Immersion puts public education at risk
Public education at risk from gimmick that doesn’t work
Imagine if a cabal of parents had gotten together to rig the system so that their kids all went to schools with successful learners from the same socio-economic group. To achieve their goal, they’d have to make sure all those immigrant kids struggling to learn English and the children with learning disabilities would be in other classes. Ideally, in other schools.
How would they pull off such a self-serving perversion of the equality that is supposed to underlie public education? Pretty easily, as it turns out. All that’s required is to create a barrier that shuts out the low-income kids and those with disabilities. In Ottawa, we call it French immersion, the gimmick that ate public education.
A report under consideration by public school board trustees this week shows how parental enthusiasm for French immersion is disadvantaging children with the largest learning challenges. With 72 per cent of Grade 1 students enrolled in French immersion, the English program is atrophying. New Canadians and children who require special education are significantly overrepresented in it. When they leave elementary school, far fewer take the academic courses that lead to post-secondary education.
Thanks to an inquiry from trustee Rob Campbell, the board now has the facts to prove what parents have known for years. French immersion is a streaming program that works to keep the children who require the most help from hindering the opportunities of those for whom school is easier.
Some will say that’s not the intention at all. Rather, choosing French immersion is a form of support for our bilingual culture, one that will also enhance students’ future job opportunities by giving them a critical language skill.
If that is the goal, it’s not being met.
Despite the enthusiasm for French immersion in Grade 1, only 48 per cent of students remain in the program by Grade 8. About 30 per cent of Ottawa public board graduates were able to earn an international certificate of bilingualism in 2017-18. That’s not bad, but it’s a far cry from the number that started the program in Grade 1.
The term “French immersion” implies more than students receive. Real French immersion is something children get in French-only schools offered by the two French-language school boards. In the public school board program, all kindergarten students get 50 per cent of their instruction in French. In Grade 1, 80 per cent of instruction is in French, then it drops to 66 per cent in grades 2 through 6 and finishes at 50 per cent in the final two years of elementary school. It would be generous to call that immersion, although it’s certainly enough to deter those not comfortable in French.
Curiously, our school board insists on referring to all of its programs as English, as in English with core French or English with French immersion. This is like putting a sprig of parsley on a piece of steak tartare and calling it a salad.
In Ontario, there is no such thing as an English-only program. The province mandates that students in English schools receive 600 hours of French instruction by the end of Grade 8. In Ottawa, students receive more than three times that amount. What’s the goal?
It’s clear that the shrinking demand for the English program has imperilled its future. There are so few students that 40 per cent of classes are split grades. The next step could be busing more students out of their neighbourhoods to fill a school somewhere else, the board says.
The imbalance between French immersion and English schools is causing problems on the French side, too. The board reports difficulties in finding enough qualified teachers and the schools are typically overcrowded.
This is a problem begging for a solution.
The best one would be to keep all students in their neighbourhood schools until the end of Grade 6, then offer late French immersion. That would give every child the same start and force the board to strengthen English programs for the well-to-do and the poor alike.