Spirit is lacking in fast-tracked bill

Act in haste, repent in leisure is an apt aphorism, except when the politics are fraught. Witness the government’s almighty rush to fundamentally change how Nova Scotia does public education.

Premier Stephen McNeil knows that the deconstruction of the administrative function in education will draw ire for as long as it remains in the public eye, so the bill that kills school boards, etc., is on the fastest track the legislature’s rules allow.

The bill spent Monday in committee, where it was vilified by as many Nova Scotians as time permitted, amended hastily when someone discovered it excluded inclusion, and was back in the House by Tuesday.

The premier says the bill will pass before March break, which starts at the end of the day Friday, and so it will. School boards have already been notified that they are redundant, dysfunctional and occasionally offensive.

There won’t be any lamentation on the death of the boards here, merely the observation that democracy is either vigorously practised or lost. Where school board elections were held at all in Nova Scotia – most members won by acclamation – the advantage went to the top name on the ballot.

Voter disinterest in who sat on school boards was all the encouragement the government needed to jump at a chance to be rid of them, and a recommendation from “internationally recognized education consultant” Avis Glaze provided that.

One of the many peculiarities of the Glaze report is the author’s protestations of great esteem for school boards, followed by her conclusion that Nova Scotia should have none, save the francophone board. It’s like her 90 days down here convinced her that Nova Scotians have not achieved the required civic advancement to warrant democratically elected school boards.

She does allow that in five years or more, Nova Scotians may have evolved to a level of sophistication attained in other jurisdictions where school boards perform a useful purpose. If so, we can reinstate the institution. It’s nice to have something to look forward to.

Having hired Dr. Glaze and armed with the report it wanted her to write, the government now claims to be proceeding with the “spirit” of her proposals. That’s because the letter of her recommendations caused more political fuss than they were worth, and so were sacrificed for a fragile peace with the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.

The spirit of Dr. Glaze’s report, on close reading, seems best captured by her reference to other experts, namely Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn who wrote:

“...when it comes to system changes, beware of an inordinate focus or total dependence on structural change. What counts is not changes in structure, but changes in culture…. Changes in the number of school boards, for example, will not lead to anything worthwhile per se.”

They go on to say that what matters is the quality of relationships, especially those between education authorities – in Nova Scotia that will be exclusively the province – and its teachers. Uhoh.

All that is lacking in the wholesale redesign of public education in Nova Scotia is the one ingredient that the experts agree is essential to success. Trust.

Her report notes that the education department doesn’t have the full trust of Nova Scotians, and we don’t need Avis Glaze to tell us teachers don’t trust the government.

Putting the education reform act on the fast track through the legislature may be good, shortterm politics, but it only exacerbates the trust gap between the province and its teachers.

The bill will pass, everybody will go away for March break, and when next we hear from our politicians they’ll be talking about the budget, or that’s the plan.

There is a second report on education to come, from a commission on inclusion. Inclusion says all students will be educated together, rather than segregated by ability, which is right and even good, provided there are appropriate resource teachers and such around to make it work, which there aren’t, so it isn’t good. The commission will recognize that and recommend corrections which the government will dutifully accept, and fund partly with the $2 million it saved by firing school board members.

It’s uncertain at which point in all this the government intends to get around to healing its rift with teachers, but that better be somewhere on the agenda or, as the experts say, all the rest of this is worthless, per se.

Jim Vibert is a journalist and writer who formerly consulted or worked for five Nova Scotia governments. He now keeps a close and critical eye on provincial and regional powers.