DEMOCRATIZE ? Bill 64 EDUCATION

To: Minister Education, Teachers Soc, School Boards Assoc

Administration: Parents, and Teachers, to separately elect Admin Reps locally. Reps then elect Admin Trustees. Equal number of Parent and Teacher Trustees govern together as Provincial Education Authority. ?

Curriculum: Teachers within each subject elect Curric Reps, and Parents locally elect Curric Reps. Reps then elect a Council equal from Teachers and Parents to direct ProvEduAuth regarding curriculum. ?

Preference-ranked secret ballots for all elections. ?

Funding: Manitoba Legislature sets and supplies funds to ProvEduAuth, to offer free equitable good opportunity for all children in Manitoba. ?

Salaries: Arbitrator to consider remuneration levels relative to the median income of all Manitobans aged 21-59. ?

Travel Time: Children in villages/cities offered free in-school-teaching within 3 minutes per years of age from their homes. ?

Amendments suggested by: www.GrantRigby.ca
(Advert in SW Manitoba newspapers, July 2021)



29 July 2021

To Minister of Education:

Reading Bill 64 confirms the absence of good democratic governance that its critics have emphasized. (But otherwise the Bill appears impressive.)

It lacks mechanisms for finding the best candidates for the Provincial Education Authority, and for continually enhancing PEA with even better persons. No Minister can know most persons among the professional educators and devoted parents in Manitoba. Many great candidates will be overlooked, and opportunity to aggressively advance education thereby missed.

The lack of true democracy for those most directly impacted, professional educators and students via parents, will adversely impact their moral.

Ministers serve at the whim of Premiers often chosen many years earlier by small cliques in political parties which most citizens do not participate in. Because Ministers are usually short-serving, it is the enduring senior managing clique within departments upon who they must rely for advice. We are thus generally ruled by a cliquecliqueocracy of narrow participation.

Vesting ultimate authority in the Minister is typical of most legislation, as drafted for centuries by persons who serve at and thus seek the pleasure of Ministers. We can be more imaginative, and seek to design a broader beneficial democratization of education authority.

My bias is faith in professionals' sense of vocation and good civil purpose, to allow increased trust for democratic self governance.

(Mailed to: Minister of Education, Manitoba Teachers Society, Council of School Leaders, Manitoba School Boards Assoc, Manitoba Assoc School Superintendents.)