Opposition staking out turf on education battlefield

Abolition of an entire level of elected government – school boards – is consistent with the government’s vision of Nova Scotia as a concentrated supercity-state

It’s a ploy to distract us from real problems in the schools, or the product of authoritarian dogma that views Nova Scotia as a centralized city-state.

Those two views of the government’s plan for wholesale changes to education need not be reconciled as they are not mutually exclusive. They are rather, a distillation of opposition opinion on the rush to radically alter how schools are run.

Of the two opposition parties, the NDP has more fullyformed positions, especially on the demise of school boards, which leader Gary Burrill likes not at all. The Tory official opposition is keeping most of its powder dry, at least until after a public meeting on education scheduled for Monday night in Dartmouth.

How ever they position their attacks, the two opposition parties share a common objective – to saddle Stephen McNeil’s Liberals with whatever grief befalls Nova Scotian schools over the coming days.

The Nova Scotia Teachers Union, armed with an overwhelming strike mandate, and Education Minister Zach Churchill, wielding an unyielding agenda, have agreed to talk before the shouting starts in earnest soon after the legislature convenes next week.

Meanwhile, partisan political positions have begun to settle around the government’s plan to kill regional school boards, dismember the NSTU of school administrators, establish a professional regulatory teachers’ college and implement 19 more recommendations the Liberals paid Avis Glaze $75,000 to write up for them.

The NDP will oppose the implementation of the Glaze report, while the Tories are hedging their bets and, initially anyway, criticizing the process rather than the substance.

In a tele-town hall this week, Burrill defended school boards as a vital local connection between communities and their schools, noting that they are the only level of government in Nova Scotia with more women than men and with guaranteed African Nova Scotian and Indigenous representation.

The abolition of an entire level of elected government – school boards – is consistent with the government’s vision of Nova Scotia as a concentrated supercity-state, a concept that is anathema to Burrill’s view of the province as a tapestry of diverse communities.

Burrill, an articulate guy and good storyteller, is possessed of sufficient gifts to almost make you regret the demise of school boards.

He told participants in the NDP’s 90-minute province-wide teleconference Tuesday night that, during his time ministering to the folks of the Musquodoboit Valley, the regional school board tried to close an Upper Musquodoboit school three times, but on each occasion local citizens beat the board back.

NDP education critic Claudia Chender noted that while communities clash with their school boards, “at least they have someone to clash with.” The annoying luxury will disappear in the province’s central, command and control model that, like the Nova Scotia Health Authority, will separate people from decisions that affect their lives.

The NDP sees no advantage in removing administrators from the NSTU, but doesn’t want the union issue to be the centrepiece of its opposition.

So, Chender worried about teacher morale, already depressed after the province imposed a legislated contract. Low teacher morale, she said, will have a direct, adverse effect on students, no matter how hard teachers try to mask it.

Teachers are the backbone of rural communities, Burrill added, again drawing on his experience in rural Nova Scotia where, he said teachers pick up communities and carry them on their backs.

“Nova Scotia has so much going for it. When people are thinking of coming here what’s the first question they ask? How are the schools? That is certainly what the doctors we need to attract are asking.”

Tory education critic Tim Halman said the conversation on education reform is onesided. Premier McNeil and Zach Churchill are not listening and lack respect for parents and educators.

Tory leadership contender Tim Houston is trying to thread the needle, blaming both the government and NSTU for a shouting match that leaves “the education sector’s most important stakeholders – parents and students” confused and bewildered.

Another leadership candidate, Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin wonders what the government’s unseemly hurry is about.

Opposition MLAs are asking why the administrative changes are rushing ahead of other vital components, like the report of the commission on inclusive education expected at the end of March.

The main event is clearly between the NSTU and the province, so the political battle in the legislature will be little more than a daily distraction, but how the opposition parties perform will be an important stepping stone on the way to determining which of them wins position as the alternative to Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government.

“Nova Scotia has so much going for it. When people are thinking of coming here what’s the first question they ask? How are the schools? That is certainly what the doctors we need to attract are asking.”

NDP leader Gary Burrill