“In the words of Martin Luther King: “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” Nova Scotia Parents for Public Education on the the Glaze Report.
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.”
“Education is not a business, children are not widgets and teachers aren’t assembly line workers.” Educator Molly Hurd reflects on the Glaze report.
“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 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.
Liette Doucet, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, on the unnecessary and disruptive recommendations contained in the Glaze report and adopted by the Nova Scotia government. “If we are going to fix the problems in our education system we need to work together. The government’s strategy of dividing teachers and parents, and distracting from the real issues facing students does not work.”
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.
News release issued by the Council of Atlantic Provinces and Territory Teachers’ Organizations. “Of equal interest to the education leaders meeting in St. John’s, NL were the major issues that the Nova Scotia government decided not to address. Notably absent from immediate action are many items that might have led to meaningful changes and improvements in the education system.”
“What our provincial education system needs is leadership that is willing to make the needs of students, teachers and principals a priority. By adopting the Glaze report, Education Minister Zach Churchill has demonstrated the exact opposite,” writes NSTU president Liette Doucet.
Liette Doucet, president of the NSTU, on the current pre-election spending spree by premier McNeil: “After years of watching our schools deteriorate in the name of fiscal restraint, this new found spending largesse is another betrayal of trust. To teachers it also appears as though the government is funding its pre-election campaign at their expense–and their students’ expense.”