Bill No. 72 - Education Reform (2018) Act - Third Reading Debates
MS. CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, thank you for the reminder to be speaking directly to my colleagues in government, all of whom I know are paying rapt attention to the words that I am about to say, and who will be listening with open ears, and open hearts to the advice that I'm about to impart.
It feels like we've been debating this bill forever, Mr. Speaker, doesn't it? Even in sitting down to write these remarks, my first thought was, well, what else is there to say? We have been discussing, and discussing, and discussing, but in fact, that's not true. We have been debating this bill, this 60-page bill, which will rewrite the way that education happens in this province, for one week. We have been debating it for one single week, and I think that's one of the biggest problems we have right now as we are on the precipice of watching it move into law.
Even though it has only been a week, Mr. Speaker, people have been paying attention. We have had dozens of people come forward at Law Amendments Committee. Many in tears, I'll say again, speaking passionately and from the heart. Many for a second time. To a person, with maybe one or two exceptions, they were begging this government for different things - they had different advice, and different worries, and different fears - but they were almost unanimous in asking for a pause. Some wanted the bill scrapped, not all, what they wanted was to have the chance to read and understand it, and as they asked over, and over, and over again for that opportunity, I was so grateful because I, myself, would like that opportunity as well.
MLA in this House has received dozens, if not hundreds of letters from constituents across the province. We've heard the protests outside these windows. Many have commented that if nothing else, the introduction and debate - if it can be called that - on this pernicious bill, has made clear that people must become attuned not just to the content of the legislation that this House passes, but to the process by which it is passed. I can safely say, Mr. Speaker, that the public is appalled at the way in which this bill is being rammed through - especially on the heels of Bill No. 75 last year, which was also passed in a snowstorm.
Even former MLAs have chimed in, both publicly and behind the scenes, with their own questions and comments about the particular tenacity with which this government has decided to dismantle our education system. They, and we, are still asking why. We know more than we did when this bill was introduced, but not as much as we'd like to. We still have so many questions, Mr. Speaker.
School advisory committees have been raised time and time again, as the new bastion of local decision-making in the education process. How? How much money will they receive? How will the members of the school advisory committees be selected? School advisory committees, with respect, are not regional voices, they are micro, hyper-local voices, and they are very important - but they don't take the place of speaking for a region of this province. What does this empowered SAC even look like? It's impossible to know, Mr. Speaker.
School capital - how will we know when a school is or isn't going to be closed? What is the process by which we will determine this? My colleague for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage spoke passionately about the school review process in her constituency, and the questions that are still outstanding there. How will those processes go forward?
I hasten to say that at least in the Halifax Regional School Board, the school review process is something that has received a great deal of attention in recent years. It is a process that requires, more than anything else, collaboration, consultation, and listening. With respect, these are three areas in which this government has not distinguished itself. I do not have faith that going forward, we will have the robust processes that we need to make the hard decisions about which schools and what infrastructure gets attention in this province.
It's amazing that people even participate in those school review processes and they do, by the hundreds. Why is it amazing? It's amazing because notwithstanding the recommendations of the school review processes, this government has still seen fit to determine when, where, and why schools are built, with no accountability to the public at all. That already exists, and my fear is that it will continue and it will worsen.
We introduced a bill to make Cabinet decisions around school infrastructure spending public. We respect the rights of Cabinet and the responsibilities of Cabinet to make tough decisions. We want to know why they're made. As with most of the other requests for transparency, Mr. Speaker, it was denied.
We have grave questions around the representation of African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaq communities in the school system. We've talked today, on International Women's Day, a lot about the erasure of women's voices with this bill, but it's important to note that women are not the only ones being cut out with this bill. African Nova Scotians make up more proportionately of the elected school boards than they do of any other level of government in this province. It's very important they retain that voice. Those African Nova Scotian representatives on the school boards are elected, they are elected by other African Nova Scotians in this province who choose them to be their voice at that table to discuss the hard issues around education.
We've seen, in the last week, several horrifying, seriously disturbing, racist incidents happening around the HRM at schools. Racist graffiti, racist epithets, anti-Black racism is a reality, it is a reality in this province and it is not going away. We need the tools and the voices, and the empathy to deal with this issue, and to figure out how to make our schools safe, nourishing places for all learners. By getting rid of the elected African Nova Scotian school board caucus, we are taking a major step back in that direction.
Who will be in charge of busing, Mr. Speaker? This bill is silent on that. Will children be able to have lunchtime supervision at school? When I was in junior high school, there was no lunchtime supervision at school so I had to find a friend whose mother didn't work, to whose house I could go every day, or I could go to the mall and waste time, and waste money, and maybe skip a class or two. Will we be going back to that? Or will we recognize that we live in the 21st century - at least the 20th century - and recognize that we need our schools, our systems - our political systems need to reflect the reality that we often have children in two-parent families. It needs to reflect a lot of other things, but I'll stop there for now.
What will happen to funding across the region? This is a conversation we haven't had. We're rationalizing the system, but we know that the funding to school systems across this province is not equal. In the Halifax region, where half of our population resides, there's a substantial amount of supplementary funding that comes in from the Halifax Regional Municipality, and that funding is very important. Without it, we would have major issues in terms of offering things like French immersion, in terms of offering the meagre things that we can offer to students for whom English is a second language, in terms of courtesy busing – all of these issues. These are persnickety, detailed, kind of boring issues, but they are seriously important, and they are very important to parents.
What does rationalizing even mean? Regions are different, schools are different, school districts are different. How are we going to level the playing field, and is that going to lift students up or is it going to drag them down?
Those are a few of the questions that came to my head as I sat at my kitchen table last night at 11 o'clock at night, the only opportunity I had to think about making comments on this bill, but there are so many others. There are so many others that we don't even know we should be asking because we haven't properly had the time to examine this legislation.
Yesterday when I asked whether the minister would make the provincial advisory committee meetings transparent, he said that's not the way things work in the Westminster system, in a Parliamentary democracy. Well, Mr. Speaker, I was thrilled to hear about the minister's commitment to democracy because we need a lot more of that in here.
The biggest question behind Bill No. 72, the nut we still haven't cracked, the answer we still haven't gotten to anyone's satisfaction is, why are we doing this? What is the premise? We're told our kids can't wait. We're told there's an achievement gap. Let's unpack this.
What is the achievement gap? Our children are not failing. We place about fourth in standardized test scores. Not all learners in Nova Scotia take standardized tests. Many educators, administrators and parents agree that standardized tests are not, in fact, an accurate measure of student performance. If we're talking about raising the achievement gap of our most vulnerable learners, most of our most vulnerable learners don't even take those standardized tests because they are on individual program plans or other adaptations that excuse them from taking those tests.
How are we measuring that achievement gap? I wish we had the data. We don't. We haven't seen any data. I believe that the gaps we see among our students are caused by poverty. They are caused by an inadequacy of resources and a dysfunctional Department of Community Services.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that this gap exists. This government has been entirely unable to explain how we get from this shaky premise that our kids can't wait - this is the evidence-based reasoning for this 60-page omnibus bill, that our kids can't wait. Okay, so how do we get from that to these changes? What is the causal connection, Mr. Speaker? School boards. Why is an entire level of democracy being eliminated without proven evidence that it is not working, without due process, without consideration of the consequences both intended and unintended, and without protecting our rights as citizens - midway through the mandate of these elected officials?
Mr. Speaker, elected school boards provide essential checks and balances to protect democratic rights, local access to decision makers and transparency behind how decisions get made and why. The minister asked whether, if we were starting from scratch, we would even create school boards today. Let's look at New Brunswick. They eliminated their school boards, they started from scratch, and guess what? They brought them back.
Would they look the same as they do now, Mr. Speaker? Probably not. Do you know what we should do if we have a problem with one of our democratic institutions? We should fix it. We should roll up our sleeves and do the work to reform it in consultation with the people in that system. Where is the causal connection?
What about what can only be described as the punitive actions towards our teachers, the disrespectful language throughout this bill? Again, Mr. Speaker, it's punitive. Where is the connection? We are removing administrators from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union. We have repeatedly heard that this is because it will create a conflict. This is the causal connection that has been proposed. Our children will do better because there will not be a conflict between teachers and principals and vice-principals.
With respect, Mr. Speaker, I have heard about this conflict. I have heard exactly one example of this conflict from anyone in this House, including the government. I invite the minister to refute me. That one example was when this government locked students out of their school buildings and forced administrators into the uncomfortable position of having to figure out what to do about it. I might add that when this government did so, it did so within a legal piece of legislation that is still making its way through the courts.
In response to his critics, the minister says that he is not tearing apart a family but putting an addition on the house and asking one part of the family to live there. I have a different analogy. I believe that if schools are a family, then from the point of view at least of labour, grandmothers look a lot like the administrators, the matriarchs. Even those excellent men who find themselves in the roll of administrators fit here. They are holders of the wisdom. In terms of labour in this legislation, in language, process, and effect, it kicks grandma down the basement stairs, locks the door behind her, and takes out a power of attorney. Where is the causal connection?
The subtle but important, and clearly very intentional, change in language from administrator to manager - this is one about which I have made a very big deal, and one about which we've heard a lot. Let's unpack this. I heard the minister say a little bit in this House, but more out in the hall to the media, which is where the minister seems to enjoy being (Interruption). I didn't say he was there now, I said that's where the minister enjoys being.
We have heard that we need to use the term "manager" for clarity. We need to be clear about what the roles of principals and vice-principals are and, if they are not managing, who is? Well, I took the chance to look up the term "administrator" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and guess what the definition of administrator is? The definition of administrator is one who administers, especially business, school, or governmental affairs; one who manages.
So guess what, Mr. Speaker? An administrator, as part of their role, is a manager. By changing the language of administrator to manager we are, in effect, narrowing their scope. We are narrowing their role. We are making them into a manager in the language of business as opposed to the much more robust and important role that they have now which is as administrator - someone who administers the entire system. Teachers are smart; they know this and they resist it.
We've won a few battles. With the participation of government, we have seen the language around inclusion reintroduced into this bill in its original form, with its original intent, and with its original strength. Based on our amendments, we now have a first voice representative to the Provincial Advisory Council on Education. This is something for which we have advocated for a very long time, and it is very important.
We were told yesterday in this House that three members of the African Nova Scotian School Board caucus would be on the transition team to that Provincial Advisory Committee. We also know that when principals and vice-principals decide to go back into the classroom - and we know many, many dozens, if not hundreds of them will upon the passage of this bill - that they are not being demoted, but rather they will be reassigned or moving. We have won a few small battles but, sadly, it seems we have lost the war.
Governments change things in the course of being government. As an optimist, I have to believe that the good changes stick and the bad ones don't. So, whatever the state of our public education system down the road, my own guess is that the history lesson on the great education wars of 2017-2018 will be much more about the method and the process, rather than the content.
Again, we heard this morning about the minister's commitment to democratic process. We have had seven days, including today, to digest a 59-page omnibus bill - a bill that rewrites our education system and, once again, forcibly rearranges labour relations in this province - seven days.
As many have pointed out, to properly digest this bill, one must not just go line by line through the bill, but do so with several other pieces of legislation at hand to compare. You need to know what is in those pieces of legislation, backwards and forwards, so that you can see what is or is not present in the new legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I am one of two members of this House who went to law school. I passed the bar exam and even if I wasn't in here until late most evenings, I still don't think I could do it justice in seven days. We need to do things differently.
Just three days after the introduction of this bill, the Law Amendments Committee convened, for a set period of time. It was curtailed. This is one of two opportunities that members of this House have to suggest changes in the form of amendments.
One amendment passed that day. It was a watered-down version of the missing inclusion language. It was watered down, and it was insufficient, but it passed. Why? Maybe because it was better than nothing. More likely because it looked like it was the right language. It seemed like it was replacing the guarantees that people had been so concerned about. But do you know what? It wasn't. No one in this House had time to do the proper analysis to figure that out until we adjourned that day.
I'm glad to see that language back in this bill, Mr. Speaker. The full language of Clause 64(2)(d) of the current Education Act was restored to this bill. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? It's because a disability advocate - not just any advocate but one deeply knowledgeable about politics and the political system - and someone deeply knowledgeable about inclusion, with a child of their own with special needs, who had in fact been among the advocates for inclusion of that particular phrase in the current Education Act 20 years ago, caught the error. It's like a shooting star, Mr. Speaker, that he happened to wake up on Friday morning and decide that he ought to read Bill No. 72, all of it, and he knew what to look for.
After Law Amendments on Monday, we had 13 hours - 13 hours - to draft amendments which had to then be approved and made official by Legislative Counsel in time for the extraordinary morning sitting the following day. That is not enough time. We cannot do our jobs properly. This is democracy technically but not in spirit. We have to do things differently. How many other omissions will we find? I guess time will tell.
But this bill will pass, Mr. Speaker. Let me say this: going forward, these reforms will fail if the government cannot make peace with teachers. If this government cannot find a way to show respect and honour and kindness to the educators of this province, no legislation will achieve any positive influence at all.
Some aspect of our education system and the decision making therein must remain accountable to the public. There must be ways achieved going forward that the public, parents, and educators can understand and participate in the process by which decisions are made in the education system. It won't be a school board - what will it be? I challenge this government to find ways to respect not just teachers but the citizens of Nova Scotia and allow them to understand why they make the decisions they do. We must not go forward with a two-tiered system. The CSAP - and we'll see the Act that comes later in this session - importantly, has its rights protected in the passage of this bill. But what of everyone else's rights?
We must ensure that we have an education system that serves the people on whose existence it is predicated - our children and families. This bill is an effort to bend an entire complex system serving our most special and vulnerable people to the ideological program of this government. Instead of listening, this government is forging ahead undaunted. As I had the occasion to say so many times in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, schools are not factories, and students are not widgets. Children are not amenable to being rationalized, as any of you in this Chamber with children of your own would certainly know.
I listened intently this morning as the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development defended Dr. Avis Glaze, and he should, because from our perspective, she has very little to do with these reforms. This is a program, and she provided cover. The criticism of the Raise the Bar report has nothing to do with where Dr. Avis Glaze comes from. It has to do with where we are borrowing our ideas from. This report, these reforms, and this legislation are not made in Nova Scotia, it's derivative. It's derivative of the worst examples around the world of education reform.
I was at an announcement yesterday with the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Premier that took place in a pre-primary classroom during school hours and it was amazing to watch. As the media took their places, and Communications Nova Scotia handed out their press release, and bureaucrats and staffers chit-chatted, chaos reigned. Even with a well-oiled team of experienced people, the environment in that classroom would not yield. Each time the media requested quiet to better hear the minister, a curious four-year-old would begin to climb a precarious hill of blocks or bang on a drum, as the media jockeyed to scrum the Premier, the tuba section started up in the class next door, and on and on and on it went.
It was beautiful, Mr. Speaker. Everyone wanted to be lifted up by the Premier, not because he is the most powerful person in the province, but because he is the tallest, and he could lift them up the highest. Of course, the kids were hams, happy for the attention and the cameras.
This is education, Mr. Speaker. It is messy and dynamic and beautiful, and its success should be not measured primarily in test scores, but in happiness. I have no idea how those kids would perform on a test, but I knew, being in that classroom for only a little while, that in that school, on that day, the system was working. They had a teacher who spoke with them respectfully, and engaged them, and made them smile. They were curious. We should place as much value on the look on our children's faces each day as they enter and leave school, as the grade on their report card.
Mr. Speaker, I will close these remarks by asking the government for the very last time to go forward with caution, to take the basic maxims of the classroom where my children are now: to treat others with respect, to share and to listen. Thank you. (Applause)
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