COLUMN: Think Again – NDP must reverse course on teacher training

Remember when Manitoba teachers were once forbidden from giving zeroes to students who didn’t hand in assignments? At that time, even docking marks for late work was strongly discouraged.

Unsurprisingly, this approach failed miserably. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that this policy resulted in students choosing not to hand in assignments on time. And yet, no-zero policies were overwhelmingly supported by education professors and school administrators.

The earlier NDP government in Manitoba initially made the mistake of listening to bad advice from education professors. Former NDP education minister Peter Bjornson even publicly defended no-zero policies in a letter to an opposition critic where he stated that “a zero is not an accurate indicator of what the student has learned or achieved.”

Fortunately, soon after making that silly claim, Bjornson was replaced by Nancy Allan. Unlike her predecessor, Allan discerned that it made no sense to defend the indefensible. In 2010, Allan wisely announced that teachers could once again use their professional discretion to give zeroes to students who failed to hand in assignments.

Now Premier Wab Kinew’s NDP government is faced with a similar dilemma. His government intends to lower admission requirements for anyone who wants to enroll in a Bachelor of Education program. No longer will prospective teachers have to take a prescribed number of courses in “teachable” subjects as part of their initial degree program.

In other words, someone who completes a degree in gender studies is now considered just as qualified to become a math teacher as someone who completes an honours degree in mathematics. Something is seriously wrong with this equation.

Despite significant pushback on this decision, Acting Education Minister Tracy Schmidt is refusing to change course. In several of her public statements, Schmidt claimed that her government’s approach is based on solid research.

Specifically, Schmidt relied on arguments made by Martha Koch, an education professor at the University of Manitoba. In a recent op-ed, Koch went so far as to suggest that teachers who take more university math courses are less effective at teaching math than those who took fewer courses.

Not only does this claim contradict common sense, but it also flies in the face of real research. Together with eight of her colleagues, University of Winnipeg math professor Anna Stokke took the time to review the studies cited by Koch. They found that the research evidence actually contradicted Koch’s claims.

For example, several of the articles cited by Koch asserted that it was important to have better math content preparation for prospective teachers. One article even suggested that all prospective teachers should complete at least six credit hours in math as an admission requirement to an education program—exactly the opposite of what Koch believes.

In addition, Stokke and her colleagues found plenty of research studies that reported a positive correlation between math courses taken by teachers and student academic achievement. Interestingly, these studies didn’t get cited by Koch.

Premier Wab Kinew must ask himself what is more important—the quality of education in Manitoba schools or stubbornly clinging to a mistaken policy. After all, there is nothing honourable about sticking to a policy that is virtually guaranteed to make schools worse.

The NDP government can either cling to a policy change that will lower the quality of instruction for students, or it can learn from the mistakes of the previous NDP government and reverse course.

For a government that claims to value public education, the NDP certainly hasn’t acted like it so far. Our students deserve better than to have underqualified teachers in the classroom.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.