Education The government's decision to scrap early French immersion removes freedom of choice, critics charge

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SAINT JOHN - Opposition to the government's decision to scrap the province's early French immersion program is growing fierce with at least one group of parents calling for Education Minister Kelly Lamrock's resignation if he refuses to back down.

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Nathalie Nelson, left, has been looking forward to when her five-year-old would be in early French immersion. She says the province’s decision to scrap the program in September and bring in a different program is a bad decision that gives parents no choice in the matter.

Peter Walsh/Telegraph-Journal

Parent Michael Wilcott is concerned about what happens to his son, who is in French immersion, when he reaches Grade 5.

Diana Hamilton, a Mount Allison University assistant professor who teaches advanced statistics to biology students, charges that the calculations in a controversial report released late last month are "flat-out wrong.

"We want the decision reversed and failing that, the minister, in our opinion, probably should resign. The evidence is not supporting what he is doing," she said.

"I'm getting e-mails from all over the province."

Parents all have their own reasons for wanting early French immersion for their children but agree one common thread unites them: They believe they should have the freedom to choose the program they think is the right fit for their child.

The Department of Education is replacing early French immersion in September with an intensive program that will begin in Grade 5.

Under the new guidelines, students in Grade 6 will have the option of moving on to late immersion or post intensive French. Those currently enrolled in early immersion and core French in Grades 1 through 4, however, will be able to continue in those programs under a grandfather clause.

Additional instruction time that was being used on core French will instead be put toward art, music and physical education, Lamrock has said.

In Grade 6, students choose between late immersion or post intensive French; students who enroll in these will be required to continue instruction through to Grade 12.

Some parents are outraged by the loss of early exposure to French education; some are upset for other reasons.

Lisa Weir, for example, wants her special-needs daughter to remain in an English program but, if Lamrock sticks to his plan, she will have to enroll in intensive French come Grade 5.

"Up until now, I was working to get her exempted from her regular French class because teachers feel she should be working on her English skills during that time," says Weir.

"Nobody can tell me what program supports will be in place for her."

Weir, who works at UNBSJ, says she's feeling like she did last fall when the government threatened to remove UNBSJ.

"It's, once again, government trying to remove choice.

"I was at a meeting with parents who want to save French immersion. That's really not my dog in this fight, but if you peel back everything, the core of the onion is that the government is trying to remove choice."

Hamilton and Joseph Dicks, director of the Second Language Research Institute and professor at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, have analysed Jim Croll and Patricia Lee's controversial report on which Lamrock has based his decision and take issue with the way calculations were done.

"They used figures from the wrong cohort so that the percentages they've come up with don't reflect the attrition or retention rates," says Dicks.

He says he did the calculations properly and has determined that the retention rate for late French immersion is actually 42 per cent, not 69.7 per cent, as the report says.

So the argument that late immersion has a significantly better retention rate than early immersion is flawed, says Dicks.

"They're practically identical."

Nathalie Nelson has been looking forward to when her five-year-old would be in French immersion. Nelson, who is originally from Quebec, has been speaking French to her daughter at home but the youngster doesn't speak it back.

Finally, she thought, her daughter would be able to talk to her grandparents, who live in Quebec and don't speak English.

"I haven't even told them that the program has been cancelled," she said. "I'm so disappointed.

"For us, it was perfect. Now, we don't have any choice. Grade 5 is too late. This is really bad."

Michael Wilcott believes the decision to scrap early French immersion was made long before the report came out.

"The reasons the government has given have been created to justify a decision that was done without any evidence," he says.

"In most people's experience, this is not the speed at which government operates."

He's concerned about what's going to happen when his son, who is in French immersion, hits Grade 5.

"I'm assuming there's not going to be a separate stream for him. He's essentially going to lose his entire Grade 5 because he's going to be in a classroom with kids who have had very little exposure to French."

He predicts it will be even worse for his younger daughter because none of her peers from the English side will have had any exposure to French.

"If the government does force this on us, they need to be prepared for a whole lot of people to hold a grudge in the next election."