Isn’t Google a wonderful thing?

An anonymous commenter on the media story today on the new blog by some anti-EFI parents wonders if the Anne Darrah mentioned in the article is the same Anne Darrah who has worked with Doug Wilms?

Just passing that on.

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.

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.

Another financial link between Doug Willms and the Dept. of Education

Read the following in an email:

People have mentioned the contractual relationship between KSI and the government which, in and of itself, raises questions of impartiality and provides a direct relationship between the Dept. of Education and Willms. However, I think there is another compelling association between them.  As you all know, Willms is the Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy (CRISP). He is one of the principal investigators of the “NB Schools Early Literacy Project.” Elizabeth Sloat is the lead investigator but Willms is also one of the principal investigators.  It is a study involving a number of school districts in which they are examining the effectiveness of certain assessment tools in identifying struggling students early on, which would allow for early intervention.  The kicker is that the study is partially funded by the NB Dept. of Education, to the tune of $50,000 a year for 5 years ($250,000 in total). The study began in 2003.

If you aren’t reading

the comments sections after the online news articles, you’re missing half the fun. Cut and pasted from one such comment by Tyler Durden:

A list of those who support EFI removal:

• Kelly Lamrock
• Doug Willms

A partial list of those who oppose the Lamrock plan:

• The Commissioner of Official Languages, NB
• The Commissioner of Official Languages, Canada
• The Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers
• Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities
• The Center for Research on Education at the Université de Moncton
• The Second Language Research Institute of Canada
• Liberal Party Riding Association Presidents in Kings-East, Tantramar, and Nigadoo-Chaleur.
• Co-Author of the Official Languages Act Robert Pichette
• Political Scientist and Liberal Party Strategist Donald Savoie
• Association Canadienne des Professeurs D’Immersion
• L’Association des enseignantes et des enseignants francophones du
• Nouveau-Brunswick (AEFNB),
• Consortium of Universities Advising the Canadian Association of Immersion Teachers
• Association Francophone des Parents du NB
• Canadian Parents for French
• Paul Zed, Liberal MP
• Saint John Mayor and City Council

Update (Apr 15/08): I have added a page that lists critics of the Lamrock plan and/or the Croll/Lee report.

Okay,

here’s my question: how can Kelly Lamrock, with a straight face, impugn the integrity of Bernard Richard, when he has himself scrapped a report that contradicted his own pre-existing position and commissioned another from a long-standing advocate of that position and a family friend? And why, when we are on the topic of integrity and ethics, is anyone still listening to Doug Willms on this issue? His mind was made up about early French immersion long ago so he is hardly impartial, and his company enjoys contracts from the Dept. of Education so he is hardly disinterested. Then there is Kelly Lamrock himself, a man who insults and dismisses those who don’t agree with him, who arrogantly refuses to listen to anyone who doesn’t parrot back his own ideas, and who is willing to trash the N.B. education system for the sake of some test scores that he thinks will ensure his electoral success in 2010.

Perhaps it’s Botox.

CBC Early French Immersion Forum Highlights (YouTube)

So for some time now

there has been considerable speculation about just what in the world Education Minister Kelly Lamrock is thinking. His recommendations on public education in New Brunswick are certainly not the first, um, ill-considered idea to come out of Fredericton in the last year, but up until now one could tease out some sort of explanation. Not a justification, mind, but an explanation. Take the post-secondary debacle: now on the surface it makes little sense to move in the opposite direction of virtually every other post-secondary system in the entire known universe and decommission university campuses and downgrade them to trade schools. But — and one needs to be delicate here — when one considers certain realities of the way things actually run in this province, particularly in Saint John, sacrificing a clear and ongoing social good for the sake of some short-term gains, in this case taxpayer-sponsored job training for industry, one can perhaps discern some wisps of cause-and-effect. Wrong or right, we need to make narratives. People are story-tellers; adults need something to answer when their little munchkins ask plaintively, “Why are they taking away my school, Mummy?” Responding “Because they’re frickin’ boneheads!” does more harm than good — I speak from experience — no matter how easily the words come to ones lips.

So, what narratives can we come up with to explain the newest inexplicable move from our provincial capital? The wished-for answer — these changes were proposed in response to painstaking research in accordance with all credible research practices — is patently false: instead we have one report shelved in favour of another, more amenable but less, er, rigourous one. These changes were proposed after extensive consultation with the people of this province? Well, no. No. To eliminate streaming? A laudable goal, but one that is hardly met merely by postponing it for five years. So okay then: these changes are strictly economic? That would be bad enough, of course, but at least it would make some sense, from a particular perspective. But no, that can hardly be the case either: why go through the grief of trying to implement an intensely unpopular change in order to save, according to some estimates, a mere $5 million of a $943 million budget? It’ll probably cost them close to that just to change all the signage and stationary.

But at last, a bare outline of at least a potential narrative has emerged from the miasma.

Many of you may not have heard this, but Doug Willms’ incorporated company, KSI, has the contract to do testing in N.B. schools. (For those who find it odd that such a task would be contracted out, welcome to the Brave New World.) Now Doug Willms is on record as a critic of early immersion in N.B. — in fact, he has practically been tag-teaming with Kelly Lamrock in media stories about the issue and he was recently quoted as having said that EFI is “fundamentally not worth anything” — so having him assess the success or failure of the new regime does not inspire confidence. For one thing, he would be less likely to place what will probably be a slight rise in test scores in the appropriate context: as a small, and temporary, rise because of the sudden absense of the usual lag-time in the scores of EFI students in literacy. Someone with predetermined ideas might, er, misinterpret such a temporary rise in test scores as success.

This “success” would come, coincidentally, just before the next provincial election.

Singlehandedly taking responsibility for this “success” might add considerable lustre to ones political fortunes.

But all this is just crazy talk! Pay no attention to my ramblings. A conspiracy under every stone, that’s me. Good grief, no-one would be such a … I mean, even someone as … Surely …

Mon dieu.