Thursday, 25 April 2024

Education

Suzy Hansen on the Glaze Report: We just got a seat at the table and now they are taking the table away

Suzy Hansen, District 5 representative on the Halifax Regional School Board, speaks at today’s Province House rally about the lack of consultation with the Black community, and the loss of important African Nova Scotian voices, while the government pursues the Glaze Report recommendations. “It’s challenging enough for African Nova Scotians to run for politics, the obliteration of an entire level of electoral representation without consultation with the communities they serve demonstrates the government no longer wants their voices included in discussions about them.” 

Media release: Nova Scotia Social Workers stand with our teachers

The Nova Scotia College of Social Workers in this news release adds its voice to those opposed to the Glaze Report recommendations.
“Our province consistently fails to truly understand the structural issues that impact child and youth welfare. Nova Scotian children and youth education is profoundly impacted by stressors including income and food insecurity, colonial and racial biases, and our failure to understand trauma.”

Judy Haiven: Glaze Report throws 57 women out of elected office

With all the talk about the impact of the Glaze Report on teachers it’s easy to forget about the elimination of school boards. “Damn right the teachers should strike — what else will wake up this neo-liberal and nasty government,” writes Judy Haiven.

Delilah Saunders: On penny pinching institutions and re–traumatizing labour

Delilah Saunders writes about the pain and emotional labour involved in speaking in public about her murdered sister Loretta and other missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. “My problem lies with the for-profit multi-billion-dollar industries/universities that penny pinch when a speaker provides expertise when their pricey textbooks fail to do so.”

Cindy Littlefair on the elimination of school boards: Finding our voice, time to show up

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Cindy Littlefair, Halifax Regional School Board member for district 4, reflects on the Glaze Report and how board members should respond. “I suppose if I was a good board member, a dutiful board member, I would “go quietly into that good night,” the night described by the newly adopted Glaze recommendations. For that matter, I would also do as required of me by my duly assigned board member role and responsibilities. I would not resist.”

Media release: Third party review calls into question validity of Glaze report

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A third party review, released today by the NSTU, calls into question the research methods, analysis and results of the Glaze report. 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.”

Op-ed: How government let my students down

“I am angry! I am outraged! But mostly, I feel cheated for myself and for my students; because we are being robbed of a sound educational system. A system that recognizes that all students function at different levels and at different speeds and they are not just a cookie cutout from the same cookie cutter. A system that embraces uniqueness. A system that is not perfect and needs changes but is far from deteriorating into the abysmal cesspool of incompetent teachers and substandard test scores that the Liberal government and Dr. Avis Glaze’s report would have the public believe.”

On teachers and illegal strikes: When the law is ‘a ass,’ then there’s no surprise that it is disobeyed

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On February 20, Nova Scotia teachers will vote whether or not to engage in a strike to protest changes in the system of public education meant to remove elected school boards, further enfeeble the union and impose government control. Larry Haiven takes a closer look at that notion of an illegal strike. “Sometimes you just have to show that, as Mr. Bumble says in Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, “The law is a ass – a idiot.” It is not at all uncommon in Canadian labour history for workers to give that message to employers and the government,” he writes.