Former NSTU president reacts to Glaze report

Brian Forbes questions how recommendations will help students

Tara Manthorne,

When it looked like time would run out before she had a chance to speak, former Yarmouth teacher Brian Forbes gave his daughter – a teacher – his scheduled spot before the Law Amendments Committee so she could share her views on the education system and the problems facing it.

That was a year ago. Now, following the release of the Avis Glaze report that examines the governance and administrative structure of the province’s education system, Forbes, the former president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, is making sure his voice is heard when it comes to reaction to the report.

Part of what bothers Forbes is, he says, there haven’t been enough specifics provided to demonstrate how Glaze’s recommendations – which have been accepted and will be implemented by the province – will help teachers and students in the classroom.

“I think the really big concern is when you look at the specific recommendations, they do not address student achievement,” he says. Nor do they, says Forbes, address many of the classroom conditions teachers outlined last year during labour negotiations.

“At law amendments, I didn’t hear one teacher say, ‘Gee, things would be a lot better if we took principals and vice- principals out of the union,’ or ‘ It would really make my job easier if we didn’t have that school board,’ or ‘ We really need a college of teachers to make things better for me in the classroom and better for students.’”

The province’s education minister, Zach Churchill, says the Glaze report dealing with administration and governance is just one part of the overall education system puzzle, with the work of Former NSTU president Brian Forbes, also a former Yarmouth teacher, talks about the Glaze report: Raising the Bar. the Council on Classroom Conditions and an upcoming report on inclusive education further addressing what teachers and the public have raised concerns about.

But Forbes feels many of the Glaze recommendations will cause unnecessary upheaval in the system when the government’s focus should be on what is happening in the classroom.

“For instance, she is talking about establishing a college of teachers and one of the rationales she uses is there is a conflict of interest between the NSTU representing its members in bargaining, and so on, and on disciplining teachers. But the NSTU doesn’t discipline teachers. The employer (school board and the department) does,” says Forbes, who stresses he is not speaking on the union’s behalf, but rather is offering his views of the report as a former teacher, the father of a teacher, a past union president and a member of the public.

“If you look at what the college of teachers is going to do – discipline, certification, licensing and professional development – those are precisely four areas where the system works very well now and it works collaboratively,” says Forbes. “The Nova Scotia Teachers union is always looking at how can we improve our certification requirements, how can we improve our professional development, all of those standards and guidelines. So it’s fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Forbes feels the government is rushing acceptance of the Glaze report, which he believes was going to have a predetermined outcome even before it was written.

And he thinks there hasn’t been a proper avenue for challenging assertions made by Glaze in the report. There may have been consultation by Glaze in preparing the report, Forbes says, but he doesn’t feel it was adequate and it certainly didn’t speak to recommendations. There should be more public consultation, he says.

“To make such a radical change without widespread public discussion of the recommendations … nobody knew what she was going to come up with. Now she’s come up with her recommendations, there has to be public consultation on such major changes,” Forbes says. “People have to be able to take them in, understand in concrete terms what they mean and then provide some response. But I think that’s just what the government doesn’t want.”

Asked during an interview what three specific questions he would ask the education minister about the report, his list includes:

• “First of all, in what way does this radical change in governance and administration, in what way does it actually benefit the students of Nova Scotia? How is it going to make it easier for students to achieve their potential? How is it going to make it better for teachers teaching in the classroom?”

• “Secondly, I would ask when you look at the real facts in the areas of discipline, certification, development and licensing, why do we need to create a bureaucracy through a college of teachers that will actually, in my view, disrupt the collaborative activity in these precise areas that exists now? There’s no problem now.”

• “And on the removal of principals and vice-principals, what does this do for students in the classroom?” Forbes asks.

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