Media release

New Brunswick Parents Request Judicial Review of FSL Changes

Legal papers were filed today in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Saint John seeking a judicial review of changes made to French Second Language programs following the March 14th, announcement of Education Minister Kelly Lamrock. Concerned parents across the Province have joined together and retained Fredericton lawyer, Thomas Christie, after it became clear that the Government was not willing to postpone the changes to FSL education to allow for a proper consultative process with all stakeholders.

“At no time in the FSL Commission’s process was it clear that Early French Immersion was on the chopping block,” says Tim Jackson, one of the group organizers leading the Judicial Review. “Minister Lamrock gave New Brunswickers only two weeks, one of those being March break, to look at the report and its recommendations before he implemented them fully. This is not even close to the kind of consultation period required to determine if such sweeping changes are appropriate.”

The FSL Commission Report, authored by Dr. James Croll and Mrs. Patricia Lee, neither of whom are experts in second language education, was made public on February 29th. This report has been widely criticized for its shoddy analysis of Department of Education data, the lack of statistical support for its own recommendations and bias in the report’s language. The recommendations of the report were fully implemented by the Minister on March 14th.

In addition to claiming the process has been flawed, the group makes particular note of the Minister’s commitment that disruption to children currently in the public education system would be minimized as these changes are rolled out. From what they have seen and experienced disruption to families is being felt on a number of fronts, particularly for parents of kindergarteners who were registered to enter Grade 1 French Immersion in September 2008. Examples of how these parents have been affected by this policy change are varied but include:

• Their kindergarteners being forced to change schools in the 2008-2009 school year,
• Siblings who will be split between different schools, and
• Kindergarteners who might otherwise have qualified for enrollment in District 1 but have now missed the “francisation” program enabling them to start grade 1 in French.

Paula Small, just one of many parents with a Kindergartener registered for EFI for the 2008-2009 school year, provided an affidavit with the application for Judicial Review. “On January 21st, as requested by School District 8, I registered my daughter for EFI. On February 4th I attended an District-hosted information session on the program outlining the positive benefits of the program and its results, and a mere twenty-five days later, with almost no notice, the Minister of Education eliminated an established program which was more than three decades in the making. I was shocked. Aside from highlighting poor communication and governance processes between the Minister’s policy setting body and the District’s registration process for 2008, the rapidity of this policy implementation displays a complete disregard for a large number of citizens of this province.” stated Mrs. Small. “According to the Department of Education, parents are considered ‘partners’ in the education system. We feel that the government has effectively shut one of their major partners out of this process.”

Patrick Ryan, who recently returned to the province with his young family, also provided an affidavit with the application. “Our expectation, moving home to New Brunswick last year, was that both our children would have the opportunity to participate in Early French Immersion.  What concerns us most is the limited consultation and the lack of transparency for such an extreme upheaval to our province’s education system.”

“If neither the Minister nor our Government is going to provide New Brunswickers with due process, then we will demand it,” says Jackson. “French Second Language education is too important to New Brunswickers, culturally and economically for it to be trifled with. We would rather have had an honest and informed debate on how FSL programs should be delivered than be backed into taking legal action to getting one.”

The group has established a Fund for donations to offset legal costs of the case. Donations and more information can be found at www.educationnb.org.

Tim Jackson
Michael Wilcott

Hilarious comment

on letters to the editor in today’s T-J:

I have decided that the Liberal Party is performing so poorly that we should cancel it and give the province a period of Intensive Tory starting in 2010.

There is no denying that the Liberal Party works well for a small number of golfers and business executives but it just doesn’t make sense to support a party that fails over 80% of the people.

Read CEC’s

excellent, excellent commentary in the T-J, “The other side on education.” Very useful for countering Lamrock’s misinformation.

Donate to Citizens for Educational Choice

Please help the CEC prevent the government from removing choice in education. By making an anonymous donation now, CEC will be able to continue the legal battle to ensure that our children have the right to access education in the language of their choice. Go here to make a donation.

I think this is a good likeness. Don’t you think this is a good likeness?

[source]

CEC meeting in Fredericton

IMPORTANT CEC MEETING
Wednesday, May 7 — 6pm
UNB Fredericton — Tilley Hall room 303

More info. to come; please mark your calendars for this night!

— Citizens for Educational Choice

Here’s some food for thought:

Found a most interesting article by Barbara A. Gill on the foundation years programme in N.B. There are some sobering passages:

“New Brunswick has the most advanced education system in North America.”

With these words James Lockyer, Minister of Education for New Brunswick, introduced the new Education Act and a number of educational innovations. Phrases like “on the cutting edge of education in Canada” were used by Department of Education personnel and suggestions made that other provinces would soon follow the forward looking reforms being introduced in New Brunswick. …

The Foundation Years Program was one of a number of innovations implemented by the Department of Education. …

… Almost from the beginning questions were raised about the program. The issues raised included the speed of the implementation process with no proper piloting, data gathering, or evaluation; insufficient teacher inservicing/training; class size and insufficient resources for the varying achievement levels within the classroom. It was also suggested that outcomes had been developed without input from teachers. … While teachers were allegedly under a “gag order” and could not publicly raise questions about the program, parents and others did not have the same restrictions. A group of parents, including three university professors, raised concerns and tried to obtain information and clarification from Department of Education personnel about the program through private meetings with Department of Education officials. They were told everything was just splendid.

Not receiving satisfaction from these meetings more public attempts were made to get the Department of Education to take a second look. Throughout April, May and June of 1997 numerous letters appeared in the local press raising concerns about the Foundation Years Program. …

… The Department admitted that the implementation of the program had some flaws and did not meet every expectation but overall the program was gaining acceptance …

However throughout the Fall of 1997 letters to the editors of local newspapers outlining concerns over the Foundation Years Program continued. …

In February and March of 1998 concerned parents held meetings across the province. These meetings appeared to have little effect on the Department of Education.

Many problems were caused by the method of implementation adopted by the Department of Education. This implementation process took no account of what was involved in educational change. The program was never piloted. The schools which started the program in 1995 were “early starters” not pilot sites so there was no data gathering or evaluation of their experiences. There was no chance to modify the program from the feedback of the teachers and students in these schools. While there was a clear vision in the minds of Department personnel, this vision was not articulated in terms of the practicalities and details of the program. These gaps in communication became more and more evident as teachers and students entered the second and third year of the program. Teachers who were positive about the program in the beginning became disenchanted in subsequent years. …

The centralization of the education system in the province caused those responsible to forget that differences existed among schools and communities and that each site was unique. …

… the Premier of the province, Frank McKenna, told the media in an interview that there was really no need for any hearings at all because as soon as the public realized that the government knew best there would be no further opposition. This statement summed up the attitude of the government of the time. …

Does any of this sound at all familiar?

The article describes a chagrined Dept. of Education and an apologetic government, all promising that such a flawed process will not happen again.

I guess the current Minister didn’t get the memo.

Did you know?

More to the point, one wonders if Shawn Graham knows that

• about 44% of children in Fredericton are in French Immersion from Gr 1 to 8.
• just over 50% of children in the Greater Moncton area are in French Immersion from Gr 1 to 8.
• about 50% of children in Sackville are in French Immersion from Gr 1 to 8.
• Provincially, where EFI is available, enrolment is 40.45%.
• The following percentages represent EFI enrolment in grades 1-5:
  • Grand Falls — 62%
  • Shediac Cape — 60%
  • Sackville — 50%
  • Riverview — 50%
  • Campellton — 49%
  • Moncton — 48%
  • Salisbury — 45%
  • Fredericton — 41%
  • Bathurst — 38%
  • Kennebecasis Valley — 37%
  • Hampton — 33%
  • Dalhousie — 32%
  • Oromocto — 30%
  • St George — 30%

Hardly the 20% statistic shopped around by the Minister. Perhaps he forgot to subtract Kindergarteners from his stats, as they are all listed under “English”. Oops.

These numbers reflect a significant voting block, one would think …

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly

Ever out of step, Minister of Education Kelly Lamrock has announced tests and yet more tests in order to ensure, you know, excellence. No doubt his best bud Doug Willms, whose company KSI does such testing for the N.B. government, is, as always, completely supportive. But otherwise, the Minister is again bucking the trend. John Merrow writes:

To be forthright, I believe that high-stakes testing, in its current manifestation, is a serious threat to excellence and national standards. Unchecked, it will choke the life out of many excellent schools and drive gifted teachers out of classrooms. A more rational approach is broad-based assessment, which involves multiple measures of what a student has learned. Assessment relies on teacher-made tests, teacher evaluations, student demonstrations, etc. all over an extended period of time, instead of one score on a single, largely machine-scored test (even if it includes a writing test). Unfortunately, the supporters of high-stakes testing have more faith in machines than they do in teachers.

Of course in the U.S.A. they have been there, done that, and found it didn’t work. (See also PBS Frontline: Testing our schools.)

But don’t let little things like mountains of evidence and the opinion of credible experts stand in your way, Minister.

Okay here’s

a quick question: if in the last two years over 70% of enrollments in French immersion were in early French immersion, how on earth does Kelly Lamrock think only offering late immersion is going to get more students learning French? Does he expect that whole 70+% to take late immersion? Anyone with an adolescent can tell him it is a lot easier to convince a six-year of something, than an eleven-year old.

The editor

will be out of the country for the next three weeks teaching a course, but has been assured that she will have regular access to the interwebs and so you, dear reader, should notice nary a difference.

Dr. Fred Genesee, “Early Childhood Bilingualism: Perils and Possibilities”

Message from Jane Keith, Executive Director, Canadian Parents for French:

On May 14, 2008, Dr. Fred Genesee will be giving a free, public talk in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The title of his lecture is “Early childhood bilingualism: Perils and possibilities”. We believe this presentation will appeal to anyone interested in issues pertaining to bilingualism in education, second language learners, immersion, and the challenges associated with accommodating the varied needs of learners from varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Dr. Genesee is a world-renowned scholar of bilingualism, language development and language immersion programs, a Professor of Psychology at McGill University and the author of numerous scientific research books and reports on language learning in children.

We would be grateful for your assistance in circulating this message to your members, colleagues, and staff who might benefit from attending this event. Teachers, in particular, might be able to count this event toward mandated professional development requirements.

May 14, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. (in English)
Wu Conference Centre, UNB Fredericton
Kent Auditorium, 6 Duffie Drive, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3

Local Contact Info - Jane Keith, Executive Director
Tel.: 506.432.6584

For additional information on Dr. Genesee’s talk, please visit the Minerva Lecture Series page on the Canadian Council on Learning’s website.

All right so maybe

I’m a teensy bit “emotional.” But wouldn’t you be? This much-vaunted grand-parenting of current EFI students? We are now being told that the entire budget for EFI support has been cancelled.

The entire budget.

Our kids are being set adrift in a dying programme.

Keeping them down on the farm

[cross-posted to Living in interesting times]

Okay, here’s one thing I don’t get: during the PSE debacle this government could not get enough of the concept of “transferability”: making it easy for students to transfer from one programme or institution to another seemed practically their most important goal for higher education. And yet with K–12 education, they are embracing a plan that would put N.B. children completely out of step with children in other provinces, and so make it all that much more difficult for them to relocate (which is not doubt part of the appeal), but also making it difficult, as well as unappealing, for people considering relocating here.

Why don’t we just build a giant wall? It worked, for awhile, in Berlin.

Think of all the construction jobs.

A faithful reader

posted this in the comments, but it is worth reproducing here:

From “The Sleuth,” Times&Transcript:

In political gossip, Sleuth’s spies inside the Liberal Party of New Brunswick report that there was a meeting in Moncton earlier this week of behind the scenes members, such as riding presidents and fundraisers, as well as the party’s president and executive-director.

And what was one of the hottest topics du jour? French Immersion!

Sleuth’s informant indicates the heat is on “high” in the kitchen, and although nobody has been seen vacating it yet, the grassroots are mightily worried about Premier Shawn Graham’s refusal to date to abandon or alter Education Minister Kelly (I’ve got a Report) Lamrock’s changes to second language training.

While the premier and education minister are still insisting there is a large “silent majority” among the public that supports the controversial changes, the grassroots members apparently aren’t so sure. Of 10 party supporters from Moncton at this week’s meeting, your gumshoe hears, only three support staying the course.Seven want changes.

And at least one Liberal backroom person told Sleuth, in worried tones, that this battle “isn’t partisan”. In fact, he noted, it is both small- and large-L liberals who are most against the government’s plan. Could be a very hot summer on the barbeque circuit for Shawn.

No kidding.