Another comment worth quoting,

because it raises some issues new to me, at least:

From the department enrolment data, over 70% of NB students have access to Early French Immersion. In fact there are 8 of our smaller cites that have over 50% of the student in EFI Only in New Brunswick is there not early French Immersion Kindergarten and no assistance for any child who experiences a learning challenge. Only in New Brunswick is there no teacher training institute for FSL education for Anglophones It is as if New Brunswick has worked hard to make sure the program was weaker here and students had to leave or were forced to leave the program to receive any help which created the streaming This streaming does not exist in Alberta, Manitoba or BC. This appears to have been a deliberate move on the part of ministerial officials over many years, It may indeed be a defensive reaction on the part of the Anglophone sector. I can’t help but wonder what will happen to the Canadian Heritage dollars poured into this province (almost 24,000,000 a year) for minority language education- most of which the New Brunswick government has directed to the francophone sector for the past 20 years which starved the EFI program. If the amounts remain stable with fewer students in FSL education (none form Grade 1-4) the francophone population who now receives over 80% of that funding will get even more of that 24,000,000.

With the current FSL plan, in 11 years no Anglophone graduate could meet the requirements of the largest majority of civil service jobs as the late immersion only delivers an intermediate level of linguistic competency. If parents are able to afford sending their children on a Quebec or France exchange there might be some advanced level students from that group. A very few strong academic and motivated students from late immersion may also achieve the level required. But 90 + percent will be unable to meet any acceptable standard, The current 42 % of early immersion students meeting that standard will look good.
In today’s world and to have the best opportunities for global participation, more than one language needs to be the standard, Kelly has misguidedly chosen an option that will not deliver what he espouses. There are many positive initiatives that are occurring in elementary education that will assist NB to achieve the improved international scores. I commend those. The decision to implement an intensive French component in the Core French program which will occur over the next three years will improve the Core French program and allow rural children access to a better program than they have had. This has been proven in Newfoundland where the program was developed and has been in place for over 5 years.

All the positive initiatives will not overcome the ultimate outcome of this single decision which is fewer bilingual Anglophones and disadvantaged graduates in the global and national community. The cognitive benefits of early bilingualism will be lost to New Brunswick children while a province like Alberta expands their number of early immersion programs to French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese in their attempts to become a participant on the international scene. BC’s immersion numbers increase by over 6% a year, many of the children from immigrant families whose children are learning a third or fourth language.

This decision will likely be overturned by another government as the data comes in over the next 5-12 years that shows fewer children in immersion in Grades 7-12, an even more streamed middle years and high school groupings than existed in early immersion. (p.6)