profess how the leadership campaign would turn out. But I was possibly the first to call Mulcair the front runner, and started saying a long way back that it was his to lose.
Further for the record, I want Mulcair to do well. I'm glad the first part is going quite well, as unchallenging as that may be. If he doesnt do well, what WE make of it is pretty much moot.
But that isnt all of it.
Yeah, I wrestle with this too, Winston and Michelle.
I'm reminded of GOP conventions in the states, where there tends to be a lineup of reporters waiting to interview the few attendees who aren't fat old white guys.
But would it be tokenism to, say, have a photo taken with Anne Minh thu Quach, Hoang Mai, Paulina Ayala, Tyrone Benskin, Jose Nunes-Melo, Manon Perreault, Romeo Saganash, Laurin Liu, Djaouida Sellah, Tarik Brahmi, Sadia Groguhé, Sana Hassainia, Rathika Sitsabaiesan, Olivia Chow, Jinny Jogendera Sims, and Jasbir Sandhu?
If only one could find a photo-op with this diverse roster of NDP leaders, say, if they were all sitting in the same place together
Tom just rocked TLMEP. The crowd seemed as energized and sympathetic as they were for Jack.
Oh, the corporate media sure wishes he were.
Long thread!