February 20, 2018
A third party review, released today by the NSTU, calls into question the research methods, analysis and results of the Glaze report.
The review was conducted by Dr. Greg Thompson, Associate Professor and Faculty of Research Ethics Advisor for Queensland University of Technology (Australia), and Dr. David Rutkowski an Associate Professor in Educational Policy and Educational Inquiry at Indiana University. It raises numerous concerns about the validity of Dr. Avis Glaze’s Raising the Bar report.
Next week the McNeil government intends to legislate the recommendations of the Glaze report into law, which teachers, parents and students are concerned will create the same turmoil in our education system, that we currently have in our healthcare system.
The authors of the review conclude: “The high-stakes associated with these recommendations amount to a massive reform of the educational system. Before proceeding, the methods and data should be made public so that an independent stakeholder can reanalyze the data to ensure the findings are valid and reliable.”
The third party review can be read here: http://bit.ly/2Gw6znH
NSTU President Liette Doucet says the review reinforces the concerns parents and community members have been echoing for three weeks.
“Responsible governments do not turn public education upside down based on a single hastily prepared consultant’s report and little, to no, public dialogue,” says Doucet. “The approach taken by the McNeil government and Minister Zach Churchill to this point is not conducive to good public policy. The government needs to put a halt to its upcoming legislation and work with Nova Scotians if it wants to create positive change.”
Read David Rutkowki’s bio here: http://bit.ly/2GuGcys. Read Greg Thompson’s bio here: http://bit.ly/2FldJMl.
The inadequacy of research methods, leading to unsubstantiated conclusions of the Glaze Report, as pointed to in this review by Drs. Thompson (Queensland U. of Technology) and Rytkowski (Indiana U.), complement earlier accounts of inaccurate claims of student underperformance (see Corbett, Chronicle-Herald, February 10). It would seem that the Glaze research was driven by perceptions of weakness — first that of teachers (though, strangely, not of administrators), then of students and, finally, of democratically elected school boards. Let us, in Nova Scotia, turn the tables and build on our strengths, starting with our rich history of adult education (i.e., teaching and learning as a lifelong pursuit), university scholarship, rural innovation, and community coherence.