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Alain Fortier, president, Federation of Quebec school boards explores what may be some hidden motives behind axing N.S. school boards.
Is there any subject more important than education, the vessel cultivating our future generation? I certainly don’t think so. This is why the government of Nova Scotia should rethink and make education the priority of everyone, not just a few.
Or maybe this government has a different agenda. And that is what worries me the most.
The table below highlights the benefits that local input through school boards provides. It also offers some suggestions where greater control may be a political action advantage for government.
Benefits of Local School Boards
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Political plusses of no local boards
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Collaboration over local concerns
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Control over collaboration
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Decisions in public education are public matters
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The government will make all the decisions.
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Locally elected address needs of everyone
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Uniformity? Abolish local political representation.
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political leadership should mobilize people
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discourage people from involvement
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Paul W. Bennett, Ed.D.,director of Schoolhouse Institute, and author of the February 2018 AIMS policy paper, Re-Engineering Education: Curing the Accountability and Democratic Deficit in Nova Scotia, offers a six-point plan of structural reforms that begins with two essential building blocks.
Amend the Education Reform Act to transform the school advisory councils into school governing councils (SGCs), composed of a majority of elected parents and appointed municipal, business and post-secondary education representation.Empower school governing councils with block funding and expanded authority in 10 specific areas, including including setting school priorities, developing and overseeing a school budget and improvement plans, a defined role in the hiring and reassignment of principals, ordering of textbooks and resources, holding regular school policy forums, and producing annual community accountability reports.
The table below shows a comparison of the building blocks of the Bennett policy paper and a long standing direction of AIMS in support of independent schools organized in a business model.
Paul W. Bennett AIMS Policy paper
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AIMS Policy: Independent Schools
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school governing councils (SGCs)
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establish private and independent (charter schools)
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Empower SGCs with block funding
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a business model of competition and product management
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developing and overseeing a school budget and improvement plans
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staffed by non-unionized teachers
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This tendency toward “Charter Schools” has concerned Grant Frost, educational commentator and a teacher of 20 years, for a long time.
The touting of independent schools is certainly nothing new for AIMS. They have been preaching from that pulpit for as long as I can remember. Nor is it uncommon for the various and sundry national “think tanks” to take a stand in local media trumpeting the value of school choice.
From the Frontier Center for Public Policy to the Fraser Institute, everyone who values an education system that follows a business model of competition and product management loves the idea.
The rapid move of the McNeil Government to remove the local school boards will likely not be the last position of the government. It is not acceptable by those parents and teachers who value the diversity of opinion, democratic process, and ability to address local needs of the school board system. The “neoliberal” philosophy of market forces, business models, and absence of government and unions in education expressed in AIMS policy does not wish to have education in Nova Scotia controlled by the government bureaucracy. The Government will need to return decision making to the people in education. The people need to decide in the next election whether the market should be a factor in how education is provided, as in the AIMS model, or that the McNeil government has made a serious error in the management of this file and a new government needs to establish healthy, democratic, local school boards to achieve the best educational outcomes for all Nova Scotians.
References
2018, March 16). VIEW FROM QUEBEC: Beware hidden motives behind axing N.S. .... Retrieved April 5, 2018, from http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1553745-view-from-quebec-beware-hidden-motives-behind-axing-n.s.-school-boards
(2018, March 16). BENNETT: A real cure for the democratic deficit in education | The .... Retrieved April 5, 2018, from http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1553742-bennett-a-real-cure-for-the-democratic-deficit-in-education
(2014, August 12). Charter-school push aims to undercut public sector | The Chronicle .... Retrieved April 5, 2018, from http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1228988-charter-school-push-aims-to-undercut-public-sector
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