Six long years ago a certain provincial government told a story:

"Teachers are awful, they don't know what they're doing. Our kids are dumber than ever (imagine!) and it's all the teacher's fault. Let's cut 'em back... no, let's never give them a raise... no let's cut 'em back AND never give 'em a raise. And let's make the after school supervising stuff mandatory...

"And why not spend lots and lots of cash coming up with some across-the-board testing so that all the kids across the province will learn exactly the same thing. And that way, if some kids aren't doing as well as others, we can blame the teachers again!

"But I think we can even do more. Let's not allow teachers to fail kids, or even give them marks. That way, all the parents will think their kids are doing well and they'll thank the government for making them all smarter! Yes, let's do that. We'll look like heros! It's only money and we have lots of that because we've cut back on health care and environment. And we can get our favourite software firm to make a new report card application so there's no way the teachers will be able to veer away from our format. And every year we'll make a new version that the teachers will have to learn on their own time."

"So what do we do next? Looks like kids are still dumb. Eureka! We'll make an expensive television ad with all the money we've saved by not paying teachers what they're owed. And we'll say that in the past, teachers never knew how to notice a kid who was having trouble because they were all stupid teachers, but now they will be better teachers because we're going evaluate them and make them do tests and things."

"But we stopped allowing teachers to give bad marks and real comments about the kid's progress. How can we blame the teachers?"

"..."

"Hmm?"

"Well, everyone's dumb, they'll forget that first part!"

"Brilliant!"

So this is what it sounds like to us: six years ago, kids were doing okay, they could have been a bit smarter, but hell, our society watches "Temptation Island." What's the point of being smarter. Six years ago kids had after school activities. Now, kids are still dumb... the papers are full of statistics so it must be true... and they have no after school activities. Tell me how they're better off? And today, the government is going to announce that there is no new money for education and health care, the money has run out. They got us into this predicament when they had oodles of cash to spend. We shudder to think of how things will be without any money.

Then again, Toronto might get the Olympics so everything will have been worth it...
 

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