NDP government gets failing grade on teachers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/02/2025 (269 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chesterton’s Fence principle warns against destroying a fence before examining why it was built in the first place. In October, the Manitoba government disregarded this principle by eliminating all core subject requirements for teacher certification without proper consideration.

Pre-service K-8 teachers were required to take two courses each of English/French, math, science and history/geography and all teachers were required to have a teachable major from a list of subjects taught in schools. The Kinew government’s stealthy change demolished these requirements, ushering in the most sweeping changes to teacher certification since the late ’90s.

Throughout the process, the narrative pushed by the government and outspoken proponents has proven to be false, self-serving, misleading and lacking crucial details.

Internal documents obtained by Free Press reporter Maggie Macintosh reveal serious flaws with the process. Only a small group of insiders was consulted and the slides shared with them contain inaccuracies and a biased narrative.

For example, assertions that Nova Scotia will eliminate subject requirements for teacher certification are false. Quebec, Canada’s top-performing province, with the strictest requirements, is conspicuously absent from the analysis, as is Ontario’s math certification test for teachers.

Despite the flawed process, the documents show there was not broad support for the sweeping changes. Rather, some of those consulted preferred to maintain the status quo and others advocated for increasing subject requirements. In June, the education department’s recommendation was to reduce, not eliminate, subject requirements and to maintain teachable majors for high school teachers.

Mysteriously, by October, the proposed moderate model was abandoned. The government ignored the recommendation, took the approach of “how low can we go,” and made the radical decision to eliminate all teacher subject requirements.

This is an egregious way to make policy decisions. Playing limbo with standards for teachers is no way to run an education system.

The backlash was swift. Subject-area experts, parents and concerned citizens signed petitions and criticized the government’s decision.

Some education professors defended the decision in the Free Press, claiming it was research-based. Tracy Schmidt, then acting minister of education, parroted these claims. Alongside six colleagues, with expertise in math, research methods and education, we fact-checked the claims against research articles provided by one education professor and found none supported them — some even contradicted them.

We sent our publicly available report to all provincial MLAs. The government has yet to respond.

Further attempts to reassure the public ensued, with proponents spreading the false narrative that K-8 pre-service teachers are being forced to take advanced courses like calculus. This ignores the specialized math courses thoughtfully developed by math departments for them.

Additionally, the public was misinformed that education faculties will teach prospective teachers core subjects. Pedagogy courses are not substitutes for math, English, history or science courses and it is unreasonable to assume that education professors are qualified to teach those subjects in depth. If you wanted to understand how the periodic table works, would you ask a chemistry professor or an education professor?

Instead of dismissing subject-area experts, the government and education faculties should value their expertise to teach those disciplines.

The claim that the changes align Manitoba with other provinces is also false. Manitoba now has the weakest teacher preparation requirements in Canada.

Some have argued that the certification requirements failed to produce higher student scores, so they should be removed. By that logic, we may as well eliminate seatbelt laws because accidents still happen. If anything, this underscores the need to strengthen subject requirements. After all, you can’t teach what you don’t know. Obviously, a minimum requirement for effective teaching is having a solid understanding of the subjects you teach.

The government claims it wants to remove barriers to enter the teaching profession, but lowering standards comes at a dreadful cost to Manitoba students. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose parents cannot afford tutoring to compensate for teachers with limited subject knowledge, will be most affected.

Returning to Chesterton’s Fence: why were subject requirements introduced? Unlike the Kinew government’s approach, they stemmed from extensive consultation and a 1996 government-commissioned report by Bernard Shapiro, who stressed the importance of content knowledge.

He recommended certifying teachers based on their subject expertise, calling it “unconscionable” and “an affront to the professionalism of teachers” that school boards can appoint a teacher to any position without regard for their area of expertise. The subject requirements were a good-faith compromise to address his recommendations and our government has made a grave error in dismantling them. The process was dishonest and irresponsible.

Kinew’s policy will put undertrained teachers in the classroom and leave them to flounder. He must reverse this. Restore core subject requirements and give our teachers and students the support they need.

Darja Barr holds a PhD in math education and is a senior instructor in the department of mathematics at the University of Manitoba. Narad Rampersad is a professor and chair and Anna Stokke is a professor and recipient of a 3M National teaching award, both in the department of mathematics and statistics, University of Winnipeg.