Let's not drop Education issue
There's good and then there's good enough.
The Liberals' decision on early French immersion in New Brunswick is only good enough - a compromise borne of angry parents and a government that handled the file poorly. But the ideas brought forward by former lieutenant-governor Margaret Norrie McCain show that the issue doesn't need to die here.
McCain is an expert on early childhood development. She believes early immersion should have been abolished outright, as was originally proposed. In its place, she sees a system where every child gets enriched, extended French.
McCain is working on a pilot project that will see children as young as two learning French at childhood development centres.
Education Minister Kelly Lamrock says he couldn't base his overhaul of the system on a pilot project, which is wise. But the government should keep a close eye on the four centres.
McCain's vision of New Brunswick French instruction is appealing because it deals with every aspect of the months-long debate around immersion. It deals with the rural/urban divide, a problem that doesn't appear to have improved under Lamrock's newest plan.
It deals with the problems of streaming elite children away from the general student populace. It deals with fears that the French language is being pushed aside.
And it deals with the science of language learning, which essentially says, "the sooner, the better."
McCain's plan and its philosophy seem to be fundamentally about education - not politics, not cultural fears and certainly not the courts that were unfortunately dragged into this debate.
It would be a very typical New Brunswick approach to look at the EFI decision and say, "well, that's good enough. Let's move on." It's the wrong attitude. Education always deserves a second look.
Whether the province can afford this Cadillac program is a perfectly legitimate question, but as McCain's plan plays out it should be watched closely.
We don't need to rest just because the first time around was tiring. New Brunswickers shouldn't let the issue drop from the radar. And the Liberals shouldn't either.
If McCain's plan was easy, it would already be done. But if it proves to have merit, it must be considered.
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Comments (5)
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During the next year, the public, various citizens groups and experts will have the opportunity to thoroughly express and debate their ideas.
This time frame will allow for a provincial consultation group to form and study all the proposals and make its recommendations to government.
Then, based on the public's recommendations, the Department of Education can put much needed reforms into place.
In addition, I would like a detailed account of the DOE's allocations to School Districts and specifically of funds used for all forms of resource support to students in the province.
Finally, I would like the Minister of Education's perogative to act on his (or her own) to be abolished.
That's not true. He was replacing EFI with Intensive French and the children that went through those pilot projects haven't even reached their Grade 12 assessments yet.
If the description above is correct, I foresee one important objection. Because it would mean that a significant portion of the elementary curriculum would be built on a foundation established in an optional (?) ECE programme, I can only see that it addresses fears regarding streaming only by creating a new, greater, inequality. If the FSL, etc. curriculum were designed around those children whose parents have the means and enthusiasm to enrol them in the ECE programs, this would put low SES kids at a certain disadvantage in the schooling system, more obvious than the putative ones discussed around EFI. Of course, if it were designed as it is now, assuming no prior knowledge, then the ECE program doesn't really jump-start education.
You're right that until now gr. 3 immersion was stipulated by 309A as 90% French instruction. The 'Improved Plan' entails some further reduction of this because an English literacy program will be provided at that level, ensuring that all children, immersion or not, complete their first-language literacy training. If we weren't to do this, immersion would be at severe risk of of truly being only for the academically advanced. In his description to the roundtable group on Tuesday, Lamrock was at pains to say that gr. 3 will not be 'immersion lite', or anything like 50/50.
I suspect we're looking at 75% immersion, but the details will be worked out in the Minister's advisory group, which will include many people who are suited to the task of assessing these trade-offs.