Literacy scores: Spin those results, Kelly Lamrock!

Interesting. The new literacy and math scores for Canadian teenagers were reported today with Quebec leading the pack, followed by Ontario.

I wonder how Kelly Lamrock, currently the president of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (and ironically the person who is quoted in the Globe story), will spin these results which show that the the top three scoring provinces for literacy are: Quebec, Ontario, Alberta. All of these, you'll note, are provinces which offer early French immersion programs, and start their core French early. It would seem, in my less-than-humble opinion, that these provinces aren't suffering for their decision to follow best practices in second-language education.

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Lamrock to the Globe: "French Immurshun is why our kidz kant reed gud"

The Globe and Mail ran an editorial over the weekend which was highly critical of New Brunswick's decision to cancel early French immersion. Kelly Lamrock replies in a Letter to the Editor (possibly behind the subscribers wall).

Among other preposterous claims, Lamrock states that "Early immersion teaches too few children and those who struggle with or don't take immersion wind up in the same class. This is called "streaming" and we've paid the price with last-in-Canada literacy scores."

I've already noted the fact that one solution to this problem is to actually devote resources to helping special needs children in immersion programs. Another would be to actually implement the government's own rules that state that immersion classes are supposed to be comparable in size to other classes in the school boards.

But the bigger issue is this. Shawn Graham and the Liberals campaigned in the last election on promises to improve literacy scores in the province, which the OECD has found to be among the lowest in the country. Statistics Canada produced similar results.

But here are a few problems with Lamrock's argument. Alberta has one of the highest rates of literacy and one of the best arrays of immersion programs in the country. In fact, French immersion is offered in every province in the country. So how, exactly, are we supposed to believe that French immersion is the bogeyman of literacy?

Secondly, Lamrock's plan calls for intensive French in Grade 5, and then giving parents the option of putting their children into late immersion. Won't this also produce the "streaming" effect that Lamrock fears? Does he think that a full 70% of anglophone parents will opt for immersion to reach his targets for bilingualism?

Finally, I wonder if Kelly Lamrock is fully aware of how much money his government receives from the federal government under the Official Languages in Education Program, which is tied to enrollments in programs such as French immersion. New Brunswick's Action Plan certainly doesn't seem to say anything about slashing immersion. Of course, that was the Lord government who negotiated this agreement - one wonders how federal officials will respond to the scorched earth approach proposed by Lamrock.

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