EDUCATION AND TRAINING
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Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order.
This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply, meeting in Room 255, will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. When the committee last sat it was considering item 2. School Programs (a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $244,100.
Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Mr. Chairperson, I believe a question was asked in regard to who was responsible for marking the standardized exams that will be implemented in the very near future.
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): It is defined in our plan, and it will be the local school divisions who will assume that responsibility.
Ms. Mihychuk: Am I to understand correctly that the home school division will be responsible for the marking of the home schoolers?
Mrs. McIntosh: As to the marking of the home schoolers, that is a decision we have not yet made. The other students will be marked, if they are in a school system, by their local school system. The home schoolers, the decision is yet to be made.
Ms. Mihychuk: I have two more questions in terms of home schooling. Can the minister share with us the regional distribution of home schools and which school divisions have the greatest number of home schoolers?
Mrs. McIntosh: We can provide you with that information. We do not have it here, so we will acquire it and bring it to you.
Just while I have the microphone for a moment I just wanted to provide a piece of information that was asked for this morning and that was the cost of the copies of the videos. The cost is $290 with second copies being $116, additional copies of the same video.
Ms. Mihychuk: $160?
Mrs. McIntosh: $116, and they were developed in 1992.
Ms. Mihychuk: I have a few more questions in the area of nonfunded private schools.
In the legislative review panel done I believe in 1993, certain concerns were raised about nonfunded schools in terms of--and I am going to be asking questions related to that. I quote: The Public Schools Act does not address the issue of nonfunded schools adequately, does not provide for any criteria on curriculum students must follow--on any curricula on curriculum students must follow, nor does it protect the children's interest.
Based on this information and on submissions received, the panel concludes basically that children in nonfunded schools are at a disadvantage. Is that still the situation, and what is the intent of the ministry to address this issue?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairperson, the reference to disadvantaged in the report, I believe, was in that they may not be like the public schools, which of course they would not be because they are independent, and I suppose it could be a subjective word. What is an advantage and what is a disadvantage?
However, in terms of monitoring, and that is the question that is being asked, the department pays an annual visit to each of the nonfunded schools, and they monitor certain things within the school. They, first of all, ensure the safety of the facility, the physical setting, making sure that it is safe. They keep a record of all the staff who are working with the children of the school, the actual numbers of students enrolled, the kinds of curricula the schools are using, and they recommend changes in situations where it is deemed appropriate. They assist with the management of provincial assessments for schools that participate, and they report back on individual schools and provincial results. They check on the number of days the schools are open for instruction, and they respond to requests from the schools.
There are, as I said before, about 1,200 students in these nonfunded schools. They are primarily Christian schools. The 12 Mennonite-Holdemann schools, for example, are amongst the nonfunded. The accelerated Christian education schools are amongst the nonfunded, so there are those types of interests. As well of course, as I indicated, once our new blueprint is through they will also be taking our tests so we can assess and measure them on a comparative basis which I--I am interpreting inherent in your question is how do they compare with the public system, like how do these nonfunded schools compare? How do they measure up?
Of course, one of the whole fundamentals behind our blueprint is that we have stated we see the need to have measurable standards on a comparative basis, and this is one case where I think maybe the opposition might agree with us where measurable comparable standards are important. The difference in this might be that we feel it is important to compare everybody, even within the public system, not just nonfunded to public but that will come in.
The nonfunded independent schools, however, do on a voluntary basis participate right now in our reading assessment, as an example, and recently in the science assessment. I believe I indicated earlier they scored within 1 percent of the public school setting sample. The Grade 4 students in the independent schools in terms of the voluntary participation in our reading assessment, the Grade 4 students in the independent schools demonstrated better results than the provincial counterparts. They did better. Their test results showed they had a much stronger foundation at the beginning levels of reading. That is just one example of the testing that is done now and the results that we get from it.
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Ms. Mihychuk: Is it true that the department does not recognize the standings granted to students from these nonfunded schools? Is that still the case, that they do not recognize the standings?
Mrs. McIntosh: That is correct.
Ms. Mihychuk: Is it the intention of the minister to look at this situation? It seems that clearly they are in a school situation which puts them at a disadvantage when they are entering secondary levels of education or when they are attempting to gain employment. Either the ministry needs to monitor and provide standings or not recognize these schools at all. My question is what is the ministry going to do?
Mrs. McIntosh: The nonfunded independent schools, as I indicated, will be required to write the provincial standards. Those provincial standards, of course, will be based upon provincial curricula. At that point, as soon as our blueprint is passed, they will be taking provincial curricula and provincial standards tests.
I do not know if the record will still hold that on the testing with the reading. Interest in looking at these results, that the nonfunded schools, the Church of God schools that are the nonfunded ones, the results were significantly better than both the provincial and the CLE and ACE schools in four out of four subtests. In the CLE and ACE schools the results were better in two out of the four subtests over the provincial results.
Maybe the higher overall results in those schools, this is at the Grade 4 level, may be because of factors such as smaller class sizes, factors such as those. The test results are not necessarily disadvantaging the students.
Once we get onto the provincial curriculum and standards testing, those results will be recorded as part of the record. They will be seen as a basis for a proper comparison between public, nonfunded, independent funded and all of those others. Everybody will have to write those curricula-based standards exams, tests and will be able to be compared and recorded as such.
Ms. Mihychuk: I did not make an opening statement; however, I do want the record to show that I, like I believe most members of our party and caucus and those that support us, do recognize the need for measurable standards, clear outcomes defined through the education process. I believe what we differ on is the assessment method. That would be the government's choice to use standardized exams at certain intervals through the system. I just want to say clearly that there is the need for clearly established standards or outcomes, benchmarks which we wish to assess and monitor. I wanted to just put that on the record.
In terms of the private schools, the independent schools, sometimes there has been a latitude--there is a latitude granted for independent schools in terms of who enters the school. When it comes to children with special needs in particular, how can we ensure, or how is the minister going to ensure, given that public money goes into the majority of the schools, that there is not a form of screening that is going on in those private schools?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to indicate and I appreciate the member's comments, and I would be interested--I know you are asking me questions and I am not to ask you--I would be interested at some point if you could clarify how you support the testing for standards in the school, because I am pleased to hear you say that. It is the first I have heard it said from this particular party, and I am delighted to hear it.
I do not know quite what you mean by you approve of the testing for standards, because you made reference to standardized testing. I am not sure that we have made it clear what we mean by that. When you say you are concerned about the way we are going to do the testing, I sense that you think we are talking about standardized tests in the traditional old way of standardized tests with multiple choice, regurgitating back facts and marking on a bell curve and, of course, that is not at all what we are talking about.
We are looking for the higher order results that standard tests are standards tests, not standardized testing--big, big difference. They are curriculum congruent. We are looking for higher order results. It is quite possible--I do not know if you were here yesterday when I used the example of the swimming badge--so it is possible that you have a standard that everybody could reach, and it is not, pick one of the following four answers and everybody gets graded on it that way.
In terms of the question you just asked now, we are talking about choices for parents. We believe in choices for parents. There are various reasons why people would opt for a rigorous academic discipline setting or versus a setting that is different in some way from that by virtue of the fact that some parents make a contribution in terms of dollars to a particular school, and they have more opportunity to affect the way in which that school operates.
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Right now in the public school system, everybody pays taxes for schools, and that came up today in Question Period. People pay taxes. Senior citizens without any children in schools will pay taxes to support the public school system but not to support the private school system directly.
Parents then who have children and wish to access a public school do so without having to pay a user fee. They can go to a public school and they do not have to pay a user fee to go to that particular public school. Parents who wish to access an independent, partly funded school will be asked to pay whatever the amount is that the school feels it needs to function.
It is usually in the tune of some thousands of dollars per annum, and so because they pay the same taxes as everybody else in addition to that pay what for want of a better term I will refer to right now as a user fee of several thousand dollars a year. First of all, it is an assist to us because we do not have to fully fund that school as a province. We only need to partially fund a portion of their operating; we do not fund any of the capital. If all those kids came back into the public system tomorrow, 11,000 students, we would have to go to the taxpayers for an awful lot of money that we do not currently pass on to the system because the parents pick up a portion of the cost of the education for their students. In doing so then they ask to be able to exercise some kind of choice over the milieu of that school.
So we will say to them, because you are partly funded, because we do give you a portion of your operating expenses, we ask that you would follow our rules in terms of curricula, qualified teachers, all of those things, but we do then allow them some flexibility in setting the tone and atmosphere of the school.
We are now attempting in the public school system to allow parents who do not pay a direct user fee over and above their indirect taxation to also have some ability to influence the atmosphere in the school, although obviously it cannot be to the same degree in terms of saying this is going to be a school where everybody will have to have their heads covered for example, or hold to a particular dietary regime or have prayers at a certain in a certain religion, because in a pluralistic, public school system we cannot have the schools functioning as Jewish schools or Christian schools or Muslim schools or any other kind of school that is not directly related to the teaching of reading and writing and so on.
I do not know if that answers your question as to why the private, partially funded schools have more ability to create the kind of learning environment than, say, a public school where their parents do not make a direct user-fee contribution on top of their taxes.
Ms. Mihychuk: I will try and clarify by asking another question. Do funded private schools receive Level I funding for special needs students?
Mrs. McIntosh: They get specific funding for Level II and III. Level I funding is incorporated into the per-pupil grant because there are special needs children of course in private schools.
Ms. Mihychuk: That is what I am trying to get at. There are, and we are aware of, some schools that maybe do not have a fair representation of students with special needs. The report on the panel for education legislation reform noted that private schools which receive public funds and refuse to accept children with special needs, that should not be allowed. So this was clearly an issue.
We do know that there are some private schools that refuse to accept children with certain learning needs, not based on religion or garments or even money. The issue is that what they are doing is excluding students based on a learning need. This not only makes the public school system proportionately have more of those students, it provides the independent schools or the private schools with the ability to perhaps come up with higher test results. If they accept only those that are at a certain academic level then, of course, the overall results will be somewhat skewed.
My point is that we, as the public, do fund private schools through Level I on a per capita basis. That type of screening is, I would say, unfair and the panel also felt that way.
My question is: What is the minister going to do about this situation? Is that still the case, and how are we going to address it?
Mrs. McIntosh: First of all, individual schools in the public system are not funded for Level I. The school division itself is given Level I funding based upon the per capita, statistically the percentage of students who are at that level in the school system. So in the public system there is no one school that gets Level I funding directly. The money is given to the school division based upon a statistical indication of the number of Level I students who might exist in the division, and then the division will decide where that money goes.
This applies, as well, to independent schools. The Level I, of course, applies to the full range of children from those less able to those highly able, and the private or the independent school is allocated accordingly.
We have done an assessment in recent years of special needs children in independent schools. The independent schools do have children of different levels of learning. When you take that 80 percent of the schools are these religious-based schools, such as the Church of God schools, and you have the parents in a community deciding to have their children in those schools, not based upon a rigorous academic but upon a religious base, everyone in that particular faith community having their children go to that school proportionately would have the same proportion of needy students as other aspects of the population.
You do not say because I go to an independent Christian school I, therefore, will not be a Level I, Level II, or Level III special needs student because those parents are not choosing that school based upon the ability of the students there. They are choosing it for a faith concept.
I am not sure if that answers the member's question. If it is not exactly what she is trying to learn, then maybe she could pose it again and I will try to provide more detail.
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Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): Mr. Chairman, maybe I could clarify it. I am reading directly from the minister's report of the Panel on Education Legislative Reform which was tabled in 1993 in February. That panel said that if independent schools receive public funds it is inappropriate to refuse to accept children with special learning needs.
There are two things that concern us here. First of all, is that statement true? Are there schools which do refuse? Obviously, the minister's panel believed that. Is that the case, and where is the evidence? Secondly, what action is the minister taking to deal with that issue in terms of the kind of reforms that she is proposing to look at with special learning needs? Thirdly, I actually did want to clarify, the minister said that Level I special needs funding goes to the school division which redistributes it to the individual schools. I was not clear what she said where special needs funding went in the private system. It sounded as though it went to a commission of independent schools which then redistributed it rather than to individual schools. My assumption is that it goes to the individual schools directly from the department. So there are three parts to that.
Mrs. McIntosh: In terms of the last question you have asked, your interpretation is correct. In school divisions it will go to the school authority for those students, which would be the school board. In independent schools it would go to the school authority for that school, which would be the board of trustees for that school, which normally is one school, could be more than one but most often is just one board of trustees for the school. We insist of course that they have a board of trustees if they receive some of their funding for some of their operating expenses from the public purse.
Private schools were reviewed, as I said, a couple of years ago to determine whether special needs students were in the schools and whether programs existed for them. It was upon that knowledge then that Level I, Level II and Level III funding was made available for private schools, for independent schools, because students with those needs exist in those schools. In the majority of those schools they exist in the same proportions that they do in the public school system.
When students apply to independent schools the member must remember that some private independent schools will have entrance requirements based upon the programs they offer. They will have some sort of adjudication to ascertain whether the program that they are offering and the student who is making application--whether the student can benefit or take that particular program, the special mission of the school, whatever the special mission of the school happens to be.
For example, if you have students attending specific religious schools, we have seen people who say, I would like to attend such and such a school which is a religious-based school, the people in that school will accept that student provided that student adheres to all the religious observations of the school, even if that student is not of that faith. You might choose to send your child to an independent Catholic school, and you would have to agree with the school that your student would accept the religious doctrine that permeates the school, that they would abide by all the criteria of the school that is part of that school mission statement. You might have a school where they say, well, the mission statement of our school are these rigorous academic standards and discipline, and the students coming in would have to be able to partake in that particular setting and be adjudicated on that basis.
At the present time, the independent schools are funded to the tune of 40 percent of the operating costs of public schools, a relatively small percentage based upon the actual cost of education which is why, of course, parents who use those schools have to then pay the user-fee of some $4,000 or $5,000, whatever dollars it is a year. So it is 40 percent of the operating costs of public schools with no money allowed for capital. Now, that money is given and the parents are willing to top up all the rest of the cost of the education for the ability to have a mission statement for a school that would allow it to have a certain atmosphere or milieu or whatever it is they are looking for that cannot be offered in the public system.
The nonfunded schools are able to have greater liberty to flex the way they do things than the partially funded schools. The partially funded schools have some flexibility to do things their own way, but because they are partially funded, we insist that they follow certain basic rules and criteria. The fully funded schools, i.e., the public schools, the authorities, i.e., the province, sets the rules for everything and parents comply.
So I am just wondering if the member is asking if a private school ever were to reach the point where they were fully funded, should they then be forced to behave 100 percent like public schools. If they are partly funded, should they be made to behave partly like public schools, and if they are not at all funded, if they are truly independent, should they be allowed to be truly independent. That is the philosophy I think that most people in society see this on is that if you are fully funded from the public purse, then the public should tell you how to behave.
If you are completely independent from the public purse, then you should be as independent as you can be, although we do not let them be totally independent. If you are partly funded by the public purse, then you should have part-obligation to that public purse. That is kind of the philosophy that government takes, government before us under the New Democrats, government under us under the Progressive Conservatives. [interjection] Well, I do not think it is totally irrelevant to the question. I think the question you asked was would we change the rules? [interjection]
Ms. Friesen: No, I am not asking you to change the rules. I am asking you to provide evidence of the information provided in here. We have now heard for 10 minutes the minister give me, for the third time, something on the private schools.
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Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Would the minister please finish her remarks.
Mrs. McIntosh: I have finished my remarks.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the question is based upon the report of the panel on education legislative reform. This panel was formed in 1990. In 1993, it reported that the panel believes it is not appropriate for independent schools, especially if they receive public funds, to refuse to accept children with special learning needs.
What I am asking the minister is: What is the evidence that they do this? Do the private schools refuse to accept children with special learning needs? If that is the case--[interjection] Well, I am asking the minister for evidence. Do they? Which schools have refused? What led the panel to--[interjection]
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member may wish to peruse Hansard tomorrow to see that I indicated not once, not twice, I think maybe three times, maybe this is the fourth, that we provide Level I, Level II and Level III funding to independent schools because our studies show that Level I, Level II and Level III students attend independent schools. That is why they are eligible for funding.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the panel believed that independent schools were refusing to accept children with special learning needs. Given that independent schools in their budget do get money for special learning needs at the Level I level, is there any evidence to support the claims that the minister's commission made? I am surprised by it. Is there evidence to support it? Was the commission wrong? Have things changed since then?
Mrs. McIntosh: As I was explaining to the member in response to her question about schools which receive public funding, explaining to her that some schools receive full funding, some receive part funding and some receive no funding, what I am asking the member, she can maybe tell me, knowing the report the way she does, does the report say fully funded independent schools? Does the report say partly funded independent schools? Does the report say anything at all about the degree to which a school is funded being any sort of factor in the degree to which the school is allowed to set some of its own rules?
Ms. Friesen: I will read the full paragraph, and the minister will get the context. It is on page 33 of the panel on education legislative reform published in February 1993. The panel said: While it is reasonable for religious independent schools to give preference to children whose religion is the same as that taught by the school, the panel believes it is not appropriate for these schools, especially if they receive public funds, to refuse to accept children with special learning needs. The panel believes that a student who meets all the special criteria an independent school may have for admission, a student then should not be denied entrance without the school having conducted a thorough evaluation of whether it can provide an appropriate learning environment. The panel notes that some independent schools do accept such students. The students must be provided with the same support services available to special needs students in public schools.
Now, the assumption behind that is, some schools do it, some do not. And that is what I am asking the minister. What was the panel's evidence or what evidence does she have that some schools are not doing that? Has that changed since 1993? Are schools which do turn away students with special learning needs, are they the same--
Mrs. McIntosh: Assumption.
Ms. Friesen: Yes, it is an assumption. It is not my assumption. It is the assumption of the minister's panel, and I am asking for whether those conditions have changed and whether in fact schools that the minister has evidence of schools turning away students with special learning needs and receiving funds for Level I needs, does she plan to do anything about that? Is that a situation which would give her some concern?
Mrs. McIntosh: First of all, I indicate that the statement in the report you referenced did not come to the government with any kind of evidence such as the member requests. So they did not present any evidence with that generic statement. Similarly, and I thank the member for reading it into the record, because I think it was critical that that statement get into the record, because it does not address the level of public funding that goes to particular schools. It just says, schools which receive funding. It does not indicate whether they mean full funding, part funding. It does not indicate.
What I am trying to say to the member in terms of an answer is, it would make a very big difference to me if a school were fully funded from the public purse, as public schools are, as to the public ability to demand the school function in a certain way. When a school is only funded to 40 percent of the operating costs of the public school system, whose operating costs are higher generally than public schools, and no capital is given and no ability to apply for categorical grants, I ask the philosophical question of the member, should that allow the schools some discretion in admittance?
Ms. Friesen: Then perhaps what we need to ask is, if a school receives Special Needs I funding, as some independent schools do, and if that school then refused to accept children with special learning needs, would that give the minister cause for concern? Is there evidence, and how would the minister have access to that evidence, that such is occurring, because that is clearly the assumption that her own panel made?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the panel in that statement that was read into the record, and I invite anyone reading the Hansard on this to go back and refer to that paragraph, does not make that assumption. The member makes that assumption. That statement does not state that this is currently a problem in the schools. It says, if a school does this, then. It poses a hypothetical situation without clarifying the percentage of public funding and then makes a generic statement, period. We each read it from our own perspective, and the member's perspective on this issue is different from mine.
In terms of the answer to her question, we do not have any evidence, nor do we have any reports that the problem she is referencing has in fact been a problem. We have no evidence and no reports on this as a problem that has been brought to the attention of the officials in the Department of Education. I think maybe that is the definite answer that she was looking for.
I also have to tell you that you are also making an assumption in terms of the ability of special needs children to learn that I find most offensive, because you are assuming that a child who has Level I or Level II or Level III needs cannot perform to a standard of excellence. If you are talking about a school having academic entrance requirements and asking students to measure up to high standards, you are assuming that a special needs child does not have the ability. By your question, you are making the implication that a special needs child at Level I or Level II does not have the ability to measure up to a standard of excellence to qualify them for whatever.
I find that assumption part of the big problem that we have with the way in which children are succeeding because people place expectations on children. You just did it, ma'am, in a big way, repeatedly. Without meaning to, you made the strong implication that special needs children of certain levels would automatically not qualify to enter into a rigorous academic setting, and that is not correct. That indicates that you have a low expectation of those people, and by having a low expectation of those people, you create a self-fulfilling prophesy that is part of the problem that we are trying to address.
I have known students. I have known them. I have seen them go through their school system. I have seen them grow up, and I have seen what they are doing today. I have one friend who was a younger friend than me, but who was definitely attempted to be pigeon-holed at a certain stage.
I know that the board chairman in Winnipeg No. 1 will agree with this. You have to put high expectations on your students, not low expectations. You have to, insofar as you possibly can, even while you are trying to put extra funding in place to assist people who have certain abilities or certain early assessments that indicate they are going to have difficulty learning in certain ways, you have to assume that they can achieve.
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My friend was told early and pigeon-holed that he was a slow learner, that he would never make it through a regular academic program, and he was advised to go into a different kind of program. He was pigeon-holed and categorized and stuck into a little box and told he was this kind of a person. He was that kind of a person for a long time until his parents decided that he did not need to be that kind of a person. That individual not only went on to get a university degree, he got a Masters degree and is a teacher now, and a darn good one because of what was learned through his own very negative experience about being labelled and then having everybody who knew him preach down to the label.
We have nine, right now, medically fragile students in schools who are working at grade level or above, and that was never anybody's expectation of them except maybe the faith of certain dedicated educators, parents and the environment in which they found themselves, so they said, you can do this. It may take you longer, you may have to work harder. We, who work with you, may have to bend over backwards to assist you, and you may be 21 by the time you get through this, but you can do it and you can excel.
So I just do not like the assumption in your question, because if we are saying that we have a school that has entrance requirements that ask for academic standards--
Point of Order
Ms. Friesen: I think the minister is misunderstanding the assumptions behind my question, and so her answer is dealing with issues of skills of children. My questions dealt precisely with selection processes of schools and the relationships to the funding processes of the department. They never, ever once mentioned the abilities of children, the role of children to succeed or the nature of special needs children. They dealt entirely with the selection process of a school.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member for Wolseley does not have a point of order. I would remind members that in making remarks to the questions that are being raised, that they do keep their remarks relevant to the line that we are on and stay within that framework.
The honourable member for Wolseley, do you have a further question?
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Mrs. McIntosh: I was answering a question about schools receiving Level I funding and then refusing to admit people based on the fact that they would be Level I students. It was a direct response to an indication of the member that Level I students would somehow not be able to meet entrance requirements. You never said it--
Ms. Friesen: Yes, I never said that, I never implied it, and the minister is going on the same tack as she did two days ago, which is jumping to conclusions about the implications of a question.
I think it would be fairer for all of us and more to the point if we stuck to the questions which are asked rather than impugning motives or--
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. I have already ruled on this point, that it is not a point of order, it is a dispute over the facts.
I would remind the honourable members that they should stay relevant to the line that we are on. I would ask the minister to complete her remarks.
Mrs. McIntosh: We will go off reading assumptions into each other's statements, and I will not read assumptions into her's and I would appreciate the same consideration in return. I have addressed her issue. I have talked about the difference between funding and programs. I have talked about special needs, services in the schools. Perhaps it is time to move onto the next line.
Ms. Friesen: We were, before the break, also talking about home schooling and we noticed the very large increase over the last decade, and particularly a very large jump in this last year. One of the concerns I had was the regional distribution of this and the impact it had on local school divisions. I gather my colleague has already asked about the regional distribution, and the minister, I gather, is going to provide that information.
Could the minister indicate whether she has had concerns raised with her by any school divisions, school trustees, about the impact of home schooling on school divisions? I know that there are some home schooling parents who also want to be able to use divisional facilities as well, and I wonder if the minister has begun to deal with this issue.
Mrs. McIntosh: No.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I have had an issue raised with me, and I know the previous minister has. I do not know if this minister has dealt with it yet. It deals with the issue of record keeping and record access in independent schools. The issue is, of course, that the department does have a protocol and a records management policy for public schools. It also has a process of record disposition for public schools which in talking to some of the divisions--I am not sure they are all completely involved in it yet. It is a huge issue in terms of space and storage and access for school records.
The issue that has been raised with me, and with the department, deals with independent schools and their policies. So I think my question would be, does the department intend to ensure that the independent schools adopt a similar protocol to that of the department in dealing with students' records, that is in terms of access, in terms of ability to see the records, use of the records, that kind of thing by family, by family members, by the students themselves?
Mrs. McIntosh: As you know, of course, this is a problem that has often been found in public schools, as well. I am sure you know that. Our new legislation which I really hope will be supported, when it comes through, by all members--I am getting increasingly optimistic as I hear now that you do support testing for standards. You do support parental involvement. You do support a number of things that we were led to believe you did not, and this is really good. I believe you would also support, then, this part of our new plans and our new directions.
Parental responsibilities and rights, and this will, of course, apply to all schools--that parents notwithstanding any other act of the Legislature shall be informed regularly about the attendance, behaviour and progress of their child in school, have access to cumulative records and files on their child that are generated by the school or the school division and have the right to query any information contained in them, receive information about programs available to their child, be informed of any steps taken by school authorities that may substantially affect the rights or freedoms of their child, be informed of a code of conduct including consequences for misconduct for the school attended by their child or be consulted if a code of conduct is being developed or revised, assist school personnel in ensuring that their child complies with the code of conduct in the school, ensure that their child attends school regularly, consult with school authorities when requested regarding their child's educational program, et cetera.
I think point 2, about having access to cumulative files and records generated by the school or a school division and have the right to query any information contained in them, would address the point that you are referencing because with the right to query information also comes, of course, the right to ask for a corrective if there is information in there that is not correct about the child, for example. If there is a flaw in the record, then by seeing the record you have the opportunity to point out the flaw, the perceived flaw in the record.
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Ms. Friesen: Well, I am glad that the minister added to that the right of access because that is the issue at stake. It is the ability to add or subtract from a record information which is believed to be true or false. I understand in the public school record management system the records are the property of the school division and that there are quite specific rules governing what can be added and what can be taken away, how long the record has to be kept, who has access to the record in the period after the student has left school.
Again, as I read the protocol for the public schools that has been developed by the department, it seems to me a good record management system. I am wondering if that is going to be applied to the independent schools. It sounds to me as though it goes beyond what is implied in this rights and responsibilities of parents and school divisions.
Mrs. McIntosh: Protocols are currently being developed for those types of things. It probably would be best to come under the line of Schools Administration.
I would like to read as well though the rights and responsibilities of students because students also under our new Renewing Education: New Directions--and there is that word "renew" again. It was not a word I just started using because the member thought I was upset because she did not like the word "reform." Renew was always in here.
In our Renewing Education: New Directions, the action plan, we also have that students have a right to have their records treated as privileged for the information and use of school and department officials as required to improve the instruction of the students or their accommodation in school. In addition, records are not to be available to any other person without the written permission of the parents or the students if they are 18 years or older. So we are also having a privacy attachment to that so that you do not have the records just available to any old person who wants them. I think that is the other part of having the records be available, that privilege not be abused by people who may want to take advantage of knowing what is in those records.
The protocols for the question she asked are not yet fully developed. They are being developed now. We will have more information when we get to the Schools Administration line.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the reason I am asking it here is because independent schools is the issue. As I say, I think the existing protocols for the department are good ones, reasonable ones, from both the students' and the parents' perspective. They may, in terms of storage and retrieval, place I gather fairly heavy burdens on some school divisions.
The issue here is the application of the same protocols and expectations to independent schools. The minister, I assume from her response, is going to be applying in the new educational legislation the same principles to independent schools. Maybe that is the first question. The second one is, what recourse is there for a parent now in the independent school system who has disputes over the use and content of records?
Mrs. McIntosh: Have we had problems in that regard?
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes, there has been one issue raised with me and I know it was certainly raised with the previous minister. It may not yet have been brought to this minister's attention.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we will get that information, because you indicate the previous minister had some knowledge of some specific example there so we can bring that back to you.
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): I wanted some clarification on the way that Level I funding is done in the public school system. I just want some clarification. Is it by the actual number of needs in the division or is it taken province-wide, an assessment is done as to the number of children who need Level I funding and ergo it is extrapolated to each division?
Mrs. McIntosh: Specifically Level I, you are referring to? Okay. Level I is provided to school divisions through block funding. So you would get in your regular block grant, your per capita. Included in that would be Level I funding, and it is based upon the traditional number of Level I students, say, a certain percentage of the student population would be Level I. That money now just flows. The best way to put it is, the staff just handed me a note which I think sort of makes it an easy example.
If you had 180 children in your division, you would get $43,700, and you would not necessarily know that those were Level I children. You would have just 180 children, $43,000 based upon historical evidence that a certain percentage of the student population is Level I. It saves everybody having to apply every year. They get the money and they can then disburse it.
Mr. Kowalski: I am a little bit confused from my previous experience in that I remember the person in Seven Oaks School Division, Louise Evaschesen, doing plans for individual and funding would flow as a result of the plan that was submitted. Now, I assume that is for other levels.
Can you clarify that for me?
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Mrs. McIntosh: We have three ways of funding special needs students and there are the three levels--Level I, Level II, Level III. Level I, the program for them might be a small group instruction for a major portion of the school day or individual instruction for a significant part of a school day, and those are people who are trainable mentally handicapped. They have the ability to learn and be prepared for certain levels of endeavour in the workplace. So that is done through block funding. You assume you are going to have a certain number based upon historical precedents and you just flow the money accordingly.
Level II, you are funded $8,520 for Level II per individual identified, identified individual. Then you will have your individualized instruction for a major portion of the school day for those types of individuals and those would be the severely multihandicapped, some who are severely psychotic, deaf, hard of hearing, very severely visually impaired.
Level III, you would get $18,960 individually per identified need. That requires really profound treatment. That requires additional specialist support that is beyond the level of intensity of Level II. Some of those were people who prior to this were institutionalized. Some of these people we are now, through our Children and Youth Secretariat, putting extra money into the entire system for these types of children.
The Department of Health has recently given $450,000 over to the Department of Education because the system accommodates these people. That money only goes to public schools, of course, but that will go into assisting with this.
Mr. Kowalski: The calculation as to what proportion of the student population would need Level I funding, or would be Level I need, when was the last time that was done? What was the manner in which it was done to ascertain that certain geographical areas would not be disproportionately affected by that assumption that in every student population a proportion of students that need Level I funding would be consistent throughout the province?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the Province of Manitoba has a multistakeholder committee of school teachers, school trustees, school superintendents and departmental staff. That committee provides advice to the government on finance on an annual basis, so they continue to review the divisor that is used in the funding formula for Level I and Level II.
Last year or the year before, very recently, they indicated that Level II and Level III funding should increase because there were higher needs in those areas and that is why you see the funding for those two levels having increased.
It is called the Advisory Committee on Education Finance. It is a very large committee and it represents people from all stakeholder organizations and a wide variety of arenas.
Mr. Kowalski: I am wondering, would it be possible to get a list of the members of that committee, not immediately today, but I would be interested to see a list of committee members?
Mrs. McIntosh: Right now, the invitation just went out last week to each of the member organizations to ask them to name their person. We could probably get a list of who is on it right now, bearing in mind that because each member organization chooses their person those names might change. We can get you that.
Mr. Kowalski: When did it go to a block funding formula for individual students for Level I, or has it always been block funding?
Mrs. McIntosh: In 1988.
Mr. Kowalski: I have a question on Level II and Level III. The funding is justified by the assessment of individual students. Are the funds then tied to the student? Do the individual school boards have autonomy to put those funds in their general revenue and use it, or are they tied to the individual student?
Mrs. McIntosh: They are tied specifically to the program for that student. They do not go into general revenue.
Mr. Kowalski: I have one last question on this line and it is related to standardized testing. I have to appeal to the good will of the committee. I cannot be here as often as I want so sometimes so I have to rely on Hansard to keep track of what is going on.
One concern I have is in the standardized testing or testing of standards, whatever phrase you want to use. Experience from the United States has shown that what has happened in some jurisdictions is that those skills that are more easily tested become the skills that are then accented in the curriculum because they are easily tested. What has been done in the plan to assure that will not happen in Manitoba?
Mrs. McIntosh: I am really glad you asked the question because it gives me an opportunity to clarify I think a generally held misconception about what we are doing here. I appreciate the chance to get it on the record. I would hope that in turn you could start helping spread the accurate knowledge of this out there because I think some people have been--I do not mean here in this room--but some people have been attempting to leave an impression, consciously, that is not correct.
We are not testing in the way that they do in those schools you described. We are looking for foundation skill areas. We are looking for the ability to problem solve. We are not asking, can you do something by rote? We are saying, can you problem solve? There are ways in which you can test problem solving, because you look for critical thinking skills; you look for creative thinking; you look for reasoning and logic, deductive reasoning, the types of things that used to be taught at the university level by psych 101, those types of things. You look for them now right at Day One of the learning experience. Learning how to learn, those are defined. We have written those four down as clearly defined skills that we will be looking for under problem solving.
Exercises and examples that are used for testing purposes will be looking not necessarily for two plus two equals four, although we may ask that question. We will also be looking for, does a person understand what two is; does a person understand what another two is; do they understand that two can be one plus one or four minus two; or a plus one means something different than a minus one and all of those things that involve computation, mathematics, the study of numbers. It could be applied in--all thugs wear motorcycle jackets; he wears a motorcycle jacket; is he a thug? They have to do that kind of logical going through thoughts, and that has not traditionally been the way those tests that you are referencing have been used.
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Problem solving, though, is just one of the things we will be looking for. We have the four foundations. Problem solving is one. Literacy and communication is the other. By that, we just do not mean, can you read a page or can you spell certain words correctly? We are asking, can you use language in all its forms in learning experience across all subject areas? So no more will you enter a class and have to transmit a message and let the method of transmission for that message be unclear, because your communication will be assisted and improved as you transmit.
So reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing and other ways of knowing, sketching, diagramming, dramatizing, these are all vehicles and tools for learning. They all come under literacy and communication in our provincial curricula.
When you read to be looking for different things, there are different ways of reading. You will read a scientific text in a certain way and you will absorb the content of that text for specific purposes. You will read a novel, a work of fiction or a great masterpiece in a different way for pleasure or for an understanding of a certain era and a certain society. Similarly, you will read a business report for a different reason. You will do different things with that knowledge and communicate that knowledge to other people in different ways because of the topic and the type of reading that you have done. So we will be looking for those things in literacy and communications.
Under human relations, which is our third category, we will be looking for, and this is a very important skill, particularly as you enter into the kind of society we now have and the society that will continue to grow in this direction, under human relations we will be looking for a developing and the understanding and appreciation of self--self-esteem, self-confidence, things that are really at the root of education in so many ways; developing good work habits; including responsibility, adaptability, entrepreneurship, management of change, accountability, developing an understanding and appreciation for our society's diverse population; developing tolerance, teamwork, leadership, learning how to develop a sense of global interconnectedness.
We do not live in a little world with walls around ourselves. I remember that was a big thing during the Free Trade debate. Do we live in a little world with walls around ourselves or do we live in a global world, global society, global economy? Those are three then--literacy, communication problem solving, human relations--and the fourth, technology.
Technology is using technology to learn so we have it as a tool for the learning experience. We see that now starting in kindergarten in some divisions, right into computers right off the bat in terms of trying to understand their capability and their use. They are writing software programs now for two- and three-year-olds, fascinating stuff, and then making connections among the groups of society, technology and the environment.
So those four categories are the things we are going to be testing. So it is not at all like the testing that you have described, and I quite agree with your description of them, in other jurisdictions. Although we will also be testing for those skills, they are not part of our foundation.
Mr. Kowalski: Yes, but even in those four foundation skills, will the emphasis be on the ones that are easier to measure, easier to test? For example, literacy, for years we have been designing tests that test literacy. We do not have the empirical knowledge, the history of testing for human relations and human skills. So, therefore, the emphasis in the testing will be on those things that are easier to test, even within those four foundation skills.
Mrs. McIntosh: I think the member has two components to his question. In terms of the ability to evaluate these tests, I should indicate that some of them will be tested by the provincial testing programs, so there will be people who have acquired the expertise in evaluating who will be looking at these and marking them. Some though will be done by the classroom teacher because the testing is going to be shared.
There will be a diagnostic component which any good testing must always have, and the diagnostic component will be on a percentage basis. Grade 3 level for example will be purely diagnostic; Grade 6 will have a percentage, 25 percent, which will be the measurement of standards. Similarly, Senior 1 will be 35 percent; and Senior 4, 50 percent of a final evaluation.
So the work done during the course of the year of course will still play a very prominent role which is again very important, because maybe you are too youthful for this--no, too youthful for what I am about to remember or you have the youthful appearance of someone who should not be able to remember what I remember, which was sitting down to write 100 percent pass-fail exam at the end of the year based upon the year's work, and heaven forbid that you should have stomach cramps that day or whatever else you might have that would distract you from the test because a whole year's work, pass-fail, on the one exam.
That was good if you were a quick study and could cram like crazy the week before the exam and where you could maybe pull off a really big mark without having had any experience during the year of having developed work habits, any of the things that we look at under human relations and responsibilities. Similarly, it can be very bad if you were a good student who worked hard all year and had all the good work habits and everything and just fell to pieces in an examination room because the lights were wrong or something in the room, because then your whole year's work would do for naught.
So we are saying a blending of both is required to do a proper assessment of whether or not the student has been able to measure up to a particular standard for the expectations at any given level. Have they developed those work habits? Have they developed those four foundation skills? Some of those things can only be assessed based on the annual work. Some of them can be assessed through testing so we can get a comparative level, so we can do the kinds of comparisons that the official opposition was worried were not taking place between independent and public schools. I hope that answers your question.
Mr. Kowalski: The skills that the people from, I forget the terminology, but the provincial testing body or from the province then will be doing then will be separate skills that the classroom teachers will be doing? In other words, like human relation skills, will that only be done by a classroom teacher, and literacy skills will be done by the provincial testing body? My concern about that would be then that those skills at the provincial testing body would be seen as more important than those by the classroom teacher; or, in both cases, will we have the classroom teacher and the provincial testing cover the four foundation skills?
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Mrs. McIntosh: We talk about partnerships and everything being interrelated. I first have to say that I personally cannot see anything happening in isolation from anything else. Everything to me impacts upon how one experience always impacts on another. But most of the human relations would be done locally because that is where the classroom teacher has the ability to observe and to foster the acquisition of some of these skills. The rest would be shared, as I have said, you know 35 percent, 65 percent, those types of things.
When we look at some of these things--I will just give you one example that sort of crosses into both areas. With mathematics, for example, we used to test mathematics and the student would rely upon the authority in the classroom--teacher, textbook, the mathematics tables on the back of exercise books--I do not know if you remember those. You rely upon those things. Those were not bad. What we are saying is if you want to make it better you have to see mathematics as reasoning, and to a certain degree you did have mathematics as reasoning. It was always separated out as, well, today we are going to do problems. That was usually not looked at as developing a reasoning power but rather as just mathematics.
We want to see people drawing logical conclusions, acquiring an ability to draw logical conclusions as a result of mathematics, justifying answers and solution processes. I mentioned before the deductive reasoning, the inductive reasoning where you can follow a progression of thought and draw a logical conclusion or determine that the conclusion identified is illogical. Those have not been pinpointed as expressly as we are pinpointing them as part of mathematics. They have always sort of been there inherent in mathematics. We are saying, pull them out, look at them, identify them and assess the students' ability in them. That is a shared responsibility with classroom teacher and departmental markers.
Mr. Kowalski: I hope the minister and the department, in any way they can, can send out the signal that because the human relation skills out of the four foundation skills are the ones being done by the classroom teachers, it is not because they are any less important, but it is because it is better done by the teacher. I think that message has to be continually sent out, otherwise it is along the lines I started off with.
Human relations skills, because we do not have as much experience and history about testing these, they are not as easily tested. That and the fact that they are going to be done by the classroom teacher may be viewed by some as being less important. I think I accept the minister and her department's assertion that they believe it is a foundation skill. That signal I think has to be sent out repeatedly that these skills are just as important as the technology skills, the communication skills and that.
Mrs. McIntosh: The member is correct. He is correct in assessing the importance of this particular foundation skill. I just wanted to clarify that embedded in the outcomes of all the curricula we will be setting will be each of these four foundations. It will be inherent in every outcome. When I say shared you will see that ability to reason being reflected even in the marking that is being done by the provincial people, because it will be inherent in the outcomes of all of the foundation skills that we are going to have permeate the entire curricula.
Just as I say, ability to communicate will be seen as a part of every subject area. When you are studying science you will also be taught communications consciously, not subconsciously but consciously. Similarly, the human relations will be consciously taught in science as well as--it is not just going to be taught in isolation from everything else. It cannot be. It has to be a part of everything. I hope that is clarified. I appreciate your comments and I thank you for them.
Mr. Kowalski: Again, as elected officials and politicians you know we represent the public's viewpoint. I think sometimes we try to be experts on everything. I know assessment as a field of study in education, people have spent years on this and have an expertise. I think our responsibility is to use that expertise wisely, to make sure that expertise is being used for what the public wants from the educational system, that is, in the end to know that after 12 years of education, the students of Manitoba will achieve the optimum potential that they can along the way, that it is not a surprise at the end of 12 years.
I know that we could talk ad nauseam on assessment. They have gone from performance-based, outcome-based assessment where the past couple of years now they are moving away from it, where they say it is not only the fact that little Johnny could go and figure out a substance in the classroom, but can little Johnny go out in the field and do it in the real world? It is always a developing area.
What goes along with assessment is the outcome. I think that something maybe in Manitoba we could talk about more is the outcome that we want at the end of Grade 12, at the end of university and that. What is the outcome we want? I think business, society, politicians, parents, we have to decide, what do we want out of the education system, so at Grade 12 we are saying, we need a standard. What is the standard for what purpose? Do we want good citizens? Do we want good employees? Do we want people who could think and synthesize material? I know in some jurisdictions that was the start of their reform, to figure out the outcome.
My last comment, just one that I always found interesting was the Australian benchmark system of assessment. I wonder if any of the minister's staff is familiar with that system? It was a system where from the time a child entered school to the time they left after 12 years they continue on a continuum, a benchmark. Each year the parent and the teacher and the student knew where they were on that continuum to expected results at Grade 12. Has that been looked at at all?
Mrs. McIntosh: I thank the member. I am impressed with what he just said. I think maybe you were probably a pretty good school trustee.
I do not know if we have actually looked at the Australia model per se, although some staff may have, but what we have ended up with is something similar to what you are talking about in terms of the continuum from kindergarten to Senior 4 in the curricula development and everything all the way through. What we have arrived at is something not unlike what you are describing. I am not familiar with the Australian benchmark that you describe, although it sounds like there is merit in it.
We do see education as a thing that does not stop on June 30 and start again on September 1. It does not stop at the end of Grade 1 and then start again in a completely different way in Grade 2. We also hope that in those periods of time that a student is not involved in active education, i.e., attending classes, et cetera, that what the system is able to do is give them the ability to learn how to learn so that learning becomes a lifelong experience and the continuum that you described goes with that person throughout life.
I know that good teachers have always wanted that as a goal for their students. It is something they feel so good about when they see former students go on and succeed and go on to higher levels of learning or self-initiated learning and write books, become doctors, do exciting things, start companies. Teachers get very proud because they like to think they had a handle in that, and I like to think they did too.
Learning how to learn--staff just handed me a note saying, Manitoba's four checkpoints at Grade 3, Grade 6, Senior 1, Senior 4 are similar to the benchmarks of Australia and other jurisdictions using benchmarking. So there is a continuum there, a similarity.
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I hope as a result of all of this and all of the things we are doing that the accountability of the educational system to the parents and the students and the ratepayers will be enhanced, because in addition to the things I have identified we are trying to build an accountability so that people can say, well, these are the outcomes we were looking for, do we have them?
The system which always has been accountable has not really had a very good reporting tool to give that feedback back to those who care about education along with them. So we are going to complement standards testing. We call it standards testing as opposed to standardized testing at the school level with tools and procedures, portfolios, demonstrations, exhibitions, observations, teacher observations. They will be developed by the school, the division, the classroom teacher, those affected by the work that we do to give students and parents an accurate and balanced and well-rounded profile of student growth and student achievement.
Mr. Kowalski: I just have one last comment. I have to share a personal thing. As a police officer when you see some young person you have arrested a number of times and you see them 20 years later and they are doing fine you get the same feeling of satisfaction, I will tell you.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Item 2. School Programs (a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $244,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $62,500--pass.
2.(b) Education Renewal (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,225,200--pass.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, I have a few questions on here, although I recognize that there are areas for assessment and evaluation and for specific curriculum details later.
I am interested here in the increase in staff. I notice that in 1993-94 we went from zero staff years in '93 to nine staff years in '94-95, and we are expected in 1995-96 to have 16 professional staff in this division. I wonder if the minister could tell me whether those--they must be permanent staff or they would not come under staff years. I am looking I guess for a description of what has happened over those three years, what those staff are doing and particularly for the 16 staff what the implications are of the change from nine staff. What is going to happen in this coming year that has required the change from nine to 16?
Mrs. McIntosh: The education renewal staff are integrated into the department. They are not--again, because we believe that everything does interrelate, they are integrated through the department. What we have in its Curriculum Frameworks initiative we have information writer, desktop publisher, and we have curriculum consultants, admin secretaries, et cetera. Some of these are not filled at the present time, but those positions are there.
The Curricula New Media Integration Initiative, under there we have media consultant, courseware developer, courseware writer, research assistant and admin secretary.
Under Library Linkages we have a project co-ordinator.
Under Standards Testing we have the curriculum consultants, statistical analysis, word processor and then we have some casual workers. Some of these are filled and some are vacant, some are bilingual, some are not identified as bilingual.
Those staff years--oh, it says what appropriation they are under, and, of course, we are looking at that right now.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister give us an idea of how those are distributed? She gave me four areas: Curriculum Framework, curriculum media, Library Linkages and the testing unit. There will be 16 staff, so how will those be distributed?
Mrs. McIntosh: Staff have handed me a note that indicates Curriculum Frameworks initiative will be under development. The Curriculum/New Media Integration Initiative will also be under development. Library Linkages Initiative will be under implementation. Standards Testing will be under assessment and some of those will be in SPD and some in BEF the French language group.
I have the second part to your other question which I did not give when I was giving the four categories we are talking about, in terms of the accomplishments to date. To date the accomplishments for those are the mathematics curriculums framework which will be released within a few weeks. They have completed the draft of the general learning outcome statements for Senior 2 to Senior 4 and general and specific learning outcome statements for our kindergarten-Senior 1 mathematics in collaboration with the western consortium partners.
They have pursued interprovincial agreements for the Senior 2 to Senior 4 relating issues relating to the minimum time allotments, reconciling jurisdictional priorities and project time lines. They have drafted a kindergarten to Senior 1 outcomes document for review by Manitoba educators. They have begun development and integration of illustrative examples to demonstrate the richness, breadth and depth of the K-S1 outcomes. They have reported on the mathematics curriculum framework project to Partners in Education at orientation sessions on education renewal across Manitoba. They have delivered a three-day regional training session on Grades 5 to 8 mathematics for 80 middle years educators.
Under the English language are its Curriculum Frameworks. As lead province in the western English language arts project they have completed the report on western English language arts, the curriculum congruency and policy issues for ministry approval. The report contains philosophical and educational beliefs for English language arts, pedagogy and assessment, areas of commonality and clearly defined policy issues. The Ukrainian curriculum, they are working on a joint development with Alberta, the CAL project, the development of mathematics software with Nelson Canada as the business partner for Senior 1 to Senior 4.
Alberta has written, and we have given permission for Alberta to use, copied in its entirety, complete with the Manitoba logo, our own developed Parents and Partners, which was produced by the people here in our department. We have given permission for the Province of Alberta to begin to use our material verbatim, and they will pay for the copies, of course. We will not be printing it for them.
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We also have pilot projects for Distance Education. We have had two rounds of applications and approvals on that. As well, we have had printing of the documents that have been released. Those are just a few of the indications of the work that has been done so far to indicate about where we are and that we are on schedule and on track. The only place where we might have to move a little slower, than our own deadline, would be in working with the other provinces that have asked to come in on this with us.
We have agreed that a western consortium, a Western Protocol, western curricula is good, and as I indicated the other day, even the Yukon is in on that. So we may have to slow our pace down a little bit to allow all the other provinces to come in and work with us, but not much. I mean, it is not going to delay us very much.
The other thing that might cause us to have to pause a bit, of course, is the Pan-Canadian thrust, where now the other provinces coast to coast have asked to come in with us on certain things to develop national standards. That might mean we have to take a bit more time with our own initiative, still playing a lead role, of course, but the thrill and the excitement of being able to develop a Western Protocol and a western curricula and have western standards and Pan-Canadian standards is worth any amount of pausing we may have to do here because of the incredibly wonderful opportunities for Canadian students with those kinds of initiatives.
We are both pleased and proud that we are seen as leaders in this area across Canada and are most willing to provide any assistance that any other province has asked for and are delighted that we have British Columbia offering to take the lead in one of the areas of joint endeavour, the Yukon offering to take another and New Brunswick expressing all of its desire to be included.
So those are good things coming out of this initiative started by this government with solid direction given in the very initial stages by those who care the very most about the students we educate. Those, of course, are the parents who have the most depth of unconditional love. Not that the rest of us do not care, but that is a different kind of caring, and we appreciate all of the work they did at the Parents' Forum. We are glad they gave us this direction, and we are very pleased that in the knocking on hundreds of thousands of doors across Manitoba in the spring, we heard continued and enhanced support for what may, in the final analysis, be something that all Canada benefits from.
Ms. Friesen: What I was actually asking was, how are the 16 staff to be distributed amongst the four areas that the minister outlined? For example, how many staff of the 16 staff will be in the Curriculum Frameworks section? How many in the Curriculum Media section? How many in the Library Linkages and how many in the Testing and Evaluation?
Mrs. McIntosh: Let me just do a little running total as we go here. Under the Curriculum Frameworks initiative, 13; under the Curriculum/New Media Integration Initiative, seven; under the Library Linkages Initiative, one; under Standards Testing, four; plus an unidentified number of markers and, as well, some casual term appointments which we have not calculated into that and some, of course, in SPD and BEF which are not included in here.
I think, when you were counting 16, maybe, because I was giving you the categories of work there, like information writer, desktop publisher, but under information writer, we have two, and under desktop publisher, we have three. So the 16 would be the types of work, but under that, would be having more than one person working in that type of work in some cases.
Ms. Friesen: I see the difference you are making.
The Curriculum Frameworks new positions, I notice that they were advertised in the paper more than once, and I wonder if the minister could perhaps tell us whether there are difficulties in attracting people to these positions.
Mrs. McIntosh: I just want to indicate there are a total of 25 SYs in the area, just for your information.
Yes, they were only advertised once. We will be doing an assessment or a search for the assessment position because we want to broaden that search. So you will see advertising for that occurring. We had 850 applications for the curriculum and 1,700 applications in total. So there was a fair bit of interest in people wanting to be part of this initiative.
Ms. Friesen: How many positions still remain vacant?
Mrs. McIntosh: All of these positions, at the moment, are being interviewed; that is, the positions are not being interviewed, the people who were applying for those positions are being interviewed. The competition closed May 12; people are being interviewed. We expect to have final selections made soon. We do have some positions with people functioning in them, but by and large, the vacancies are in the process of being filled now.
Ms. Friesen: I notice that in both years, '95-96 and '94-95, and, to a lesser extent--no, actually nothing in '93. There are quite high numbers for professional fees. I assume this is for contracts, and I wonder if the minister could give us some idea of what was expended on contracts, $839,000, I think, in '94-95 and the anticipated $688,000 in the current year.
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Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, the professional fees include the hiring of researchers and writers and developers that developed specialized services that are not available within the division on education renewal.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, could the minister table a list of those contracts?
Mrs. McIntosh: We do not have them here, but we can get them for you, and we will do that.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, could the minister indicate why there was not available in the department the skills to research and write curriculum?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, I just want to indicate just as a further clarification that the professional fees also include the stipends that the teachers receive for sitting on the committees. So their honorarium are included in those fees.
I just want to clarify, I believe I said to provide specialized services not available within the division on educational renewal. So when the member asks why we do not have the skills, it kind of gives a different--it is a different word--services and skills are not necessarily the same because the department staff are very skilled in a lot of these things, but we need sometimes to have things such as graphics. Sometimes there is just an abundance of work and requires extra hands to come in and assist, but particular services such as inserting graphics into a particular curriculum may not be a service that we have integrally in the department and not one that we wish to go and put in on a permanent basis because of cost implications but that we can go out and sort of rent for a bit and then not have the ongoing cost and the maintenance of having set up a whole graphics department, for example, which we really could not afford to do and would not need to have in place on an ongoing basis but might have to have for a particular moment.
I was just handed a note saying the professional fees, in addition to also paying teachers for sitting on the committee, which we would not maybe have a contract for--well, maybe we do, but I do not think we do; we just bring them in. It also pays their substitute costs and everything else when they are out. So a portion of that money will go to that. There may not be a written professional contract.
Ms. Friesen: Do I understand that not only are the teachers' substitutes paid but the department then pays an extra honorarium for the teachers on a daily basis?
Mrs. McIntosh: If they are here during the school year, their substitute costs are paid. If they are here in the 165 days that people do not teach, they will get paid for those days that they work. If they are on a contract and they are paid on an annual basis, it may be that they are being paid by the division and us. I do not know, but, you know, some divisions are paid on a 10-month basis, some are paid on an annual. Some receive an annual salary. They are not paid on a daily basis, so they may in fact be double paid if they are paid an annual salary as opposed to a 10-month contract, but we only pay their substitute costs during the close to 200 days that they actually teach.
Ms. Friesen: How many contracts were there in the past year for the 839?
Mrs. McIntosh: That is the information we will have to seek out and bring back to you, because we do not have it here with us right now.
Ms. Friesen: Perhaps, then, I should clarify what I am looking for. I would be interested to know the number of contracts, the nature of the contracts, that is, what professional services were being used and for how long, and how many of those were teachers.
Mrs. McIntosh: Just for clarification, do you mean teachers who are currently employed as teachers or teachers who are retired--currently employed as teachers?
Ms. Friesen: Yes, Mr. Chairman, currently employed teachers.
I wanted to ask about the information writers who are to be employed in the Curriculum Frameworks section. There are information writers, and there are curriculum consultants. I wonder if the minister could define what their role is going to be in the development of curriculum.
Mrs. McIntosh: The information writers are responsible for copyright checking, for proofreading, for editing, those kinds of old-fashioned grammar teacher type things. The curricula writers, of course, will be looking at writing the content and the material, the information that we wish to transmit to the students' minds.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, there have been considerable concerns expressed during this whole process of educational change for the what appears to both teachers and to some parents and to those who are observers of education that what has happened here is that Manitoba is throwing out a process of curriculum development which was very collaborative with teachers and with practising master teachers, that things went through, in Manitoba, quite an extensive testing and evaluation process, that master teachers were involved. I think that the partners in education, particularly those parents and those where there are school councils, felt that there was a collaboration, that there was local input, that there was time allowed for the development of curriculum and that it was done from a Manitoba basis, frequently employing Manitoba consultants to write Manitoba-based materials.
What I think people are seeing happening is that a process that seemed suitable, involved people, where people felt that they had a contribution to make, not just in the classroom but to the overall progress and development of educational standards and educational content in Manitoba, I think people see that as being thrown away.
I wondered if the minister would like to comment on that, because what she is outlining is a somewhat different process which involves some teachers but appears to have left behind the collaborative process which, I think, Manitoba teachers valued.
Mrs. McIntosh: We certainly wish to keep Manitoba teachers valuing what we are doing. We also wish to have nonteachers value what we are doing, and the curriculum development model that we are talking about is still a highly collaborative model. It is not one that precludes involvement from anybody in the educational milieu. We still intend to use classroom teachers. We still intend to use master teachers. We do wish to reserve the right, however, to use a rocket scientist to help us write a book on rocketry. We still wish to reserve the right to use a highly specialized expert to provide material on his area of expertise, and we think that that is not a bad thing.
We think it is something, in fact, that has been promoted and presented to government for over a decade, and we see at different stages of development any number of people with their abilities coming in to assist with the development of curricula. Certainly, we do not intend to exclude the people who deliver education in the classroom from this process, so the structure may be slightly different, the responsibilities may have been given different weight, but at each stage of the development cycle, educational partners are going to be provided with opportunities to be involved in the development process.
Our educational partners include classroom teachers, master teachers, principals, administrators, parents, university scholars, college instructors, industrial representatives, business and trades representatives, scientists, medical people. We will not be saying any more than, it is just going to be done by one committee. The people who will be working on each of the curricula will be people who are experts in that area for content and experts in pedagogy for the method of presenting that content. So I think it is a very good collaborative nature, and I think it is being enhanced by the addition of specialists in the areas that we intend to teach.
You will find a lot of schools now doing things such as bringing in symphony musicians to assist with master classes in band classes in the schools, for example. You will find them bringing in established authors to help with creative writing classes. You will find in many schools medical doctors being brought in to discuss biology, particularly reproductive biology, and so these experts have been used on an informal basis in this way for many years.
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What we are saying now is, we want to have that opportunity to respond to concerns that have been brought to government on a repeated basis in that area, and we wish to address them. By no means does it exclude teachers from the process--not at all. We have the Western Consortium Development in which we are looking at common outcomes. An illustrative example: the Manitoba team on that, on the Western Math Project, in terms of developing the outcomes, the Manitoba team there consisted of 12 members, which included eight classroom teachers. Of the 12 members, eight were classroom teachers, and that type of structure, we think, does not preclude teachers, witness the example that I have just given.
Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell us who the other four people were or what their professions were?
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, the Manitoba team had three français
representatives on it. It had a director and three consultants and eight classroom teachers. That was for the Western Math Project Development of Outcomes, and they participated in many, many days of meetings and, I think, have done a very good job. There is a very large percentage of that committee being classroom teachers.
Ms. Friesen: What I was looking for was the expertise of the other four people. Eight were classroom teachers. Four were?
Mrs. McIntosh: The curriculum director, two mathematics consultants, and the three français representatives came out of the eight-classroom-teacher portion of that team.
Ms. Friesen: Eight classroom teachers, one curriculum director, two maths consultants, and who is the other person?
Mrs. McIntosh: We are going to have to check and find out who that last person was because I do not have it here.
Ms. Friesen: In what way does that Manitoba maths curriculum team differ from earlier ways of producing curriculum?
Mrs. McIntosh: It differs in this way, in that they are looking at: outcomes; standards; it is western; and it covers the whole scope from kindergarten to Senior 4. So the continuum that the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski) was discussing is inherent in this, and it has illustrative examples throughout it. So you have got common outcomes, standards, illustrative examples, the Western Protocol, the western development as a region of Canada and, very, very important, the kindergarten to Senior 4 scope.
The thing that I wanted to point out to the member is that while that is different, I think she can see, in terms of the make-up of the committee and just by virtue of the question she just asked, that it is really not that much different, this particular committee, from what has been in place. So when I say that what we are about to do does not preclude us having heavy involvement from classroom teachers, and I use this as an example to illustrate, I think it proves the case, that while you can do things differently and you can exercise more choice in whom you have on the committee, it does not mean that you are not going to include classroom teachers if that is who you have that can do the best job. We are not going to preclude them.
So I use that as an example to try to allay the fears that I think some people have out there that because we have said we want to be able to use experts, we want to be able to choose master scholars, master teachers, we want to be able to tap into the industrial segments of society, it seems to me, there was a fear then that teachers would not be included, and I am saying to you, not necessarily so; that fear need not be as high as rumour has it to be.
Staff has just indicated to me that we will now be doing parallel work to develop an independent study and teacher-initiated courses as well. So those are other new thrusts on the horizon that I think have exciting potential.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I am glad to see that classroom teachers and curriculum consultants are involved in this, and I wonder if the minister would give us an idea whether this is perhaps not necessarily--will this be a model for other curriculum development procedures? Will those kinds of proportions, not in exact numbers, but will those kinds of proportions be maintained in the development of other curriculum?
Mrs. McIntosh: In all probability. I mean, I cannot, at this stage, say absolutely yes or absolutely no, but in the western and national projects, I think it is quite likely that that would be the case.
In fact, it is more likely that you will have more teachers included in the process. Their inclusion will probably see them more equitably represented because they will be nominated by superintendents, so you know that the superintendents will be looking for their best and brightest in terms of putting forward--I should not say nominated, but they will be assessed through superintendent nominations, and that will really emphasize their acknowledged performance-related and evaluated performance-related expertise. Because you will be getting a reference from the person ultimately responsible for doing the teacher evaluations and performance assessments, you could be pretty certain that we will be getting forward a name that has a solid record of achievement in terms of this type of work. So chances are, there will be more representation--could be.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, I am trying to get at the differences between this process of curriculum development and the old process. The minister talks about the introduction of experts, and I am only familiar with the development of the social studies curriculum, but it seems to me that outside people have always been involved in the development of social studies curriculum. Is that an unusual example? Surely that, in the past, has always been the case. So, again, I am wondering what will be different about this process. If teachers are to be involved, if the same kind of outside, quote, experts, or whatever you want to call them, have always been there, if the curriculum consultants are there now as they were in the past, what is different about the composition and the process of curriculum development?
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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we have some fundamental differences here, and it is a two-part response I am giving to the member, to identify the differences which in terms of allaying the fears of teachers who thought they were not going to be included, I am almost glad the member cannot recognize, because somebody has been telling the teachers that they are not going to be involved anymore. I do not know who or why anybody would do that, but somebody has been telling the teachers that, and they have gotten themselves very upset. I will be intrigued and glad, I am able to say, that the differences were so negligible that they could not even be spotted by the opposition critic, and that should allay their fears as to the exclusion--
Point of Order
Ms. Friesen: On a point of order, it was not that I said I could not spot any difference. I was asking the minister to outline how she thought the changes had occurred and what the changes were.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts. The honourable minister, to conclude her remarks.
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Mrs. McIntosh: I am sorry. The question I was responding to was the one I heard about: We have always had experts available; what is the difference between this and the other? I thought that you were indicating you could not see the difference, but I apologize if you could see the difference. I will still answer the question as to what is the difference because that was the question.
The differences are these:
First of all, the committee used to always be just teachers. While those teachers may have done some consultation with masters in the field, what we are saying now is that masters in the field can actually be on the team. That is a major difference.
Secondly, we are concentrating the time down, where work on a curriculum would be begin and sort of be worked on over the course of a long period of time. You know, we take a day here and a day there over a lengthy period of time. We are saying, get together for an intense concentrated period of time. That is a bit different. That will be occurring.
The other thing that will be occurring that is new is the review panel. You will see selected representatives from educational partners reviewing, in a panel, and providing feedback to the department. That is new. That will happen before any field testing.
At the same time, what is different is that the standards tests will be developed along with the curriculum, so you will see two parallel activities occurring in concert with the same players. That is new.
What we will have in the end is something that is new in terms of content of material presented to students in the classroom. Various stages, I think, we have been through before, research, development, the writing of outcomes, the development of standards and the time lines on those are--the research, of course, is ongoing. That will never cease, but the development teams, we are asking them to do their work in about a two-month period. We are asking that they be freed from their other duties to concentrate on this exclusively over the course of a couple of months rather than intermittently over the course of years.
The curriculum products last time were different than they will be. We will see curriculum products which used to include goals and objectives now including outcomes and standards. We will see a teacher support document, which was sometimes in a guide, sometimes separate. We will see implementation documents and teacher support documents which may be more than one level. With curriculum products, you very seldom saw parent support documents, although there were some. With the new curriculum, there will be parent information documents for all core subjects. They will not just be, you know, some with some and some without.
The curriculum process, the partners will be expanded. The Manitoba process did not involve other provinces. It involved teachers in Manitoba. Now it will involve not just teachers but perhaps nonteachers who bring some particular thing to the process that will make it better. It will be further expanded to not just Manitoba but to collaboration with western provinces and with the territories so we can get common learning outcomes for core curricula.
At this point, it looks as if that is a possible extension, as well, to a Pan-Canadian involvement.
Right now we have development consultants working with the provincial area steering committees and working groups, or a curriculum writer, but instead of that being the case, we will now find that different provinces can take the lead in different subject areas. We have already indicated that Manitoba has been asked to take the lead in developing the language arts, the English language arts, Alberta in mathematics, the Yukon in social studies. I believe British Columbia has asked if it could be the lead province, and it has been agreed that it will be the lead province, in science.
So there you have, interestingly enough, provinces of all political affiliations working together--crosses party lines. This is not a partisan issue. This is a learning experience. You have two New Democratic provinces eager to be part of this.
You have all four subject areas that are currently in development for June of next year, from June of 1996 release. That is different from before because before you would find that development occurred on a cycle, with different subjects staged at different points in the cycle in any given year, so you never knew it was going to be coming at you.
The stages of the cycle are different. If you are asking, what is different, why is this different, the stages of the cycle are different because now, again, we come back to that the stages are going to include outcomes and standards. You will have, where you used to have division and revision, included the curriculum steering committee and the writer--and it took two to three years to complete a four-grade span--now we are saying, this will be done in nine months to a year through a western consortium or a Pan-Canadian consortium. So the time frames again are concentrated, shortened and more relevant. You do not get curricula that the first part of it is three years old by the time you get the last part completed. It would be more relevant. The flow of thought will be more concisely expressed because you have a concentrated time line.
Right now, you have a pilot or field test of one year, including the revision. Under the framework development in the new ways, the outcomes will be used as the basis for Manitoba framework development. All those standards will be developed at the provincial level, with the involvement of individuals whose expertise is in curriculum and development and assessment and evaluation, in six months to one year.
Those time lines that were identified for all sorts of aspects surrounding this are being met.
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You used to find that, you know, after the pilot, the full implementation of any new course would depend on the extent of the revision, and it sometimes would not come into place for three years. So, again, how timely is it? Maybe it was very timely. Some things are eternal, but some things need to be more current, and so, again, we will see that in six months to a year.
The fine-tuning portion, the assessment, the results, feedback from the system, again, we have one year simultaneous with the first-year framework implementations. The implementation will be done right across the province so that you have that common front again.
The fine tuning will take place on an ongoing basis. It will never cease. It will always be there ongoing as a maintenance procedure. It will be based on standard test results that will come back in from the field and, also, on general feedback from the field, like, what are we learning as our assessments come back. We see what used to be a four- to seven-year cycle, in terms of curriculum development, from conception to what will now be a maintenance stage, now being able to be done in about a three-year span from conception to maintenance stage. So in terms of the time lines, they are much tighter, more condensed, and we will be asking for people to be freed to devote a concentrated period of time to this and not just be a couple of days here and a couple of days there, a week here, a week there, with other things in between interrupting their flow of thought.
Ms. Friesen: That is a very full discussion. I think it will be useful to have all of that in one place, in fact, for people to look at.
A number of questions occurred to me out of that. One is the difference in the department's mind between goals and objectives, and outcomes and standards. The minister indicated that one of the differences is that old curriculums looked at goals and objectives, whereas the new curriculum looks at outcomes and standards, and I wondered if--I know that is the new vocabulary, and I know those kinds of outcomes and standards, that vocabulary is used in British Columbia, it is used in Quebec, both of which have very much outcomes-based education plans recently introduced and very full on a K-12 basis. But it seems to me, is it simply not new vocabulary for what was implied, what was understood, what was dealt with by classroom teachers in terms of goals and objectives? Is not the goal essentially what is implied by a standard?
Mrs. McIntosh: We are working with very concise definitions. We have, and I will just read the two definitions that we are using. We say outcomes are concise descriptions of the knowledge and skills that students are expected to learn in a course or grade level in a subject area. So it is very specific.
Standards, we are saying, again, a very explicit definition, standards are descriptions of the expected levels of student performance in relation to grade and subject-specific outcomes. We then go on in our action plan, where you will find these definitions, to talk about the relationship between outcomes and standards and performance levels, and I will not go through them. They are contained on page 6 in Renewing Education: - New Directions, the action plan, and it is in the blue box there, and you will see them talking about those relationships and how they are expected to become enhanced.
So those definitions are slightly different from definitions of goals and objectives, although I agree with you in principle when you say, was this maybe not something that people were sort of doing without having these specific definitions, maybe automatically doing, and maybe they were. In fact, I think there were many teachers who were automatically doing this, and the difference is that we are saying, now we all will. We are defining it now, and some of these things that we are talking about are not new magical things. Some of these things we are talking about are things that have stood the test of time and are things that really good educators have always been doing. What we are now saying is that these things are being put down as things that will be done by everybody and not implied or understood, like, no hit-and-miss about it, like a for-sure.
The goals and objectives that we used to have, they were written in such a way that the students would be exposed and there were few ways of knowing if the students actually succeeded. Like, they would say--I am paraphrasing--but, you know, the student shall be exposed to great literature. That type of thing, which does not really as an outcome indicate that the student should have a knowledge and appreciation and an ability to recall, to make suitable application of some of the great masters works of literature, for example.
I still to this day can recite the speech from Portia, and I am sure a lot of people can. I do not know--and I can apply it. I know the meaning of the words can be quoted in certain situations as very applicable reference. That is just a little teeny tiny example from my own past, but goals and objectives did not really reference skills and knowledge directly. This does. So I do not know if that clarifies it for you or not, but we can talk more about it.
An Honourable Member: Can we take a 10-minute recess?
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: There has been a request for a recess. Is it the will of the committee that we take a break for--
An Honourable Member: Ten minutes.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Agreed? Agreed and so ordered. We will resume at 5:20 p.m.
The committee recessed at 5:08 p.m.
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After Recess
The committee resumed at 5:22 p.m.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Will the committee please come to order, and then we will resume the Estimates for the Department of Education and Training. We are on item 16.2, line (b) Education Renewal (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,225,200.
Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairperson, in the area of Education Renewal, my question is: Much of the focus it seems to me is on the tests and the assessment tools that are being developed and the tests that are going to occur. Can the minister tell us how much it will cost to produce these exams that are now going to be used across the system?
Mrs. McIntosh: Initially, I am going to be giving you incremental costs here, '95-96 $177,000 and then in '96-97, again an incremental cost and this will include now the four subject areas, it will go to $1,500,000, and those would be taking '94-95 as the base year, the incremental costs to the end of '97 of switching to a standards testing system, and, of course, that '96-97 year will be all four grade levels, all four subject areas.
I just wondered, before we go on, I had been asked if I could table some information yesterday, and I have got that information. The member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) had asked about testing. Maybe it was the day before yesterday. I am not sure. What school divisions were doing in the area of testing. The staff has been able to contact 28 out of 48 divisions. So it is not a full survey, but of the ones they were able to contact, 28 out of 48 and the norm reference tests 50 percent--I will table this for the member--of the school divisions surveyed indicated that norm reference tests--those CTBS and the CAT--are used at Kindergarten to Grade 3 levels in their schools.
Other tests at the early years for Kindergarten to Grade 3, four school divisions or 14 percent of those surveyed indicated that they administer division-wide testing in the early years levels K to 3 in subject areas of mathematics, science, social studies and language arts, and they are administered in classroom settings as opposed to larger groups.
Staff also then attempted to get some information across the country, and they have some information here which would be accurate till the end of December 1994, and then there will be some change there, in particular Ontario, because Ontario, for example, has announced reforms recently. So this information is till the end of December '94, and then they will be changing what they are doing.
In British Columbia they begin testing in all core subject areas in Grade 4. In Alberta they begin testing with Grade 3 mathematics and language arts. In Saskatchewan they begin testing in the core subject areas at Grade 5.
In Manitoba, we have suspended curricular assessments. Assessments were done in Grade 3 until 1987 in maths, social studies, reading and writing, and standards tests will be administered at Grade 3 in core subject areas. Ontario, none at the present time in Kindergarten to Grade 3 levels, although the reforms they have just announced will show a different method. Well, I mean, it depends what happens today, but those are the plans right now.
Quebec, Grade 3 français and English. New Brunswick, none at the K to 3. Nova Scotia, none at the K to 3. Prince Edward, no answer. Newfoundland, they have Grade 3 science, Grade 3 maths, Grade 3 writing. Northwest Territories, there is no answer from there. The Yukon, none at the Kindergarten to Grade 3 levels.
As I said, it is not a complete survey. They were not able to contact all divisions, but of the 28 they did contact, those are the results that we have obtained. I will just table that for the member.
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The other piece of information that I promised the member for Crescentwood (Mr. Sale) I would table, he had questioned the New Zealand situation. He had indicated that he did not believe there had been a problem with their credit being refused and asked if I could table information to verify that. So I just picked up some information that we had that verifies that and I will table that as he requested for the committee.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: I thank the honourable minister for that. The Clerk will copy and distribute it to the members of the committee.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chair, my colleague was just asking about the cost, and I wonder if there is a breakdown of that. If we take the--well, I guess the most distant estimate we have is '96-97 when all four tests will be in operation, and the minister is estimating $1.5 million. Does that include the development of the curriculum which will be tested in the implementation of that or is that simply the physical production of the test, that is the research that goes into the test, the writing of the test, the distribution of the test and the marking of the test? Is there a breakdown of each of those? I know that one of the concerns of school divisions, for example, is that the marking of the test is going to be offloaded onto the school divisions. So this breakdown of costing, I think, could be useful for people to have at this stage.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, that only includes the standards testing cost. It does not include the curricula. The curriculum is on another line. It does also include the pilot which was not referenced in the question but which is a very important factor and a cost item as well. The breakdown in the other areas is not available right now. The other thing it does include as well is it includes two sittings for the semestered senior levels. So where they have a semestered sitting they have the two sets. That includes the costs for that as well.
Ms. Friesen: I think what concerns divisions and parents and teachers at the moment is who is going to do the marking and how will that be charged. I am familiar with the system they have in British Columbia for marking their final exams, and it is very elaborate, very thorough, but very expensive.
Teachers are seconded and brought to a centralized location. In the last case, for example, it was Victoria. These are teachers who apply to be markers, who are selected on the basis of ability, who serve a three- to four-year term and then are moved on. The week that they spend in Victoria is paid for by the province, that is, their replacements are. They sit around tables of about this size with five or six teachers marking, for example, literature and history exams where it is not multiple choice or short answers. It is essay exams. Their standards are developed by the passing across of selected essays. Every fourth or fifth essay is marked by two or three people. It is thorough. There is no doubt about that. It is expensive.
I think the concerns of people are both that the exams be fair and thoroughly marked, that if you are looking at provincial-wide standards, those in fact be seen to be provincial-wide standards in the same sense that, for example, the marking on a provincial basis in the ways that I have suggested might indicate that kind of provincial-wide assessment base, you are being marked by teachers who have been selected and who are from all parts of the province, who are familiar with the curriculum and who are testing their own judgement against each other as the marking progresses and holds opportunity for discussion.
As I said, it is perceived to be fair, and it is perceived to be thorough, but it is also very expensive. I am wondering where Manitoba is going to be on that continuum, if you want to call it that, of thoroughness, fairness and cost.
Mrs. McIntosh: It is a good question, and we too wish them to be fair and thoroughly marked. I do not think we have any disagreement on that. We do not have the process developed fully yet for standards testing. Right now, we use teachers to do the marking up to Senior 4 levels, and we pay. We do not offload the cost onto the divisions currently. We use a comprehensive system as well, and we have not fully developed our process yet.
I do not know who has indicated to teachers that we might change our method of payment--you indicate their concern--because we have not made any such announcement, but as I say, we do use teachers to mark the Senior 4 exams. We do pay the teachers. We do use a comprehensive system, and we have not yet fully developed exactly what we are going to do with the standards tests, so I do not have an announcement to make on that yet. That is going to be all part of the full development of that whole new development plan.
Ms. Friesen: Does the minister anticipate centralized marking of each of the four levels?
Mrs. McIntosh: Training for the marking will be done by the department, for starters. We will not just be sending a how-to booklet and asking them to figure it out. The markers will be trained by the department, and they will be trained in a consistent manner, so that their method of approach will be emanating from the same source in terms of us training them. We will be monitoring, looking at quality control procedures as we develop.
We do not envision, at the present time, bringing everybody together around a big table, as you described having in British Columbia. It will probably have more of a regional overtone than what you have described, although that final decision has not been made. We do expect divisions will be playing a part, a role in this. They will not be excluded, but the direction will be given centrally in terms of the training, school divisions being ultimately responsible for the students they train. We will have some responsibility in this whole area of marking as well, but the direction will come centrally.
Ms. Friesen: Will the divisions be responsible for a portion of the cost of marking?
Mrs. McIntosh: This may be referenced at some point in the Action Plan actually, but we do indicate that we want to see divisions assuming some responsibility for all aspects of marking. Now whether that carries through into money, that decision has not been finalized, but we do not see them as being removed from this process.
Ms. Friesen: When does the department anticipate that these guidelines will be available for the first year, for example? When will we know where the costs are going to fall?
Mrs. McIntosh: Those protocols will all be developed prior to the first standards test. I do not have a specific date, but in the order of things, of course, there will be the curricula development, the standards testing going along with it, and presumably then, not long after those two things are in place, we would be able to indicate the details that the member is referencing.
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Ms. Friesen: One of the problems, I think, that school divisions and schools are encountering at the moment is the multiplicity of existing plans. There is a new plan for curriculum, new plans for graduation requirements that are coming.
There are still, I believe, professional development days in existence for the Skills for Independent Living which used to be a compulsory course and now is no longer. We have, I believe, still some elements from the ministry's directives of 1988-89 which are still being put into place in schools.
At which point do we encounter an entirely new system? Where does the dividing line come? Is it the class that enters in, what, 1996?
Mrs. McIntosh: The children starting school this September will come in, and as the programs are developed, those time lines dovetail quite nicely with each other, because they will find that they will be able to be on the new system from the day they start.
Students who are currently in the system and sort of, say they are Grade 10, they will be operating under the system that they are used to until graduation, with the stream coming up behind them being the ones that will be, as you say, fully in the new system.
The others will not be fully in the new system. Those kindergarten children will be the only ones fully in the new system from the date of their first day of formal learning.
Ms. Friesen: When can we expect a new set of graduation requirements?
Mrs. McIntosh: Staff has just passed to me a note that I think can answer your question. Those students who entered a high school program of studies in September 1992, or prior to September 1992, but who have not completed the 20 credits required will have until June, 1998. All students who entered a senior years program of studies, that is Senior 1 to 4, in September, 1991, as part of the Answering the Challenge, the voluntary limitation, or in September 1992, '93 or '94, when full implementation of Answering the Challenge was required may graduate by meeting the requirements of either Answering the Challenge or New Directions.
We got a response back. We got feedback from the department's educational partners. As a provision for students graduating under Answering the Challenge in June '95, '96, '97 or '98, the compulsory requirements for Senior 4 are language arts, one or two credits, Senior 4 courses, two or three credits, depending on the number of Senior 4 language arts credits.
Schools and school divisions will need to make decisions regarding which graduation requirements will apply to this group of students. This flexibility is available to schools in planning for this group of students until June of 1998, but then all students, as I said in my previous comments, who begin school in September '95, will be expected to meet the full requirements of New Directions. They will be the first class to stream fully through with New Directions.
So they have made accommodations in the planning. Thank you staff for this. They made accommodations in the planning for students who are in the transitory period.
Ms. Friesen: Could the minister table a version of that, so that that is available to send to people who are unsure of where they fall in these categories?
Mrs. McIntosh: All school boards, all board members and all school divisions have been notified and been sent that information, but if you would like it, as well, we would certainly provide it to you. We will get a clean copy because we have this one scribbled all over, but that information has been forwarded to the school officials and board members who will be having to advise schools and parents and students, but we would be pleased to provide you with a copy, as well.
Ms. Friesen: Which class will it be, which will be the first class to graduate without not necessarily having Canadian history in senior levels?
Mrs. McIntosh: All students will be required to have Canadian history. They will not be able to go through New Directions without having more Canadian history than they currently get. They will be getting it earlier and in more concentrated doses, so it will be impossible to go through a New Directions program without an improved Canadian history and earlier exposure to it.
I am not sure if that answers your question, but there is no way you can go through a New Directions school continuum without getting Canadian history.
Ms. Friesen: As I understand the New Directions document, the last time and the only time that a student gets Canadian history is at the Grade 6 level. In Grade 9, they have a version of social studies, current affairs, that deals with Canada, and then after that, it becomes optional, and that, as I am sure the minister knows, is an area of concern for a lot of people.
Mrs. McIntosh: Yes, that clarification of her question which asked which class of students will be able to go through the New Directions without taking Canadian history, which was a different question than the clarification, I appreciate the clarification because now I understand she is talking about the last two years of school and not all of school.
I think the member understands, and it would be really, really good to see it acknowledged. I would appreciate an answer, to you, yes or no, if you understand this. Do you understand that the number of hours of history that students currently get, going through school on a compulsory basis, will still be the number of hours of history they get under New Directions? It is just they will get it in the first 10 years of schooling rather than over 12, and in the last two years, they will have the opportunity for extra credits in history over and above the number of instructional hours they currently get. Do you understand that?
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Ms. Friesen: No, I do not understand that in the sense--I understand what the minister is saying, and I understand the argument that she is trying to make. I do not have any evidence that that in fact is what is going to happen, and I think maybe the minister is assuming that social studies and history are the same thing. But as it stands in the curriculum at the moment, under New Directions, Canadian history is taught at the Grade 6 level for a portion of the course, not the entire course but a portion of it. There is a public affairs Canadian Studies program at the Grade 9 level. I believe both of those remain unchanged under New Directions, and what New Directions does is to make optional the Canadian history course in the Grade 11, which at the moment is a compulsory course. So I am very willing to look at evidence of where there is to be extra hours and extra content, but in the documents I have seen so far, there is no evidence of that.
Mrs. McIntosh: The member and I can go through this for many, many hours. I guess the bottom line that I think she is trying to find out, which I am pleased to answer for her, and I am also pleased to go through the other things too if she would like, is: Will there be a strong emphasis on Canadian studies, Canadian geography, Canadian history? Do we value those? Do we think they are important? Do we plan to have them as a vital component of the New Directions? The answer to that, of course, is, yes. Right now, the member knows, we have renewal going on. We have a social studies program which, unlike previous courses, will not have geography separated from the history of the region, or history separated from the geography of the region. I mean, why did we have the voyageurs? We had the voyageurs because we had the rivers. We had the furs. We had all of those factors. They are linked, and the member knows that.
We are having that kind of research right now. Yukon Territory is taking the lead with social studies, but it is a question of consortium. We are all together in it. The research into the scope and the content of Canadian studies, of Canadian history, of Canadian geography is currently being done, and those expectations of student achievement are going to be enhanced as the compulsory kindergarten to Senior 2 outcomes are identified and the standards are developed and identified, and that we will have, in 10 years instead of 12, you can call it social studies if you like, you can call it whatever, it is going to be knowledge about Canada, its regions, its peoples, its history, and that will be taught to an enhanced level in a 10-year period instead of a 12-year period with the opportunity for extra history at the Senior 3 and 4 level.
The member knows that is how it is going with the last two years, being years in which students are going to have a much wider range of options than they currently have. Parents have told us, and I know parents have told her that too because they cannot just be telling members on this side of the House without telling members on the other side of the House--I just cannot envision that the hundreds of people who have told us are not also telling you--that they want to see students in their last two years of school being able to do a variety of things, take apprenticeships or get a head start on apprenticeships while they still take their language arts and mathematics. They want to see students be able to begin to prepare for either the workforce or post-secondary instruction, and those things are happening. We will have enhanced learning in the kindergarten to what is now called Grade 10 level, and we will have condensation in terms of condensing down the same amount of work covered in a shorter time span so those last two years can be freed for enhancement.
It is a different way of doing things. I cannot believe that in working with a western consortia who values the history of our peoples, regions and geography as much as we do that we will not come out with a curricula that will be extremely good. In terms of the first question she asked, what year will the old system of spreading history out over 12 years and not having a concentrated effort in the first 10 years occur, 1997 will be the last year of spreading history out with major gaps sometimes in high school levels over those 12 years, but 1997 will be the last year that we force it to be spread out.
Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister uses the terms history and social studies interchangeably, and the point I am trying to get across is that they are not interchangeable, that certainly Canadian studies can include some history, but it will also include literature, geography and a great many other things. It is currently taught at the Grade 9 level. In addition, students always had the benefit when they graduated from a Manitoba high school of having a full year course at the Grade 11 level when their level of ability to absorb abstract concepts is much greater than it is at Grade 9 or Grade 6, and that they can prepare for citizenship through the use of a historical study. Those are the arguments which are made and have always been made for senior high Canadian history.
What concerns a lot of people, and I am sure the minister has seen the many petitions on this, is that is going to become an option for some school divisions, and given the difficulties of staffing in some areas, given the financial crisis which some school divisions face, there are great fears that in effect the school divisions will not have an option, that they might lose a history teacher and not be able to replace them so that it then becomes something that is for a variety of reasons denied to the students of that area. So it is a number of factors coming to, I think, fruition in Manitoba that give people great concerns that students at the senior level will not necessarily have the option of the study of their own past. They may well be familiar with some of the literature, they may well be familiar with some of the geography from Grade 9 if they remember that, but there is something which is being lost, I think, and I have great concern about that, and I know that the minister has probably seen many of the petitions which have dealt with those concerns as well.
So my question is, I am prepared to believe that the minister wants this program, wants to expand the amount of Canadian content in the existing curriculum areas, but my impression of New Directions is that that is all it is going to do. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but it is not a replacement for a senior high Canadian history.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not even know where to begin. I have so many thoughts going through my head here in response to the points that were brought up.
Well, maybe just start here. I want to just make an observation that has been made, and we have many examples that I can provide in terms of research on this, and that is, the member says the students are not capable of being able to learn the content of the history that they get in Grade 11 at earlier grades, and that they do not have the ability to think in abstract concepts and those types of statements again downgrade the expectations that are put upon students in other countries and other places.
So I do not agree that students do not have the ability to think in abstract concepts until Grade 11, and I also indicate that the thinking skills that we are going to be incorporating, being made integral to the whole learning experience, will bring forward the development of those skills. You can, and other jurisdictions have, and there is plenty of research and I would be happy to read some of that into the record, Mr. Chairman, if I may.
Mr. Assistant Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being six o'clock, committee rise.