The Educators for Social Justice – Nova Scotia (ESJ-NS) and the Nova Scotia Parents for Public Education (NSPPE) have just released their Manifesto for Progressive Public Education which identifies four major threats to progressive public education in this province: the weakening of community engagement, the impact of austerity, the weakening of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union and the influence of right-wing think tanks.
On Saturday, parents, teachers, students, and community members will gather in Halifax for a day of learning and discussion at the Social Justice Education Symposium. The teacher-organized event includes workshops and panel discussions ranging from climate change to supporting African Nova Scotian learners.
When the results of a survey released earlier this year showed stress and burnout levels among teachers to be very high, minister Zach Churchill claimed that things had changed for the better. Now a new survey contradicts that claim.
I attended a town hall on the state of public education in Nova Scotia. What emerged was a system still very much in crisis, but with teachers and parents demonstrating a real desire to listen and learn from one another.
Nova Scotia Parents for Public Education, along with the group Educators for Social Justice, is kicking off a series of Town Hall meetings across the province with an event for residents of Halifax Regional Municipality to hear from parents, caregivers, educators and the public.
esults of an online qualitative survey suggest that many Nova Scotia teachers continue to care deeply about their students while battling stress, disillusionment, exhaustion and even burnout.
Media release: Educators for Social Justice is concerned about the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies’ (AIMS) efforts to capitalize on the Nova Scotia Liberal government’s recent education reforms. “Teachers have been saying all along that schools are not a business,” said Dr. Pamela Rogers, a PhD in education and English teacher at Charles P. Allen High School in Bedford. “AIMS’ represents the wealthiest business interests in Nova Scotia. There is zero diversity on its board of directors. Their record shows they are much more concerned with standardized testing and getting businesses access to public schools, than they are with quality, well-rounded education and increasing equity in school programs.”
Asking teachers and others who work in the school system directly what it is that works in today’s schools and what needs fixing, now there is a novel idea. Members of Educators for Social Justice (ESJ) are doing exactly that. We talk with Pamela Rogers, a member of ESJ, about the questions, the responses so far, and why it is so important to add an undiluted teachers’ voice to the current discussions.