Education: the Byzantine, bizarre and just plain nonsensical

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 27, 2017.) If you’re looking for a flashing-neon-sign example of how Byzantine, bizarre and just plain nonsensical our province’s education bureaucracy can be, you might begin by considering last Wednesday’s non-decision by the South Shore Regional School Board not to revisit its carefully nuanced 2013 plan to […]

Teachers say no thanks. So Stephen McNeil says…

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on February 13, 2017. Premier Stephen McNeil had plenty of potential (Hobson’s) choices he could have chosen while he filled his weekend with “considerable soul searching.” How should the premier have responded after Nova Scotia’s 9,300 teachers said no thanks, no thanks and no thanks again to his government’s contract offer? This was […]

Schools, politics and the provincial thumb on the scale

Education Minister Karen Casey says reporters who would dare to even hint that politics — perish that pesky thought — might have influenced the government’s decision to replace Spryfield’s J.L. Ilsley High School should make that outrageous claim to the faces of the problem-plagued school’s teachers, staff, students and parents. Well, yes, they could do […]

Teachers: light at the end of the tunnel? What tunnel?

It’s been a full week since the Liberal caucus revolt Stephen McNeil insists never happened; since Education Minister Karen Casey’s 180-degree, we-must-close-all-the-schools-right-now-to-protect-student-safety/no-we-will-reopen-all-the-schools-tomorrow-to-protect-our-government’s future; since the government called its special session of the House of Assembly to pass legislation to impose a rejected contract on the province’s 9,300 teachers, then sent the MLAs home with nothing […]

How the government chose to build two new schools in the ‘right’ place in the right pre-election time

The very suggestion the Nova Scotia government would cherry-pick new school building projects from the bottom of the priority pile simply because said schools would be built in constituencies held by Education Minister Karen Casey and Premier Stephen McNeil, is — cue the harrumphs — “a ridiculous comment to make.” So says the minister […]