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

[source]

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.

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.

In a bizarre development,

Doug Willms has essentially distanced himself from the Lamrock plan. Very noble, too, given that his company stands to benefit substantially from contracts with the Dept. of Education. But how else to interpret this article, in which we are told,

The province’s decision to scrap early immersion and institute a universal French program beginning in Grade 5 is a step in the right direction, says education expert Doug Willms - but he would go even further….

He’d also start the program in Grade 4 instead of 5 and incorporate elements of French instruction in kindergarten and Grades 1-3, acknowledging that as with all subjects, the earlier a student begins learning, the better….

At this point, he said, it’s tough to judge the impact the new program will have on achievement rates.

“Is it the right plan?

“I don’t know,” Willms said.

“Certainly the plan we’ve got now isn’t working.”

Taken alone, he added, the elimination of early immersion will not solve the problem of New Brunswick’s high illiteracy rates and poor performance on international testing….

“It’s really fundamental in this system that the resources are in place so that we reduce the number of children who end up being struggling readers,” he said. “The move to universal immersion has to go hand-in-hand with more resources in Grades kindergarten through 3.”

So when the Lamrock plan crashes and burns, Willms, at least, is already on record. Oops, and just when the T-J ties their wagon to Lamrock.

Update (Apr 29/08): download a PDF of Willms’ The Case for Universal French Instruction.

If you haven’t already,

you might want to read an excellent commentary from Daylene Lumis, “Discuss education and immersion issues fully.” Also worth reading: letters from C. MacCallum, Sue Park, and Lila Johnson from a couple of days back about her eye-opening conversation with her MLA.

May we quote you?

Health Minister Mike Murphy is quoted as saying, “All New Brunswickers have the right to be served in the official language of their choice.”

Kelly Lamrock could set him straight.

N.B. child invited for tea

This was put

in 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.

For the literarily minded

[Click on image for poem]

Continuing the politics-as-extreme-sport theme:

If Kelly Lamrock jumped off a bridge …