Orphaning a programme: a “how-to” list

Stephanie McCarty recently had the following letter published in the T-J:

A central tenet of Minister Lamrock’s embattled plan for French language instruction in our province is that children currently in the early French immersion program will be “grandfathered.” Recent events suggest that it will be more like “orphaned.”

Children in Grade 1 should expect to have 11 more years of their program; yet District 2’s website has expunged any mention of the program.

As a hint of worse to come, District 18 has removed all remedial help for EFI students, and similar programs are being cut in District 8.

Studies over the past decade have argued that the proper way of reducing streaming out of EFI is to provide it with better support, as is done today in Nova Scotia.

However, when Lamrock apportioned funds from the joint commission on classroom composition last year, more than $1 million were provided for special help in the core program, and only $4,000 for EFI students. No wonder parents of struggling students are encouraged to migrate to the core program.

It seems that if Lamrock is allowed to continue down this uncharted path, he will do even more to ensure that EFI becomes the “elitist” program he has criticized.

To this we can add

• The Dept. of Education is putting Gr. 1 EFI materials up for sale. Apparently Nova Scotia, being infinitely more enlightened, is interested in buying them.
• District 2: no new resources will be bought for EFI.
• District 6: there will be two French supervisors starting next year, one for IF and the other for LFI. EFI will be handled between them.
• Last year the CPF Sussex Chapter received 3 grants from the provincial Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour to hire bilingual counsellors for their Summer French Immersion day camp for EFI students. There are to be no provincial SEED grants to hire summer students this year.
• District 10: in previous years District 10 gave the CPF St. George Chapter a grant to help them with their Summer French Immersion day camp for EFI students in elementary school. This year the grant is “no longer available.”
• Also on the block: summer reading programmes and literacy support offered by young B. Ed student tutors.

Feel free to add to the list in the comments. But don’t crash my server.

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

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

[source]

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.

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.

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.

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

For the literarily minded

[Click on image for poem]

I’m not surprised.

Are you surprised? There is a site called wikirage which “lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time.” Kelly Lamrock is listed. Some edits are just vandalism (for example, removing a section and replacing it with an expletive), while others are more tempered. Why, I even made one or two myself; the reader may guess in which category.

An excellent

package of documents being distributed by Citizens for Educational Choice:

• Quotes from Minister Lamrock on how he arrived at his plan (and responses) (download DOC)
• The Rehorick Report: Clearing Up Some Misconceptions (download DOC)
• New Brunswick Education System Changes (and the problems with them) (download DOC)
• Language Proficiency (download DOC)
• The Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers letter to the provincial government, Mar 14/08 (download PDF)
• Cover letter (download DOC)

Useful to give to anyone who wants (or needs) to learn about the issue.

Continuing the politics-as-extreme-sport theme:

If Kelly Lamrock jumped off a bridge …