National student testing reveals major improvement in New Brunswick
Students are still behind much of the country, but for reasons that aren't clear, they're gaining ground
A former education minister in New Brunswick is having a bit of an "I told you so" moment — but is it actually warranted?
Kelly Lamrock was feeling proud this week after studying national test results that revealed significant improvements by students in the anglophone school system in reading, math and science.
- French immersion returns to Grade 1 early entry
- French-immersion students score much higher on English tests than core students
- New Brunswick bilingualism rate rises to 34%
"New Brunswick has been consistently improving since 2010," said Lamrock, who was education minister for a while under former Liberal premier Shawn Graham.
Lamrock was referring to recently released scores from the 2016 Pan-Canadian Assessment Program, a national test that measures how Grade 8 students are doing every three years.
In science, New Brunswick was in seventh place, compared to the rest of Canada, but the test scores showed a jump of 31 points from 2013.
In reading, New Brunswick was in second-last place but improved by 18 points since 2013 and by 10 points since 2010.
In math, the Grade 8 students claimed fifth place in Canada, but their scores showed an 18-point increase since the previous test and a 20-point increase since 2010.
20. Vital takeaway.....don't let the fact we didn't leapfrog everyone immediately distract you from this truth...NB schools and teachers are gaining on the rest of Canada and improving more than anywhere else. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/nbpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#nbpoli</a>
—@KLamrockLamrock gloated about the scores because he believes they support a decision made 10 years ago to delay the start of French immersion.
In 2008, the entry point for immersion was moved to Grade 3 from Grade 1 to try to end what Lamrock at the time called a two-tiered, or streamed, system in anglophone schools.
Lamrock said a later entry point would eliminate the grouping of students according to their levels of academic achievement.
And students would learn the basics of math, science and reading together in their first language, he said.
Children who were in Grade 2 in 2008 would have taken the most recent pan-Canadian assessment tests as Grade 8 students.
Latest tested cohort is significant
"That is the first time during those critical kindergarten to Grade 2 learning years were not separated into classes where most struggling students were placed into one classroom together," Lamrock said in an interview this week.
But the president of the New Brunswick Teachers Association, said it's too early to say whether moving the French immersion entry point had a positive impact on learning.
He cautioned anyone from using a standardized test as a measure of the system.
"To say that the change in immersion resulted in these results, I can't say that it did, I can't say that it didn't," said George Daley. "I think it's one of those things you'll have to look at over time."
Daley said it's more likely the improved results had to do with government spending on education.
"We had literacy leads, numeracy leads all stripped out of this system in 2010," he said.
"We had a government change. It became very much a penny-counting exercise, and if you weren't the classroom teacher, you were gone, and we saw the results from our standardized assessments start to decline."
Still, the association was not in favour of changing the early entry point back to Grade 1 because the initial change wasn't in place long enough to see if it was working. The change was made by the current Liberal government, led by Brian Gallant.
"To measure a system, it takes time," Daley said.
He also said the dynamics of learning French are not the same in different parts of the province.
As the fall election approaches, Daley said, he has been asking politicians how they plan to balance out those differences, using the example of high school exchanges between different areas as a way to improve language skills.
No size that fits all
"A student in French immersion in Bathurst has a much different situation than a student in French immersion in Woodstock," he said. "That one uniform system is not going to work."
Initially, Lamrock moved French Immersion to Grade 5 back in 2008.
But at the time, a court ruling ordered Lamrock to seek more public input before arriving at a final decision on French immersion for the start of the school year, which eventually dropped it down to Grade 3.
The Gallant government has since shifted immersion back to a Grade 1 entry point and Lamrock expects test results to drop back down again as well.
Different kinds of tests
The Pan-Canadian Assessment Program tests are not the same as the standardized tests taken by schoolchildren in several other grades in math, science, reading and language skills.
The most recent results for those tests, released in January, were less encouraging than the pan-Canadian test.
They showed just 31.7 per cent of 4,956 Grade 6 anglophone students were at an appropriate level or above in 2017 on the scientific literacy assessment even though targets are that 90 per cent should be at that level.
Similarly, just 38.4 percent achieved an appropriate or better score on the math assessment.
Those results were still better than in 2016, when just 20 percent of students scored appropriate or better scores on math tests, and 26 per cent on science.
"We realize that there is still work to do to ensure all of our students are successful in these core subject areas," said Brian Kenny, New Brunswick's Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Kenny said the return of Grade 1 immersion is something parents have been asking for. New initiatives will also address classroom composition problems and provide more access to immersion in rural areas.
Kenny said studies have shown that the earlier children learn a second language, the more likely they are to use it later in life.
Back to the basics
But Lamrock said moving early immersion to Grade 3 allowed students to start on the basics of math, science and reading in their first language.
"If you go back to streaming kids, it will move it down unless you do something to bring it back up."
Daley agreed that the early entry point can create unfair class dynamics in some classrooms.
"The higher amount of students with learning deficiencies, mental health issues don't go into French immersion," Daley said. "They get housed in a classroom altogether and they have that one teacher in the room.
"They do not have a fair environment compared to the other students."
As a result, he said, more money, teachers and resources are needed to strengthen New Brunswick schools.
"It is just not fair to take all those students with learning issues and put them in one room and expect one teacher to look after that room effectively," Daley said.
With files from Information Morning Fredericton