Maritime communities have resisted education restructuring plans that call for closing community schools. In Inverness County, Nova Scotia the resistance has continued for more than a decade. Several communities in the county have been fighting to keep their schools, demanding an alternative to the "status quo" (in effect) of amalgamation. In the process of fighting to keep their schools, these communities are becoming organized and aware. They are networking with other communities, they are conducting complex campaigns to preserve community-based education, and they are demanding alternative solutions in which the community has more control over the form of education for their students.

The New Learning Guide proposes that the form of education that best meets the needs of students varies from community to community. The current monolithic structure of public education is unable to meet the diverse demands of students and communities. Real change in education in the maritime provinces is needed and can be accomplished by introducing flexibility into the dominant structures, not simply by redistributing infrastructure.

Crisis in the Structure

Public education in the Maritimes is dominated by the departments of education and the unions that represent teachers and administrators; these are the main pillars of the education structure. It is this structure that determines the funding of public schools and defines the terms and conditions of delivering education programs. Essentially, it is this structure that dictates the closing of community schools and the busing of students away from their home communities.

In Nova Scotia, the education structure has been in crisis, and the crisis is demonstrated by several recent government initiatives. Millions of dollars of public funds have been diverted to the teacher's pension plan bailout and early retirement programs in order to reduce the impact of declining enrollment on teachers and administrators. The government is giving up ownership of new schools through the controversial P3 (private-public-partnership) deals, so that crumbling infrastructure can be replaced with the intention of not immediately adding to the provincial debt.¹ And, these new privately-owned schools will be amalgamated institutions. Resisting communities argue that these government manoeuvres will only add to the crisis in the long term; that they will end up costing much more and they will contribute to the erosion of the public education system. Not only will students suffer exile from their communities, but also they will struggle with an onerous future tax burden.

Throughout North America celebrated educators agree that the crisis in education is extreme and goes well beyond the distribution of infrastructure and money. Heather-Jane Robertson, in her book No More Teachers, No More Books, attacks the proliferation of high technology in schools and the resulting dehumanization of education.² Neil Postman, in The End of Education, challenges mainstream education systems that according to him, classify students, postulate truth, punish dissension and discourage diversity.³ John Taylor Gatto's book, Dumbing Us Down, goes so far as to argue that schools are the very antithesis of education, stifling learning through an oppressive structure whose purpose is to maximize the economies of "education industries" with minimum interference.⁴

While the critics approach the crisis in education from different directions and propose a variety of answers, all agree that the strengthening of families and the developing of communities are key to the quest for student-centred solutions.