Missing the bus. Again.

Did you see Nathan Rochford’s ” School, community partnerships needed: Stronger relationships between education system and community key to education success” (Times&Transcript, June 7/08, D3)?

Some quotes:

[Dr. Paul] Cappon, president and CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning, stressed the idea of communication on all levels of the community as a key to solving New Brunswick’s education woes.…

Also, the process of standardized testing was addressed.

While standardized tests are generally how students are graded in high school and university, Cappon said too much emphasis can be put on the test.

“It’s important to measure progress over time,” he said. “We use standardized testing as one of our 25 measures of seeing where the students are at with their learning. It’s an important factor, but it’s only one measure.

“You need standardized testing. But it is only a snapshot of one particular moment in time.…”

Someone should forward this to the N.B. Minister of Education.

Media coverage bias

Here is a comment to the letters to the editor today in the Daily Gleaner:

The Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner and the Times and Transcript are irresponsible in failing to cover significant news related to FSL news in NB. These papers have also failed to publish letters sent to them by experts that oppose Kelly Lamrock’s new FSL plan.
Some omissions by the major papers of southern NB:

• A letter to the editor by expert Dr. Fred Genesee
• A letter to the editor by expert Gene Ouellette
• A letter to the editor by expert Robert Leavitt
• A letter to the editor by expert Joseph Dicks
• Measha Bruggergosman’s public statements against the elimination of EFI
• coverage of the CEC meeting in Fred. with 200 people in attendance
• coverage of the CEC meeting in Moncton on May 27th
• the alternate FSL plan by Dr. Joseph Dicks
• coverage of the French for the Future conference held in Fredericton with 210 French Immersion and Francophone students, 35 teachers and 20 guest speakers in attendance.

Papers should not selectively omit important news and letters.

The media on this issue

is increasing rather than fading, and the CEC website, as well as Immersion Delayed is Immersion Denied, have been doing a great job keeping track and flagging the highlights. However, there are a couple of recent items that are well worth double- or even triple-tagging:

• Update: Read the lucid “Not so fast, New Brunswick” by Gene Ouellette (Globe and Mail, May 25/08), though the knee-jerk bigotry in some of the comments is disheartening.
• “Experts take exception to minister’s use of their research,” Miramichi Leader (May 23/08): responses from Fred Genesee and Joseph Dicks.
• Minister Lamrocks latest attempt at self-justification and the ninety-three one hundred and four, at last count, comments.
• “French program cutback spurs outcry: Richmond school district says move is crucial to sustain program but parents say district is not trying hard enough,” Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun (May 20/08).
• And don’t forget the image of the day, above. Though “Kellocchio” strikes me as even more appropriate.

As always, if you are reading online, be sure to read the comments.

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.

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.

Media attention

continues unabated:

• Montreal Gazette: “New Brunswick takes a step backward” and “N.B. cutting French immersion program could spark language tensions“
• The Globe and Mail has had excellent coverage: “‘We want to be bilingual!’ ‘We love French!’”; “Anger mounts over French immersion cuts“; “Immersion delayed, immersion denied“; “N.B. schools scrap early French immersion“; and more. Download a PDF.
• Parents of students in the Francophone system have concerns (Daily Gleaner)
• Letters today in the Telegraph-Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times&Transcript

Immersion delayed, immersion denied

The Globe and Mail has an editorial today which begins

The speed with which small children can pick up a language is hardly disputable. Countless people on this planet observe it every day. Again and again, solid research has confirmed the phenomenon. Yet the government of the only province in Canada that has declared itself officially bilingual is acting in defiance of this gift of nature. This month, New Brunswick announced that it will wind down the French immersion program in the early grades of Anglophone schools.

And, an excellent commentary in the Times&Transcript by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau.

See the letters in the Telegraph-Journal and The Daily Gleaner.

And Robert Macleod in the T-J also asks, where’s Shawn?

But is the provincial government listening? No. And apparently, there is even more to come.

Biting tongue.

In an excellent commentary, Marie-Claude Blais asks, “Is our Education Minister smarter than a 3rd grader?” David Wagner points out that he doesn’t know much math. And there are questions about his use of English.

You know

what really gets on my wick? When people trying to sell a bill of goods resort to calling their opponents “emotional” or even “hysterical.” One person’s hysteria is another person’s passion, surely. Don’t lets be dismissed for being “emotional” about French immersion. Of course we’re emotional: Kelly Lamrock is threatening to turn our children into lab rats. I’ll tell you who is emotional: people who, despite all evidence and common sense, cannot even consider changing their minds for fear of “losing face.” When Minister Lamrock is quoted as saying, “I’m very comfortable with what we’ve done educationally,” I just want to shake him, and not only for his clunky use of language. It’s not about you, Minister, and whether or not you are “comfortable.” It’s not about anyone’s comfort. It’s about our children and their futures.

Oops! Guess I’m sounding “emotional” again.