Province on track to miss all academic education targets

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The province is on track to miss every in-class target set in its 10-year education plan in 2016, according to new government data.

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But the Liberals, while admitting there’s “a lot of work ahead,” say they’re confident they can turn things around.

Based on the results to date, however, they are facing a Herculean task.

And while an education expert gave the government some latitude because of pandemic learning disruptions, he said in general, the plan is falling “miserably short” of its goals. 

But that doesn’t appear likely to stop the Holt government from drafting up and implementing another 10-year plan, set to take effect in August 2026, when the current one expires.

Of 68 goals laid out in the current plan, introduced by the Gallant Liberal government and continued by the Higgs government, only four have been hit: three in the anglophone sector and one in the francophone sector. None of the four are related to in-class performance by elementary, middle, or high school students.

Two of the anglophone targets met relate to preschool students: whether they’re showing “appropriate development in problem solving and communication,” and whether they’re displaying “pro-social behaviours.” The final goal reached to date is about teachers, and whether they’ve all received training on First Nations history, traditions and cultures.

Three other anglophone-sector goals are close to being met, but also don’t have anything to do with in-class performance. 

The first is the “percentage of parents who report that their child demonstrates appropriate levels of development prior to school entry.” 

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The second and third are about preschoolers meeting “appropriate development” in language, communication, and problem solving. 

Of the plan’s 37 overall goals, 11 weren’t given a target, making it impossible to know how students are progressing in comparison to what the government wants to see. 

Beyond the 11 goals without targets, the three that were hit, and the three that were almost hit, the remaining 20 goals, in most cases, aren’t close to being reached; some are massively lower.

The results in the francophone education sector are equally grim. 

Of 31 goals set, only one has been reached: the percentage of children “in approved French-speaking educational daycare services who actively participate in activities surrounding the French language, culture, arts and Acadian and French-speaking traditions in connection with the education curriculum.”

The data show francophone-sector students are also well behind the goals set by the province for literacy, numeracy, and science – regardless of grade. 

By the numbers

Looking at the strictly academic targets that were set in the anglophone sector and comparing them to the results to date shows just how big a challenge students and school staff are facing.

For example, the province set a target of 90 per cent of all students “achieving appropriate and higher levels of performance on provincial reading assessments.”

While Grade 2 students aren’t included because “a new assessment is under development,” Grade 4 students’ performance is actually getting worse. Four years ago, 69 per cent of students were meeting the reading goal; that’s now dropped to 56 per cent.

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Grade 6 students’ results, however, have risen from a 69 per cent success rate to 76 per cent since 2020-21. But they’re still well short of the target. 

Finally, Grade 9 students’ success rate has hovered around 82 per cent for the past four years. 

And it’s not just a reading problem.

In math, the province wants 90 per cent of students to achieve “appropriate and higher levels of performance” on provincial assessments by the 2025-2026 school year. 

While Grade 10 students’ assessments were discontinued during the pandemic, only 48 per cent of Grade 7 students are currently achieving “appropriate and higher levels of performance,” and only 53 per cent of Grade 5 students are hitting that mark.

The science results are better, but still not close to reaching the province’s target of 90 per cent of students “achieving appropriate and higher levels on provincial science assessments.”

In Grade 4, 74 per cent of students are hitting that mark. In Grade 6, it rises to 78 per cent, and in Grade 8, it’s 75 per cent. 

Non-academic targets are also mostly not being met.

For example, the province wants no student to feel “left out at school” by 2025-2026. 

As of now, 26 per cent of Grade 6 students said they feel left out. And the results from Grade 4 and Grade 10 students aren’t up to date because they were “accidentally omitted” from the latest survey, taken during the 2023-2024 school year.

On absenteeism, a long-standing problem in New Brunswick, the province didn’t set a target. But data was provided to show the percentage of students who attend 90 per cent or more of possible instructional days.

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Among Kindergarten to Grade 5 students, 63.8 per cent are meeting that goal. The percentage drops to 53.4 among students in Grades 6-8, and falls again to 52.9 among students in Grades 9-12. 

System facing ‘real challenges’: minister

In a statement to Brunswick News, Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Claire Johnson admitted there’s “lots of room for improvement.”

“We know our education system is facing some real challenges,” Johnson said. 

“In my short time with the department, I have heard from teachers, parents and students about the obstacles they are facing. These barriers did not just appear overnight, and they will take time and a solid plan to work through.

“My main focus in the year ahead is to ensure every child in our province has access to quality education, no matter where they live in New Brunswick. To get there, we are going to address the most pressing issues head on: retention and recruitment, classroom composition, literacy and numeracy, French Immersion, school infrastructure and inclusivity in classrooms. It’s also important to me that each child starts their day with a full belly and a nourished mind to focus on their education.

“Working on these priorities will require teamwork from many stakeholders, including government, educators, families and communities.

“Over the coming months, I will be visiting schools, meeting with stakeholders and listening to the people who know our education system best. Their insight will help shape the direction we take to work on our goals for the current education plans, and to set new targets for the next education plans.

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“I know there’s a lot of work ahead, but I am optimistic and excited about the opportunity to make improvements to our education system. I am extremely proud of our educators, support staff and other professionals who work hard every day to make sure every student in New Brunswick receives a quality education and can reach their full potential. I look forward to working closely with them in the year ahead.”

Expert: Plan was flawed from the start

When it comes to 10-year education plans, said expert Paul Bennett, “you generally expect that they’re going to be broad, generalized, non-specific, and almost impossible to measure.”

“And that is what this is,” said Bennett, the director of the Halifax-based Schoolhouse Institute, and a columnist for Brunswick News.

When the plan was unveiled in 2016, Bennett said, “I wrote that it was the most ambiguous statement of the status quo in education that you could ever find.”

It looked, he said, “as if it was written by a committee that (examined) the current trends around in Canada and North America and put them all into one document and made them aspirational, without any real specific goals.”

Mostly, Bennett said, the plan seems designed to create a “management culture” in schools. Where it does set specific goals, he said, they are “miserable failures.” 

“If you read it carefully, it says that they were going to create a culture of success,” he said. “They didn’t say they were going to create success. If you look at the end (of the plan), it says ‘a culture of success.’”

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The plan encourages people to talk positively and have a can-do attitude, Bennett said, and even uses the words “can-do.”

“It’s almost as if they were trying to counter a feeling of defeatism in the school system. They wanted to give (staff) a language and a dialogue of positivity. Having said all that, there’s just not a whole lot in this.”

Bennett did, however, note that every government’s education plans were massively disrupted by COVID-19.

“Every plan that ran into the pandemic was derailed,” he said.

Despite that caveat, Bennett said the Liberals are making a mistake by preparing another 10-year plan. 

“Strategic planners would never recommend a 10-year plan. What they would recommend would be a three-year plan, renewable for two to five years … why would you commit yourself to a 10-year plan? 

“There’d be only one reason: you want to send a signal to everyone in the system that not much is going to change.”

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