The following is an opinion piece submitted by Becky Ausenda, executive director of the Bermuda Education Network.Coming to a school near you — independent inspection regimes?It seemed like just another Town Hall meeting about education last Wednesday night, with a panel of men (and women) in suits and a school hall full of parents and teachers.The Minister, Permanent Secretary and Commissioner of Education faced some aggressive questions from Victor Scott and TN Tatem parents who accused the Ministry of trying to remove their hard won right to consultation that was granted by the Supreme Court in 2012.But two unusual things happened at this final meeting.While acknowledging he’s the new kid on the block, and therefore not responsible for how things were handled by his predecessor, the new Commissioner, Dr Heatley, admitted that the Ministry of Education realises it has not managed the proposed transfers well.During the meetings, Dr Heatley asked us to trust him that things will be better under his watch and repeatedly said that he respects the role of the parent.He also expressed commitment to consultation saying ‘We can’t promise that there will be 100 percent agreement, but we hope to have 100 percent understanding.”So it appears to me that despite being the “new kid on the block” this Commissioner has a pretty good grasp of what has been going on.And if that’s the case, he also ought to know that our trust in the Ministry has been seriously eroded since 2007 when the Hopkins Report was published.When the report revealed that one in three lessons was inadequate, we trusted that the government would act swiftly with teacher evaluations, personal improvement plans and dismissal procedures where performance could not meet standards. But our trust was misplaced.The most active response to the Hopkins report was to standardise the curriculum and assessments.Of course standardised testing doesn’t solve the issue of incompetent teaching. Those stickier, more complicated human resources issues appear to be like nettles that cannot be grasped.The education leadership appears to have resigned themselves to the status quo and an unshakeable belief that you cannot dismiss bad teachers, and there are a finite number of good teachers in the system.Rather than implementing an aggressive programme of professional development, observations and other actions to upgrade all the adequate teachers to good, their preferred approach to improve student outcomes in the system is simply to shuffle the good teachers around.Which brings us back to the Town Hall meetings and the question from the floor: “There’s a perception among parents that this whole consultation is about restoring your power to transfer teachers and principals.”Dr Heatley and Minister Brangman again responded by asking us to trust them that the main objective of the consultation is to get feedback about ways to boost student achievement through greater parental involvement.At this point, the meeting was about to draw to a close without any satisfactory consensus, but then came the second remarkable comment from the panel — in answer to the final question of the evening, which came from BEN.We asked whether the government had considered introducing accreditation systems or independent inspection regimes as a way to restore the public’s faith that the Ministry will honour its promises.The unexpected response was highly encouraging: “Well if anyone here is politically astute then they know what happens in three weeks. So, let’s just say that you should watch this space….”Obviously the Minister is referring to the opening of the 2013 session of Parliament.So in light of the Minister’s response to our question, my message to the Commissioner would be that while I do believe you are genuinely committed to increasing parental involvement — and this is not a comment on your personal integrity — but unfortunately the legacy that you inherited means that we need a way to hold you and your colleagues accountable for the standards in our schools.Independent inspection regimes, with public reports, are a major driver of school improvements in other jurisdictions.So if this is something that you and the Minister are actively considering, you can expect strong support from BEN.As for the issue of governing bodies or school advisory councils, we feel that there is no one size fits all approach.Amending the legislation to replace the option of Governing Boards with a Memorandum of Understanding for PTAs does not solve any of the problems we have outlined here or in the Town Hall meetings.Ensuring there is accountability at every level in the system however, would be a start.BEN will host its own discussion event on November 5, at the BUEI, which will be a further opportunity to hear about different governance models.For details see our website www.ben.bm.