This was put
22 04 2008in a comment but it is much too interesting to languish there, possibly unread:
A Few Things the NB Department of Education Does Not Want Parents to Know.
New Brunswick educational bureaucrats do not want parents to realize that all healthy democratic societies fund educational choice. Unfortunately New Brunswick has never met healthy civic norms for choice in education. An explanation for New Brunswick’s dysfunctional educational culture can be traced back to before confederation and the entrenched anti-Acadian, anti-Catholic fears that found solace in government control of education. The unhealthy and politicized education culture unique to our region has sustained the myth that a political majority can mandate a “one size fits all model“ imposed on everyone. The limited single choice of french immersion in such a context places French Immersion in the position of being the scapegoat for the limitations or failure of any other program in an otherwise politically “perfect” “one size fits all” system. Returning to the old status quo only returns the EFI choice to being offered at the connivence of other programs, and a political scapegoat for their limitations or failures- hardly progress.
Too many parents in New Brunswick are still unaware of the extensive international human rights law supporting their rights to funded educational choice, or how wide spread such choice is in normal democratic societies. The Declaration Of Human Rights supports choice in article 26.3 stating “ Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education given to their children” which is reinforced in article 2, ensuring the right for all, and funding for such choice so that the right to school choice does not become a privilege for those who can pay school fees, as in New Brunswick. Educational choice is also further supported and defined in the Convention Against Discrimination in Education, an invaluable document for defining educational bias and toxic school cultures.
The Declaration of Human Rights also protects the right to educational choice from any incitement or violation of that right in article 7, any person who incites discrimination against educational choice is defining themselves as a human rights abuser by the definitions found in the Declaration … and by extension if such abuse is harmful or limiting to children, as a child abuser.
Most people understand that denying a child an education is child abuse, however many people miss the point that imposing an inappropriate education or one that does not meet the needs or abilities of the child can be equally abusive- just imagine the effects of 12 years of inappropriate education on any child. In normal democratic societies, choice denial is child abuse, a point often missed in New Brunswick.
With the exception of America virtually all democratic societies fund educational choice. All of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, former iron current countries and even the former Soviet Union now fund school choice.
In Canada 92% of Canadian parents currently have access to funded school choice most provinces fund choice using a voucher like program, as do most democratic societies. Voucher like programs typically not only save money but provide the range of choice that meets all human rights requirements. The governments role in a healthy society is to fund educational choice, they do not have to provide it, although they can do that too.
For IFE parents in New Brunswick it is important to understand that if the government does not want to offer an IFE program, they still have to pay for one, opening the door for independent EFI schools, which can be funded ( but not with out a fight ) under section 11 of the New Brunswick Education Act, something else education bureaucrats don’t want parents to know.
In Canada all provinces west of New Brunswick fund school choice: Quebec has a 3,210$ voucher, Saskatchewan has a 5,038$ voucher, Manitoba has a 3,381 voucher and British Columbia has a 2,849 voucher. Ontario offers full funding to separate Catholic Secular and a few Protestant school boards. School boards in Ontario compete for students often offering competing EFI and other programs.
Funding choice creates competition that drives good educational outcomes, in Canada all provinces that did well in the PISA study fund school choice. According to the OIDEL an international research organization in Geneva, all top top performing countries in the PISA literacy study, Finland, Canada (92% of Canada), New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and South Korea all fund school choice. There is no such thing as a successful “one size fits all” school system, such systems only damage children.
Funded educational choice has been suggested before in New Brunswick, most recently the MaKay report, recommends a opening the door to vouchers in recommendation 75 of his 2006 report, a report the current government was elected on, and one still unknown to most parents.
New Brunswick’s education bureaucrats have hidden many things from the parents of this province, their only achievement has been creating a failed system toxic to student well being, and materially rewarding to themselves.
By William Forrestall - Husband, Father, Artist and DEC18 rep.
I hope this has been sent to a newspaper - it’s too important even to languish on this website!
I agree. This should make the rounds in every major paper in the province!
Just as I legally can drive up our street at 50 km an hour does not mean that i have the right to do it if there are kids in the way. In fact the law says that i must take into consideration all contextual factors. And so school choice operates the same way. While i applaud Will’s perserverance on this issue, there is a large body of research he is ignoring that is clear on when choice is appropriate. Public education, funded by the public purse, is bound to do the right thing for the majority, not do the right thing for the minority.
That said, I am happy to see some hint at reasoned debate here and not the usual Willms bashing. Seems if you can’t attack the research, attack the researcher. I’d check out all the CVs of ‘researchers’ before you sling mud. This is the same guy who wrote the Pisa reports. Are we arguing that we are among the bottom. No. But when you suspect that he has the ear of Lamrock and is the ghost writer of these reforms - you bash. He did not suggest or author these reforms. Stop shooting the messenger. Does he have contracts with this government? Yes and ten other across Canada and many around the world. Is he standing alone, in his research, in the academic community? Hardly. It depends on which community you are speaking of. In the field of school effectiveness and student acheivement he is recognized as an international leader in the research. If one stopped long enough to read unedited versions of what he has written you will find more than enough to focus your pressure on the government to get what you need.
Doug Willms is in a huge conflict of interest (as was Patricia Lee as a member of DEC and Jim Croll as a Lamrock family friend). All three of them are long-standing opponents of early French immersion so they hardly entered the debate in a disinterested way. Calling them on these issues may be personal, in that their integrity is being questioned, but I hardly think it is “bashing.”