HANSARD

and

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Mr. Keith Colwell (Chairman)

Hon. Carolyn Bolivar-Getson

Mr. Alfred MacLeod

Mr. Chuck Porter

Mr. Charlie Parker

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Diana Whalen

Mr. Leo Glavine

[Ms. Joan Massey was replaced by Mr. William Estabrooks.]

In Attendance:

Mrs. Darlene Henry

Legislative Committee Clerk

Mr. Gordon Hebb

Legislative Counsel

WITNESSES

Department of Education

Mr. Dennis Cochrane, Deputy Minister

Mr. Vince Warner, Director, Evaluation Services

Halifax Regional School Board

Ms. Carole Olsen Superintendent

Mr. Jeff Cainen, Program Director

Chignecto Central Regional School Board

Mr. Keith MacKenzie, Vice-Chairman

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Keith Colwell

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to bring the meeting to order. We have a couple of members who are running a little bit late. We'll start with the appointments to agencies, boards and commissions.

Now, I just want to mention this, and I don't think it's an issue, but at the last the agenda setting meeting, I neglected to mention that, I just assumed that agencies, boards and commissions was part of our process here and that we did it at every meeting. We didn't put it in the agenda the last time, the agenda setting process, and I just want to make sure that there are no objections here from anybody that we're going ahead with that. I apologize to the committee for that oversight; it was strictly an oversight because it's something we normally do anyway. I would like any comments on that, and if I have no comments or no objections to it, we'll move forward.

Okay, hearing none, we'll move forward with the appointments to the agencies, boards and commissions. The first one I'm going to start with is the Office of Economic Development, Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation. Would someone like to move those?

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Can we move all of them at once, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You can move both of them at once, yes.

MR. PORTER: Okay, I would so move then.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you name them please, make the actual motion.

MR. PORTER: I so move that Gregory Barro and Amanda Whitewood be appointed directors to the Nova Scotia Film Development Corporation Board of Nova Scotia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any interventions?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Justice, Municipal Board of Police Commissioners, Halifax Regional Municipality. A mover for that please.

MR. WILLIAM ESTABROOKS: Mr. Chairman, considering that I believe this used to be a student of mine - I can't believe that he's a policeman - I would like to move the appointment of James J. Perrin to the Department of Justice, Municipal Board of Police Commissioners.

HON. CAROLYN BOLIVAR-GETSON: I'll second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any comments, interventions?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage, Gaelic College Foundation Board of Governors. Would someone move those?

MR. ALFRED MACLEOD: I so move Wallace Ellison, Marjorie D. Gillis Soares, Ronald MacDonald and Rev. Sandra L. Morrison to the Gaelic College Foundation Board of Governors.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: I'll second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any comments, interventions?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The next one is the Department of Transportation and Public Works, Highway 104 Western Alignment Corporation. Would someone move that please.

MR. PORTER: I so move Lee Rankin to the Highway 104 Western Alignment Corporation.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I'll second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any comments or interventions?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Treasury and Policy Board, Voluntary Planning Board of Nova Scotia. A mover for those.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I so move Ronald Smith and Russell MacDonald to the Voluntary Planning Board of Nova Scotia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: And Ronald Smith be its director and chairman, correct?

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Correct.

MR. PORTER: I second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any comments or interventions?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

Those are our appointments, thank you very much.

[9:13 a.m. The committee recessed.]

[9:15 a.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to thank our guests for coming this morning. We'll start by asking you to introduce yourselves and the staff you brought with you, for the record. We're at 9:15 a.m. now. We'll allow you each five minutes to make your presentations, and you can split that up any way you want. At 9:30 a.m., we'll start the questions and answers, hopefully. Please start.

[The committee witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll go around and introduce ourselves.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please start your presentations.

MR. DENNIS COCHRANE: Mr. Chairman, I'll go as fast as I can, because obviously five minutes isn't going to give me much time. We are pleased to have a chance to be here to talk about the Learning Assessment Program in Nova Scotia. Obviously you've decided the guests today, so I presume Carole is going to speak about what Halifax is doing and Keith will speak about some of the unique aspects that are being done in Chignecto.

We have some history, obviously, in what Nova Scotia has done. I want to point out first of all how a test is developed. In the kit that the clerk will give you is a pretty good schematic of how we actually create a test. I think people are still left with the impression of the 1960s and 1970s when some bureaucrat went off to Cincinnati and bought some kind of test off the shelf. That's not what we do in Nova Scotia.

Our testing is made up by Nova Scotia teachers on the Nova Scotia curriculum, which is developed by Nova Scotia teachers. The test is developed, it's actually field tested each time, out in the schools. The sample questions are identified by the teaching staff, under supervision of our testing and evaluation division, and they actually administer the tests themselves. Actually in Nova Scotia, teachers mark the actual assessment as well. So it's a made-in-Nova Scotia test by Nova Scotia teachers, based on a made-in-Nova Scotia curriculum. It's not something that comes from somewhere else that judges our kids in accordance to another unusual, mythical jurisdiction.

Now, we do have some tests that we write that are international. Nova Scotia takes part in international tests, and this is really designed to give a picture of where our children are compared to other provinces in Canada, and particularly in the other 32 countries in the OECD.

It's very scientific. It's much different than probably what it used to be, and what a number of us might have remembered. So where we're headed is, we're going to eventually test in Grades 3, 6, 9, in literacy and, in Grades 3, 6, 9, in numeracy, and the Grade 12 exit exams will be in English, mathematics and one other. Currently the one other is physics, but in 2008 the one other will become Canadian history, which is rather unique because most of the time we don't test the social sciences.

Canadian history will be rather unique in itself in that there will be about 60 per cent of that test that will be common, but the other 40 per cent will depend upon whether the student is taking Mi'kmaq studies, African Nova Scotian history or Acadian history. So there will be a common part of the exam and then there will be an actual part that will reflect those three particular cultures in our communities.

We now have the Grade 6 literacy test in place. We will have in 2006-07 the administration of the Grade 3 mathematics, and then we'll also see in 2007-08 the Grade 3 literacy. So by the end of 2007-08 we'll have the Grades 3, 6, 9 literacy, we'll have the mathematics, and when that Grade 3 cohort gets to Grade 6 they'll write a different one and when they get to Grade 9 they'll have another one. So we'll have Grades 3, 6, 9 literacy and numeracy, all the way up, and then we'll have an exit exam in literacy, numeracy and one other.

The results of the test are really very complex. It is not just a test to say you failed, you passed. It gives the teachers a huge amount of information as to what the students did well in and what they didn't. It will talk about the concepts of mathematics, it will talk about the reading, the spelling, all the parts of the literacy as well. So we are currently, at this point, just measuring and giving a real good snapshot of the children who aren't doing well. In the future the test will give you an assessment of all the strengths and weaknesses of every student who writes the test.

Now, one of the other questions we get - and the chairman has given me some time - is the amount of money we spend on our testing program in Nova Scotia. We spend about $2.9 million. That's up from what it was a number of years ago, but that represents less than one-third of 1 per cent of the Education budget. That's a very small amount of money to actually spend in diagnostic work as to how our students are doing. That will play an instrumental role in the parents being involved in what we call the accreditation process, by which school improvement planning is done by the administrative staff of the school, the SAC, and they're going to take all the statistical information into play when they actually come up with the school improvement plan. So they will know how their children have done and what that community has as a goal for their children to do.

We put out every year - and it's in your packet - we now put out the Minister's Report to Parents, and it's getting more and more detailed every year. It gives a breakdown. Eventually we will have all of the Grade 12 math exams and English exams, the 30 per cent reflected here, by school, looking at the school average, the board average and the provincial average.

We have all of the literacy tests, and this was a nice snapshot that was given in the past for each board, and it compares each school to the average in the district and it compares each school to the average in the province.

We have also used this information in dealing with government in budget. As a result of the Grade 6 literacy test, we added resources behind that to make sure that when a Grade 6 child wrote the test we then tracked where the child went and we put a certain amount of money in every budget to follow those children. We now have $2.8 million out there in Grades 7, 8 and 9 to support the children who didn't do well in the Grade 6 literacy test, to get them ready to write that new Grade 9 one and obviously get them ready to write the Grade 12 exit exam. That's the most amount of money that we've been able to put toward that particular program.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Ms. Olsen.

MS. CAROLE OLSEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. I want to thank you for inviting the Halifax Regional School Board to be part of the discussion on this important topic, in terms of student assessments. As the superintendent of the Halifax board, I can assure you that this topic is very dear to our hearts as we continue to strive to improve student achievement results for all of our students. Assessments done properly help answer the following questions: how well are our students doing, how do we know, and what do we do for those who haven't learned, or what do we do for those students who have already learned and need to move on to the next steps?

The collection of data allows teachers to make decisions about students that are based on factual information and not on just a gut feel. This use of assessment data allows us to have both data and assessments to be a friend and have a positive influence in improved student achievement. Our schools have come a long way in understanding the concept of assessments and how they can positively influence the work at the site. All of our schools are using data from assessments to establish goals for improvement in math and literacy, as they continue work in planning for improvement in accreditation.

Quite often when we think of assessment, we think of an instrument that measures students' success or mastery of a specific body of knowledge, but that's a very narrow view of assessment. While it's important, it represents just one component of assessment, and that is the assessment of learning. Equally important is the notion of assessment for learning, and I think the deputy was referring to how teachers use data in terms of assessment for learning. Using the assessment results to plan the next steps for teaching identifies gaps in learning and programs for students, as well as to show school and board trends.

As well, assessment as learning is important to show growth over time of students, as they take responsibility for their learning and are able to articulate their own growth and needs. The Halifax Regional School Board recognizes the importance of each and every type of assessment, and has worked closely with the staff of Evaluation Services to ensure a solid assessment schedule is developed which will allow all schools to focus on raising the bar on student achievement, at the same time closing the

achievement gap between high achievers and struggling learners. To this end, we're pleased to be able to present to the standing committee a draft schedule of assessments for the Halifax Regional School Board, and Jeff Cainen, our Director of Programs, will be pleased to answer questions on this timeline following these comments.

The Halifax Regional School Board has worked hard to create assessments that give information on all three types of learning. Grades 2 and 9 literacy, and Grades 3 and 9 math assessments have been designed by staff to show the strengths in areas for focus for each individual student. These same assessments identify four teachers' class profiles and four administrators' school-wide themes, identifying strengths and weaknesses. Parents are also able to gain individual results, and I think it's really important for parents to know how well their children are doing relative to other students at any given point in time.

Board data can be garnered to identify trends that allow us to focus our professional development on issues found within the assessments. Information gathered from these assessments and those administered by the Department of Education - we do our own board assessments, as well as the ones that are done provincially by the DoE, such as the Grade 6 literacy assessments - has allowed us to focus our energies on specific sites that have produced results that would indicate a greater need for outside support. This support may be in the form of professional development, staff, resources or time.

We have what we call a five-schools project with five of our struggling schools that have a high African Nova Scotian population, and we have used that assessment data to put significant resources into those schools and professional development to raise the literacy levels of the students in those schools. Again, if you had questions on our five-schools project, I would welcome the questions, but I would also ask Mr. Cainen to give you more in-depth information.

One of the obvious next steps involving assessment centres on the need for common assessments within schools and families of schools, and the research shows that one of the greatest single strategies that can improve student achievement is having common assessments in a school, marked by the teachers, and having that dialogue in terms of what will improve the learning at those sites. We're going to be developing some work within our schools on common assessments.

In the initial work around the board's Grade 9 math assessments, teachers reported that the professional development they receive was the best in their careers, as it directly related to everyday assignments. This job-imbedded PD that focused on assessment and evaluation was, without question, an amazing opportunity for teachers, seasoned and new teachers, to be immersed in high levels of conversation about math, student achievement, outcomes and learning, both their own and that of their students.

I, personally, have not seen this type of PD in discussions, as a result of assessments, any time before in my career. I believe this is a new development that is very positive for education. I believe that the high levels of education chats can take place with teachers at any level and form the basis of a job-imbedded PD related to assessment and student achievement.

The use of assessment data at the early years has produced many conversations within our board. Our findings indicate that students as early as Grade 2 can handle the rigours of some form of assessment. Our early pilot showed that as early as mid-Grade 2 some students begin to lag behind - and doing assessments at that level, we need to be able to close that gap. I understand that my time is up and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. MacKenzie.

MR. KEITH MACKENZIE: I'll be the brief one in the bunch. Speaking on behalf of our board and our experiences, certainly, we endorse the department's initiative entirely in the assessing. It has been a long time since provincial exams and there has been, certainly, a gap in there trying to see where we compare, how we really do stand out. Certainly, coming in with assessments at a younger age is a very positive thing as our board sees it, and we're very supportive of the idea.

[9:30 a.m.]

Yes, it shows where we are, but it also brings up a level that I think is important - accountability. There's accountability there for the teachers, there's accountability for the parents, there's accountability for the students and even accountability for administrators. So we now have some idea of where we are compared to everyone else, which we didn't have for years and years.

Certainly, the whole idea, the whole theory of it, we endorse entirely within our board. In fact, so much so that we actually did an in-board assessment in Grade 10 math ourselves, where we had our math supervisor, I'll call him, Dave McKillop, who developed a test with others within our board, and we assess all our students at the Grade 10 level. If they're assessed at Grade 6 or they're assessed at Grade 9, they didn't develop these problems necessarily there, if they've had problems. They've been somewhere along the line. So we've tried to see, okay, we found out provincially where we are at that level, let's see if things are getting better.

From the teachers' point, we found that we've got an awful lot more response from our staff to take development in-services. We put on summer school programs for the teachers in the language arts and math areas and they've attended willingly, voluntarily. The whole area of accountability is, I think, something that's very important

in education today. Certainly, these assessments have done that. I see that as a very definite positive.

There is a concern I have and I think that we have as a board in that the department, as Mr. Cochrane has said, has put money into recognizing the ones that don't come up to the standard, don't meet the level that's expected, and there is money put in to help those students get up there. That's where I think we have a concern, that there hasn't been a system put in place as to how to work with those students.

I know, just in doing a brief questionnaire - not even a questionnaire, just a verbal survey, I guess you could call it - within our board, a variety of things are happening. I know, in one of our school areas, the actual teacher of the class of, let's say, Grade 6 language arts was taken out and worked with these underachievers and a substitute was brought in. In another case, a substitute was brought in for a short term to work with these people. In a third case, EAs were brought in under the direction of the teacher to work with these people.

Principals that I have heard from say, well, we get this money and we know we've got to work with the students who haven't come up to standard, but we're just not sure how we're going to go about making that work. That's a concern. That's a growing pain that I think we need to have some more of a recognition and a consistent basis to work with these students who haven't made it up to the bar and need the help along the way.

Certainly, the fact that the program is going to continue and expand, I think, is only a positive and I think it's going to have a very positive reflection throughout our staff in the days to come in Nova Scotia, and hopefully we're going to get our students at a higher level of achievement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We'll start the questions with the PC caucus and we'll start with 20 minutes. Who would like to start?

MR. MACLEOD: I guess my question goes back to you, Dennis. The money that's spent on the children who have been identified as learning need - and this gentleman has just identified there are some issues with that - how does that get distributed to the different boards, for starters?

MR. COCHRANE: It's actually the first time we've ever distributed resources in reflection of how the students have done. So if you had four elementary schools that had Grade 6 and they fed to Grade 7, and if we found that each of those four had five kids, when they got to Grade 7 there would be money for 20 kids to get support.

Keith is right, but one of the attractions of what we do is the flexibility. There is a list and a document of best practices, as to what some boards do and what some schools choose to do. Keith mentioned three and that's the flexibility.

What we have undertaken to do, though, is an evaluation now that we are into our third year, and our total is $2.8 million. We are now going to go back and talk to the system and say, is this the best way to do it? If you look at that, $2.8 million would hire 56 resource teachers. So do we want to go out and put more resource teachers in every junior high to support it, or do we want to continue to have the flexibility that we have from that best practices list?

As far as we know, we are one of the only jurisdictions that have recognized where our students didn't do well and then actually provided the resources on a per-student basis. So the money would not be necessarily proportionate, it could happen that one board had a lot more students who didn't do well and they would get more money because of the number of students, as opposed to another board where the students may have done fairly well. So we really tried to do it across the province. It's one of the few times we actually haven't given money according to actual population of a board or a school, it's population that wasn't successful.

MR. MACLEOD: Then I guess my question would be, we don't test again until Grade 9, so how do we know that these dollars are being effective and how do we know that the return is there for the children?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, three years isn't a long time in an education system. The teachers have a good sense of what's working well. Other assessments are being done all the time and although we're not doing a provincial literacy assessment, those children in Grade 7 are being tested on their language arts program on a regular basis, so they have a good sense of what may be working and what may not be working.

One of the things we wanted was the principal, the professional staff, to actually go back to the SAC and say, here's how much money we have, here's what we think we should do, so that there was a good sense of the money being invested in that school to try to improve the scores of those children. Then, when we test them in Grade 9, obviously we'll get a sense of how we've done and how effective they've been.

MR. VINCE WARNER: The schools are obligated to monitor annually each student who is . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask you to step up to the mic.

MR. WARNER: Just to add to that, each school where there are students who have been identified as struggling in reading or in writing, they must have a literacy

support plan developed for them. There is continued monitoring of those students through Grade 6, into Grade 7, into Grade 8, until they reach the assessment in Grade 9, among the other things that are being done as well.

MR. MACLEOD: If in a school board - just one more question and then I'll turn it back - you identify a certain school or a certain grade level that has continuous problems, how does the board address that? If you have one school and the testing comes back time after time and it's not up to the rest of your board, how do you tackle a situation like that?

MS. OLSEN: Well, we've had a situation like that in our board and that's the five-schools project. I would like to ask Mr. Cainen to tell you some of the initiatives that we've put into those five schools to see if we can close that achievement gap.

MR. JEFF CAINEN: I think, to begin with, we didn't look at just any one piece of data, that's important to note. We looked at a number of pieces of data to build a profile of these schools. In fact, we ended up with more than five schools that in some way, shape or form, were experiencing some difficulty, but five in particular that came up in every slice of data that we took were struggling in some way.

Our initial steps were to bring the school administration of those buildings together and have discussions with them around what the issues were and how they perceived the results, in terms of their schools. We then, actually through the leadership of Carole, went to the schools and met with all the staff and talked about the issues they were facing in their classrooms. They came up with a list of what they thought were the issues and we came up with our list of possible answers to those issues. We have been involved with those schools directly, every single month, since that assessment data has come together.

We meet regularly with them, we have infused them with resources, we have infused them with additional professional staff, central staff. We have made sure that the teaching staff have release time to work together, either in other grade levels - in some cases they may be the only Grade 5 teacher in that school and they don't have the opportunity to converse with other teachers - or we have brought them together by their own school to look at the issues.

Part of the overall plan, then, is that the school administration and the teachers can work together to develop their goals around literacy and math relative to those assessments. We will continue to assist them and, I wouldn't even say monitor, we will work directly with them in their schools this year, again.

We have literacy coordinators in all of those schools, and we have one person overseeing the literacy coordinators to make sure that the work is directed and there is

real, explicit teaching going on in the classrooms. We have left no stone unturned in those schools to make a difference. I believe we have begun to see some results, almost immediately, in those schools, in terms of progress in students.

MR. MACLEOD: How long has this project been in effect?

MR. CAINEN: This project went into effect beginning last year, and we worked intensively with the staff. We worked in unison with the NSTU to make sure that - in a lot of cases these are new teachers in difficult sites. We worked with NSTU to make sure that we could have those teachers in those schools for a second and third year, and not have the revolving door where new teachers come in and you start the circuit all over again. A lot of those teachers have chosen to stay in those schools because of the support they've been given. So it started last year, and it's ongoing. We have not put any kind of end date on it.

MR. MACLEOD: Just one final question. Since last year, have you noticed a difference?

MR. CAINEN: We have noticed a difference, and I can tell you that the schools have noticed a difference. I know that in speaking with a number of the administrators, they're actually saying they're going into the classrooms now, there is a sense of order in the classrooms, the teachers have an idea of exactly what it is they're supposed to be doing and how they're doing it. We have professional staff going in weekly with those teachers to mentor them. I believe when we see our Grade 6 results, Mr. Warner, we'll be happy with what we're seeing coming out of the schools, as a start. This is long term, it's not going to be a fix-it-overnight and then walk away. This is a long-term investment for these schools.

MR. MACLEOD: Thank you very much.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I would like to address the deputy minister. You commented $2.8 million is put into this program and you had the choice of giving it to the individual schools or to put 56 resource teachers into the schools.

MR. COCHRANE: That's the choice we'll be looking at.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: When that money is divvied up to the schools, how is it actually decided how the money is spent at that point in time?

MR. COCHRANE: The professional staff receive a list of best practices of what they think works well, and most of the boards have a list that they put together. Some places, they'll bring more resource teachers, it could be an EA, it could be more books in the library, depending upon the nature of the problem in that particular school. There

is a list of best practices in the school itself, and we would encourage them to get together with the SAC to talk about the community and literacy levels and so on, and then come up with some recommendation as to what they were going to do.

Our undertaking is now that we've had our third year - 2006-07 is the third year - the last $900,000 was that we would now go back and take a look and say, is that the best way to do this?

MS. OLSEN: If I could just follow up on the deputy's answer. Within our board, as well as the best practices, we ask each school to submit its plan to our Program Department to make sure that what they're planning to do in the school dovetails with the kind of support that we can get, so we have our best literacy experts reviewing the plan and having conversations with the schools to modify the plan to make it for the best use of that money for those students who are struggling.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: So the board does approve the plan that each school puts forward for the spending of those dollars.

MS. OLSEN: Yes.

MR. COCHRANE: In addition to that, I might comment, it's not a one-trick pony. This is something that's going on, but at the same time, in Learning for Life II, we're adding 50 and 60 math and literacy mentors in the system to work with the teachers, dealing with the curriculum and the specific individual issues that children bring forward. Plus, we've added a huge amount of resources with regard to Active Young Readers, writers in action, a number of new curriculum guides with regard to mathematics, new curriculum and so on. So all this is going on at once, but the good news is all these initiatives are being based on evidence that we're getting as a result of doing the testing program in Nova Scotia.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: What was the process in the early to mid-1990s?

MR. COCHRANE: At one time, believe it or not, APEF, which was the Atlantic Provinces Education Foundation, was a grouping of the Ministers of Education and deputies in Atlantic Canada. We were doing a lot of common curriculum. For example, you can find a literacy curriculum that will be the same in Nova Scotia as it might be in New Brunswick, as it might be in Newfoundland and Labrador, and so on.

The corollary that was supposed to come behind that was common testing, so we had a really good picture of how Atlantic Canada was doing. The wheels fell off somewhere in there; all of a sudden P.E.I. has very little testing, Newfoundland and Labrador has been more aggressive, New Brunswick has kind of drifted a little bit

recently, so we got away from that. Nova Scotia then said, what are we going to do on our own regime?

One of the things we did was we always tested. There was testing in Grade 5, or Grade 6 and Grade 9 math at one time, I think, in Grade 6 literacy, but they were systems checks and the parents and the children didn't receive the results. What we determined to do was look, if we're going to do - and, quite frankly, if I were a parent I would be a little upset if you spent time testing my child and I didn't get a sense of what the diagnosis of that child writing that test actually was. So we have now individualized the scores and as I said earlier, we're going to go from just an assessment of the struggling readers to a complete assessment of every child, showing their strengths and weaknesses in literacy and numeracy. So we have moved a long way away from a system check to actually individualize the scores so that we can then take that diagnostic work, the teachers develop a plan and, as Vince said, they follow up on that child in those years.

[9:45 a.m.]

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: What were the resources put in place at that time to deal with the system check, or the results of the system check? Were there resources put in place similar to what we're seeing today to deal with the individual cases, the students who really need the help at this point in time?

MR. WARNER: No, in the 1990s in particular, up to 1996, there were the Nova Scotia achievement tests. Those tests, while they had some relationship to the curriculum, were based on more general skills and content areas and were designed and developed as standardized tests, where students were compared with other students in terms of their performance. There was a need to make some adjustment to that so that instead of comparing students with other students, we would find out how students were doing in relation to what was being taught, what they were learning in the classroom.

So those earlier assessments did bring attention globally or generally to areas of weakness within the system and resources were provided in terms of professional development of teachers and the acknowledgment that we needed to do some work here. It really has not been until the late 1990s where we have now connected our assessments, they are no longer standardized tests, they are no longer selected from large-test development companies and administered here. These are designed in Nova Scotia by Nova Scotia teachers, assessments that relate specifically to what the students are supposed to be learning in the classroom, are learning in the classroom based on the curriculum.

Now, with this information, we are able to establish some system resources in areas where we now know, because of our program assessments that we administered first, and then once we had our programs in shape and knew that the teachers, the

students were all experiencing the Atlantic Canada curriculum, then we were ready to go to individual assessments, fair opportunity to students. Now with these individualized assessments and results that come back on individual bases, we can actually identify the needs of students specifically. So we have brought it down from system resources right to individual student resources and then a monitoring of those students and their progress on an annual basis, until they reach the next assessment, and then we identify what the specific needs are again.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Now correct me, the literacy test is written in Grade 6 and in Grade . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Grade 3.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Grades 3 and 6.

MR. COCHRANE: These Grade 6s will write in Grade 9; the Grade 6s who wrote will now write this year . . .

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Do we monitor those after Grade 6, we're putting support with those students - at what level are they retested after Grade 6, Grade 9?

MR. COCHRANE: On a regular, ongoing assessment involving the students . . . 

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: And do the finances follow those students through Grades 7, 8 and 9, until they write the next time?

MR. COCHRANE: That's right. We're now debating that we have reached Grade 9, we're now saying, what kind of supports do we need in high school? I can tell you one of the cautions I have is - and you know, it's funny what you learn on the way through, and I remember when we announced that we were going to be more aggressive about our testing regime, one of our superintendents said to me, and in fact, he's no longer with us, he's not working in the system. We talked about getting more aggressive in our testing, and he said, you know, Dennis, weighing the baby isn't going to make it any heavier. He didn't use the word "baby" but I'll translate it because it's a little more polite.

He made a good point. In other words, measuring it and weighing it is not going to make it any better. That's when we really said, well hold it now, as a result of measuring, we have to support it. That's where the idea, really, of the money came in this regime, which is not in most jurisdictions. That was the real rationale behind it. We recognize it. Yes, it's one thing to measure and say how you're doing, but another thing to do something about it. I think it's really very progressive.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: As a parent of three children, two who will be writing these tests this year and one who wrote last year, I think it's a wonderful resource to have as a parent, to know where your child stands within the system and if they do need - I know the Reading Recovery program that was in place . . .

MR. COCHRANE: It is.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: . . . or is in place is great, but at that point in time it was the only bit of testing that was done to give them the additional help in Grade 1, if they were picked up in Grade 1. If they weren't picked up in Grade 1, they kind of got lost in the system, years ago.

MR. COCHRANE: And at one time Reading Recovery was an option of each board.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: So it's very nice to see this system put in place.

MR. COCHRANE: Reading Recovery is now a provincial program. It has some things I don't like about it, that we're going to look at changing, but it's generally a very good program. In fact, we . . .

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: But you need to identify in Grade 1.

MR. COCHRANE: That's right. The problem with Reading Recovery, the only problem I find, is it takes the bottom 20 per cent. Interestingly enough, I've been in some schools where the bottom 20 per cent would have kids who were much worse off not getting some service than kids in another school in the same 20 per cent. So we're looking at making an adjustment on some of the other issues.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Again, I think the program is a wonderful program, and I congratulate the department for implementing it.

MR. PORTER: I just have a question for the deputy. You talked a lot in detail about how the testing was designed in Nova Scotia. What about the international test - you mentioned it briefly - how is that designed?

MR. COCHRANE: I'll get Vince to speak to the specifics. It's interesting, we have some people on our staff who are actually part of the group that put some of these things together. We just marked the Canadian tests here in Nova Scotia, with predominantly Nova Scotia teachers. We had 80 or so in marking one of the international tests. Vince, do you want to refer to how we make up the questions?

MR. WARNER: The international assessments work through the same pattern as the developmental plan that you see in your package. There are contributions made from all of the countries in terms of the questions. We're able to review those, whether they relate to our curriculum or not, and we're able to negotiate these. We've been involved in the field testing here in Nova Scotia of these international - and there are national assessments, as well. The field testing has shown how our students have performed. We feel fairly comfortable about how these assessments give us information about how our students are performing.

We have contributions throughout the developmental process. On the international committee, we have an individual from Evaluation Services who is present there. We submitted to mark the international assessment for Canada here in Nova Scotia, and we did that this summer with the training that was provided to our teachers and following through with that. So the same kind of developmental process.

The international assessments, however, do not give us the specific information about individual students, because, again, they have to be developed on more general skills and content areas to match 32 OECD countries and the others that are involved. But we're pleased that our results show that while Canada is an extremely competitive nation, and is at the top of performance of all nations, that we're part of Canada and our performance, for instance, on the OECD assessment in literacy, we're ninth. We outstrip countries like Japan, Ireland, Great Britain and Germany, and so on. Our performance is very high on these international assessments. We've had a lot of input in their development.

MR. COCHRANE: One of the other things we occasionally do is buy a larger sample, which gives us a bigger picture of how Nova Scotia is doing as opposed to just our share of what we would get. We'll actually pay extra money to have a larger sample to give us more and more information.

MR. PORTER: You talked about Nova Scotia specific to the development of our program, and we often hear about the comparisons to other provinces, et cetera. Does our program development and our curriculum, et cetera, compare to what places like Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and other provinces and territories are doing in this country?

MR. COCHRANE: Our curriculum certainly compares. Our results are obviously not as good as Alberta, and when we get the breakdown it shows that Alberta and Ontario, a few of them, do better. We generally do as good, if not better, than most of the Atlantic Provinces. Our goal, of course, is to continue to strive to do better and to raise the bar in Nova Scotia. There are interesting things happening across the country, but our goal is to do better than we are. That's not about us doing better, it's our children doing better. That's really what it's about.

MR. PORTER: That's all I have, thanks.

MR. MACLEOD: I just have a question out of curiosity. In recent years, there has been a reduction in the size of classes. Does that have an effect on the results of the testing, of where children are in the testing?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, it's interesting, there's a debate about class size and the effect upon quality of education. You'll get a debate. Someone will say until you get to lower than 17 you're not going to see a significant improvement. However, most of those tests are American, I think most of it was done in Tennessee. However, it should have an impact. I think what you have to look at is class management, a better issue that's easier to deal with.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the PC caucus has expired. The NDP caucus is next. I would caution the presenters to make your points short and to the point as you go through the process or else I will stop you.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I want to compliment the chairman on trying to control Mr. Cochrane. (Laughter) I've seen him in action, and Jerry Springer is alive and well.

MR. COCHRANE: You must have learned by now. (Laughter)

MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes. Good luck, Keith. I just want to clarify this. We now have 20 minutes. Is there another possible round after that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. MacKinnon and Mr. Parker, relax. (Laughter)

I want to clarify a couple of things, first of all, when it comes to assessments and the value of them. I certainly have, on occasion, been on the record in terms of being critical of the timing and the communication with parents and teachers. That's a key point that I want to get out of the way from the start. Mr. Cochrane has made a couple of valuable points, as have Mr. MacKenzie and Ms. Olsen. My compliments on some of the plans that you have had.

I want to turn, however - there's always a however, you know that, Dennis - to your business plan, 2006-07, as was included in the package that we received from the staff here. There are a couple of things that I would like to draw your attention to, as to whether these tasks have been completed. There are seven goals identified, and timelines are involved. On Page 15 of the Business Plan, we're looking at a response to the Education Consultative Forum report, the ECF Subcommittee, that job fair and how it

worked. The last line in that paragraph says, "An evaluation of this process will be completed in Spring 2006." Was that evaluation completed?

MR. COCHRANE: On the job fairs?

MR. ESTABROOKS: Yes.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. Our staff worked with the boards and took a look at the effectiveness, how many we hired and so on.

MR. ESTABROOKS: So that evaluation is available?

MR. COCHRANE: It should be, yes. I can find it if it's there.

MR. ESTABROOKS: That's great, thank you. I want to turn my attention to one of the great myths of school teaching when it comes to why certain kids do not do well in certain classes. I know Mr. MacKenzie in particular, based upon his background, will be interested in this - and congratulations, you're off to another great start with Cobequid, which is the best high school in Nova Scotia no matter what Charles Cirtwell says.

If I turn to Page 16, it says, "In 2006, the Department will audit the number of teachers teaching out of their field of study and compile information on the educational backgrounds of current junior high and high-school teachers and the courses which they currently teach. Following analysis of the data in Summer 2006, and working with partners, the department will identify strategies to better match teachers to their subject specialties."

Has this audit been completed? If so, is it available?

MR. COCHRANE: I don't believe it has been completed yet. I think what we're probably going to wait for now is the end of September form that shows how much time you teach in various subjects and so on. I don't think it has, and I will go back and check, because I haven't seen it. We would probably look at the new alignment of teachers as a result of the September 30^th statistics.

MR. ESTABROOKS: One of the so-called urban myths is - no reflection on your background, Keith, please - you have the phys. ed. teacher teaching Grade 12 math. I've heard that, how many times. If we're looking at the particular importance of analysis with detailed information, that audit is crucial. It's crucial to identify whether this is one of the so-called myths, whether it is a factor or not. I would hope that this audit would proceed, because, of course, there are teachers who are put in situations, in smaller schools in particular, where, with union contracts, you do have - heaven forbid this

would happen - a Canadian history teacher, of which I was one, being put in the situation of, well, if you're going to stay at this particular school next year, with declining enrolments, you're going to be offered a position teaching, heaven forbid, Grade 12 math.

Now, when do you see this audit being completed and when will members of the public, and I guess board members also, be able to look at the audit?

MR. COCHRANE: I'll go back and check but I'll undertake that we'll have it done by December at the latest.

MR. ESTABROOKS: That's great, thank you for that.

MR. MACKENZIE: Just a comment I'd like to make with Mr. Estabrooks. We have experienced difficulties with exactly what you're referring to, but it's in the French area. As you probably know, it's very difficult to hire French specialists and we have had what we feel is an inordinate number of French teachers opting out of their subject area when other jobs become available, so I just make that point in supporting his comment.

MR. COCHRANE: One of the other interesting things about French teachers is people make the assumption that because they can teach in French, they can teach math in French. That's the same as making the assumption that because I can teach in English, I can teach math in English, and that would not be a good assumption. I can do arithmetic to beat the band, however, so we have to be careful how this works, but it does shift and shuffle and we do find it happening some.

We try to cover this with PD but, at the same time, it's very difficult sometimes to give people the level of comfort that they need.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. ESTABROOKS: Thank you and thank you for that key point, Keith. That's another issue, particularly when it comes to immersion teachers and as I used to say to my students, you know, go get a science degree, major in math and take French immersion along the way and you can pick your job.

If we're looking at the importance of having the right statistics and the right information and making sure that the data is in place, and I could have missed it last evening as I watched the football game and fell asleep, but let me tell you - it was a snore, Keith, relax - I want you to know that it disappoints me that in your business plan, deputy, I do not see, and again, I could have missed it, an analysis of the kids who take semestered math - I'm sorry, I'm back at math - as opposed to year-long math.

That analysis is of some consequence and I know there are certain high schools in the province that will sing the praises of semestering, I'll come to that topic later, but again I don't mean to just zone in on math but, you know, it's the tip of the iceberg, if we can say that when it comes to evaluation. Has there been, or do you plan to have, as a department, an analysis of the success of kids who take semestered courses, particularly math, as opposed to year-long math?

MR. COCHRANE: An interesting question. There are very few non-semestered schools left, so we may not get a statistically accurate assessment, because I think there were eight left about three years ago and I don't know that there are very many left. We are looking seriously, though, at having math and English all year long in Grade 10, if you need it. In other words, there are some children who could do it but just can't do it as fast as a semestered schedule may dictate. A number of schools have math and English all year long in Grade 10. It's a resource issue, obviously, it's a credit issue and a number issue.

MR. ESTABROOKS: That's the direction I'm going in because, still having teachers admit that they know me now that I'm in politics, Grade 10 is a crunch year when it comes to semestering. Kids coming out of junior high have enough issues, of course, but particularly when they are - or middle school - coming out of there and in a situation where they're on the treadmill, in certain topics if they miss a day's schooling for whatever reason, they're missing a chunk of time. It's one of the issues particularly when we look at Grade 10, that certain courses should be taught year-round. You have identified the two of them that constantly come up. If literacy and math skills, in particular, rightfully show the direction we're going, then we should really look at the situation of having the information available on how semestering has affected these courses and our results.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. That's a reasonable assessment to do. As I said, our problem now is that we're getting such a small cohort that are not semestered but one of the big tenets of 2002 is that the courses to be designed - in other words, you're in Grade 10 and you might benefit by having 220 hours of math as opposed to 110, it's a decision the school will have to make, based on the number of kids and what they need. But that doesn't mean that every kid in English gets the same kind of format, we have to be flexible.

MR. ESTABROOKS: On the topic of semestering, if I may, and I don't want to put my previous employer on the spot here, but I'm going to, Carole. (Laughter)

I've heard from some students, particularly at St. Patrick's High School, about the fact that in a semestered school a Grade 10 student, in particular, could go to school two and a half hours out of a five-hour day. The answer is, the courses that she wants are not available. The answer that was given back, and it was given back by you - I was

given a copy of the e-mail - was because of "the popularity" of certain teachers - or is it the courses? I would rather not get into the specifics of this particular student, but my question, Carole, is, does semestering cause staffing problems in some of the bigger high schools?

MS. OLSEN: Certainly semestering causes some timetabling problems in some of the high schools. If there are only sufficient students to offer one section of a course, and you have to offer it in the first semester, and the student has another course they want to take at that same time, the student has a choice to make, because the course won't be offered again, there is not a sufficient number of students to offer it in the second semester, to offer it twice. If there are only 20 or 25 students who would take the course, you can't offer it twice.

I think there is a timetabling issue with semestered courses in every high school in the province - every high school that I know of. Student choice - I hope I didn't say popularity of a teacher in any e-mail that I would have sent - certainly, the student choices, the staff don't know in January whether a course is going to have sufficient interest expressed by the students to be able to offer that course the next year. So, year over year, the courses change.

MR. COCHRANE: I'm not sure that problem would be unique to semestering. Any place where you have to offer a course and you have a limited number of people who can teach and a limited number of children who can take it, it may not matter whether it's all year or half a year.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Cochrane, I'm just passing on the concern of the parent involved, and . . .

MR. COCHRANE: And I've talked to her, as well.

MR. ESTABROOKS: . . . the analogy involved there. If I could, I would like to go back to the business plan. The seventh goal, and it is a laudable one, and I compliment you, this is something we've talked about before, Mr. Cochrane, where we identify, "Goal 7: Strengthen accountability in the areas of governance, resource investment and utilization, and reporting of results."

Now this is a personal frustration, but I share it with you again. The Minister's Report to Parents is a valuable document. The analysis of the assessment results, and when they become public, and when parents and teachers get the information, there seems to be an ungodly - if I can use that term, Mr. Chairman - delay when it comes to bringing out results, when it comes to Grade 12 assessments in particular.

If I have this wrong, I'll admit it, but I don't know whether last June's Grade 12 results in the particular course that I'm always interested in, math, have been made available, or whether January's of last year have been made available. I bring this up, again I don't want to take all the time to get into the details of it, but if we're looking at accountability in the reporting of results, I think the department has to do a much better job of getting the information - the information comes in, teachers meet the deadlines, school boards meet the deadlines - I assume they do - getting the information into your office, and then there is this delay, as we wait and wait, particularly in a semestered school system, for these results.

MR. COCHRANE: The people who need the results get them almost immediately, which are the children and the teachers. You see, although we don't report it until it comes out, it's given to the teachers as soon as it's ready. We do a compilation at the end of the year, a summary of what has been happening. But every kid, for example, who writes the math exam in January gets the result within four or five days.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I know.

MR. COCHRANE: We don't have a summary necessarily. Now, we are developing a template and some of it's in response to AIMS - that we've now developed a template that we've asked the boards to report the numbers and we'll be able to summarize them, but even then there will be a delay and a lag. Our main focus is to get those children's results to the students, to the parents, and very importantly, at the end of the first semester, to make sure that we have that so the child can select their courses in the second semester if they missed a course in the first semester that's mandatory.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I concur completely, but I'm looking at the fact of a teacher, for example, who says, I wonder how my kids are doing as compared to the rest, or the parent who says, he might or she might have received a mark of such and such. This always happens. They're looking at the situation, you know, how are the QEH math students - just as an example - doing as opposed to the Sir John A. math students?

MR. COCHRANE: The real results that - you know, an exit exam is just that. There's nothing after the exit exam that's going to make any improvement in how that student did, unfortunately. But that's to make sure that our children across the province have equality of educational opportunity and get exposed to the curriculum in Pictou the same way they get exposed to the curriculum in Truro. That helps us and it gives the kids, of course, universities and everyone else a sample.

The real result that makes a difference is the analytical and diagnostic work that's coming from Grades 3, 6 and 9 that enables us to make changes in the system to make sure that we cover from a PD point of view, from curriculum guides, from resources and so on, the kinds of materials that our teachers really need.

MR. WARNER: May I add briefly to this, Mr. Estabrooks. The most significant need - although of interest is, how has my child done in relation to another child, another class and another school - the most significant information is, how has my child done with what the expectations of the curriculum are? How has my child done in relation to what they have been taught? We need to know immediately where their strengths and their needs are so that we can follow up on those areas.

Yes, it's an interesting statistic to compare with how other schools have done and how the province has done, but what is most critical to the child is to know how they have done with what they're expected to learn, and to be able then to deliberate, to help that child move to where they need to be. That information is given immediately to those children, to those teachers.

MR. ESTABROOKS: Mr. Warner, I support that. I understand measuring kids against kids and schools against schools, and heaven forbid, teachers against teachers, but that is part of what is going on. People are intrigued with that. Clarify this for me, if you would, Mr. Cochrane, when was the last time that the public across this province received - via the media, usually - the report in terms of how our students did at the Grade 12 level in math?

MR. COCHRANE: They would have gotten the 2005 results in the Minister's Report to Parents that would have come out last Spring. The 2006 ones are now getting ready, we would have written in January and June of 2006. They will come out in the Spring, more than likely, of 2007. The schools would have had those results for a long time now.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I know that but do you think that that lag time, that delay in waiting for that information, so they can be looked at across the province, is acceptable?

MR. WARNER: There is a necessary delay, and that is that we cannot report on how the province and the boards have done until we have both the January and June math marks. So that brings us through that school year and then the central marking session is done in the summer with teachers from across the province. Then the data has to be cleaned, analyzed and reported on.

There's going to be that lag there, although the students have their results and know where their weaknesses and strengths are. There's going to be a lag because we have to include - it wouldn't be representative of the performance of our province or of the boards if we only include the January. We have to have the January and June to capture a sample of all of our students, and then we have to mark it.

MR. ESTABROOKS: I thank you. I want to compliment you on having the business plan published and available. I also want to point out the fact that there's a commitment made, particularly to review the job fairs, that the evaluation is made public. When we do the audit, the commitment is there that we're going to audit how we have teachers teaching out of their field, that when that audit is completed, that it becomes available to the public.

MR. COCHRANE: I'm sure the job fair assessment as to how many boards hire what number of people and so on, we can have that readily available. This is our third round of job fairs, and we only started those three years ago because we recognized what was happening.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the NDP caucus has expired. The Liberal caucus.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you for coming in today. It's nice to have five people sharing the load on a very important topic. I would like to start with Mr. MacKenzie. With your board, you instituted the Grade 10 math evaluation exam. What kind of preparation was given to the schools, to the administrators, to the teachers and parents that this was coming? Secondly, what was the parent reaction? I have a good sampling. I would like to hear from you.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. MACKENZIE: The schools, parents, everyone was notified the Spring in advance of the exam being actually done. In other words, the earliest ones were written in the Fall, so it would have been the previous Spring that the parents were notified. As far as the preparation went, we had a person within our board, Mr. McKillop, working on this. He's very professional, he did a very good job, and so on, so we have no qualms about the quality of the exam that was prepared.

The issue that I don't think either students or parents were prepared to take was that this was going to have a value and perhaps an impact on their final term mark in the course. That became the big issue, particularly with the schools that were semestered and wrote it in the first semester, where some were taking it all year and wrote it later in the year. Yes, we did have a fair amount of flak erupt over the original writers, particularly the ones up in Cumberland County. Yes, we knew we were writing it, but we didn't realize how important it was - I guess that would be a summary, in one sentence, of that.

MR. GLAVINE: That has been instituted and will remain at the Grade 10 level?

MR. MACKENZIE: It will. We feel very positive that it's something we need, in addition to what we've heard. We want to know where they are at the next grade level,

and we've already heard about the importance of Grade 10, and we certainly endorse that as being a very critical year for the students.

MR. GLAVINE: Going on then to Ms. Olsen. I know you've placed a very high regard on assessment within your board. We have chatted about this. I'm just wondering if you could give a little bit of a summary, an overview of just how you place in terms of the value on assessment regarding, vis-à-vis, teaching skills, school climate, student learning, those areas? How do you sort of rate it as an integrative piece in the process?

MS. OLSEN: I'll give the first overview, and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Cainen. I think the assessments are an integral part of the development of good teaching practice. I don't believe we can improve the teaching and learning for our students unless assessment is an integral part of that process. Mr. Cainen can tell you how we've used our assessment results to really target some of the professional development for our teachers, to improve student achievement.

MR. CAINEN: I think all the presenters today have alluded to the fact that it is a key ingredient. In the actual design of the assessments, the board assessments that we initially did, we brought teachers together and looked at the curriculum, had a common understanding of what the curriculum was asking us to teach, we field tested questions, we created the bank and put the assessment together. All of that is professional development on its own, and it contributes to good teaching.

The key, though, in the assessments that we've done is the individual information that teachers are getting back on each student, showing where each student has some gaps in his or her learning, or not. Those professional discussions that go on, because quite often that information that is given back to the teacher by a literacy coordinator or a math mentor, are really critical to next-step planning for the teacher.

That really is the essence of what we wanted to get at, making sure that at a given time, a snapshot, we have some indication of where this student is in relation to the outcomes they are expected to be able to demonstrate. So that really is the meat and potatoes of that piece, and again the whole accountability piece that we're giving back direct information to the parents on each one of our assessments as well.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much. I was kind of hoping that the theme was there because certainly the value of assessment, in my view, is an integral piece in improving teaching and learning in our schools. That being said, would the province be better off and be making a better investment for our students if we had an assessment at the end of Grade 11 in English and in math, versus the high stakes exam that we give our students in Grade 12? Then we could say to the Grade 12 teacher, here is the appropriate course, we all know, and as a teacher and a vice-principal I know, that students get into a course and after a month they are way over their heads. Perhaps the course was selected

by the parent and not by the student, in some cases. We all know these little detailed things.

Wouldn't it be better to be able to outline, for a Grade 12 student, here is where you are, here is the expectation that the university or community college will have on you for performance when you go. I think the Grade 12 exam now doesn't really have a lot of value in terms of the assessment process. It's an exam, it's not of real great value.

Deputy, you alluded to universities needing a snapshot. Well, I just got through speaking with six university professors, and they know what a 75 from Prince Andrew High School means, they know what an 80 from Central Kings means and these are not that valuable in the process. Yet I will go to the first PTA meeting at Central Kings or West Kings and the dreaded Grade 12 math exam will be a topic, I guarantee you. What is its value?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, there is no question that it is an exit exam and it does show - and one of our goals is to make sure that everyone leaves the public school system with the same exposure to the curriculum, to give them an equal opportunity to be successful wherever they go. That's probably the main benefit of that particular process.

If we did it in Grade 11 and used it as an indicator of what course they should take in Grade 12, I want to suggest that we would have very little luck. If you look at the statistics in the book, 44 per cent of the 7,500 kids who wrote the math exam in 2005 took advanced math. Advanced math is meant for 18 to 24 per cent of our population. So what you have is a myth as to what levels of math the universities need and you also have people saying well, I don't want to limit my child anywhere along the way. We've given them good statistics and good information so I'm not sure, member, that we would have much of an impact on the selection in Grade 12, based on their Grade 11 mark.

What I think we have to continue to do is to show the assessment and work harder and harder to enable teachers to work with that child to get them to the outcomes. It's always difficult to give advice to someone who has different goals and aspirations for their children than what the test results may indicate that they would be successful in pursuing. Vince, do you want to add to that?

MR. WARNER: What you're saying is quite true in relation to when we need information and we need it early. That is the purpose of the Grades 3, 6 and 9 assessments, to help our students see where they are in relation to where they should be and where they need to get next, to move along. So with a Grade 9 assessment they should make good decisions about some of the course selections going into high school.

However, the curriculum is designed based on mathematics as a foundation, science as a foundation, so the curriculum is designed so that at the end of Grade 12, in

fairness, students have had the fullest opportunity to learn mathematics, and at that fullest opportunity they now have to meet an examination, which is a lower stake than the classroom assessment - it's 30 per cent, a classroom assessment is 70 per cent - to demonstrate whether or not, at the fullest opportunity to learn, they have achieved the outcomes of the mathematics program, and then they move on from there.

The feedback is not what do we do next with them, because now they're out the door. But with Grades 3, 6 and 9, there is feedback so that we can help them get somewhere else and have success toward the full opportunity to learn, which is Grade 12.

MR. GLAVINE: In terms of the elementary students, I was just checking here on some statistics, in 2004, the literacy tests of that year showed 89 per cent of students met or exceeded the expectations laid out. However, two years later, it had dropped to 79 per cent. I'm just wondering, what is the explanation there? That's a pretty significant statistic. I would like to have some explanation for that.

MR. COCHRANE: Good question. I asked it, and said, how can we spend all this money on resources and all this focus, and not have improvement? Vince.

MR. WARNER: Well, we've already described all the resources that have been brought to bear since the 2003 results came out on the elementary literacy assessment. Education is a big ship. It takes a while to turn it around. Always with statistics, because you're dealing with individual students throughout the system, there will always be a little bit of wobble from year to year. What we are interested in is not making judgments on one, two or three years, but seeing what the trend is. That's where we hope to see all of our efforts showing that the trend is overall system improvement.

MR. GLAVINE: Can I be a little bit more suspicious and say that when it came out in 2004, we needed to look good, we're introducing these tests, and in fact we only used about 11 of the outcomes, testing that particular year. Did we use more outcomes in 2004 that students should be meeting?

MR. WARNER: Again, this assessment is what I call a portrait not a snapshot, because it's well designed, we get everyone ready for it. The schools, however, have the moving picture. They conduct other assessments, and those assessments in the literacy area must include other things we cannot now do provincially. Those outcomes are the outcomes of the reading, writing and viewing components of the language arts program, not the oracy component and the public speaking component. So they give a look-in on how those students do on those particular outcomes in those particular areas only.

MR. MACKENZIE: If I could just go back to your previous question. I just wanted to make a few comments on something you were alluding to. With the math, after

doing our testing in the math, our consultant was adamant that we had people in the wrong courses, too many of them, just what Mr. Cochrane alluded to. Most Grade 9 students were signing up for advanced math in Grade 10, and the parents, again, keeping all doors open, as you said.

As a result of our less-than-positive results at the Grade 10 level, our consultant proposed that he go to each of our Grade 9 feeder schools, all throughout our board, and recommend strongly that the level of achievement in Grade 9 be based on what math course the students select in Grade 10. I thought the roof would fall in. I thought we would have parents all over the place. Surprisingly enough, it went over very well, and we have gotten far more students, I think, electing the right math course, coming into Grade 10 in our board this year, than ever before, as a result of that. So proper selection and proper placement is certainly a key component of all this. That was alluding to your other question.

MR. GLAVINE: One final question for the deputy. It picks up on a theme that my colleague, the member for Timberlea-Prospect, was raising. We can certainly talk about students perhaps mismatched a little bit in terms of the courses they're taking, that will happen from time to time. I just want a bit of a general viewpoint or snapshot of how poorly aligned, perhaps, our teaching staff is in the area of math. Our results in Grade 12, provincial results, are nothing short of desperate - they're desperate.

Is there a problem with the present complement of math teachers that we have in delivering the math curriculum? It upsets me when I hear a board member say, well, a teacher is a teacher is a teacher. I've heard this. Now we have high school teachers who certainly don't have the math background that I would like to be selecting for my school if I was the administrator.

MR. COCHRANE: There's no question that we, because of declining enrolments in certain areas - and Mr. Estabrooks alluded to it - some of the collective agreements, opportunities to stay in your school, you have to do certain things. There is this belief that a teacher is a teacher is a teacher. Unfortunately, sometimes people will choose a subject and a level at which they're uncomfortable as opposed to making the move to another community. In some cases, in fairness to them, it could be 50 kilometres to the next community. There's a difference in metro when you could go, maybe, from one high school to another. So that's an issue and we're going to look at that, as Mr. Estabrooks pointed out, in the business plan.

[10:30 a.m.]

Interestingly enough, I met with 65 math teachers on Saturday. We did a unique thing in PD for the first time in Nova Scotia, we had a PD session on Saturday. I met with them because I wanted to hear what they had - because I knew the union was going

to have a chat with me about it, and I had a chat with them about why we are doing poorly.

One of the things they did say is, we probably have too much in our Grade 12 curriculum, that you never have a chance to go back and review it or re-teach it. It's just bang, bang, bang and you keep rolling. We're going to look at that. I'm actually going to do a number of focus groups with teachers across the province in the next three or four months to get a sense of what we can do.

There was some suggestion that some people - and I met one lady who teaches in the school and she teaches all the math from Grades 6 to 12. Now, I think she was a great math teacher, but just think if she wasn't. Now, that's a pretty intensive curriculum that this person is trying to cover. I like to think she was really good and she seemed good, but can you imagine what the school would do as a result of having six years - nobody should have six years with the same person. I'm not sure Education should have six years with the same deputy. In fact, I'm sure that many people think they shouldn't. (Laughter) Even six hours is a long time. Anyway, I think that we have to really take a serious look at that and we have to make some accommodations.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Carole.

MS. OLSEN: I would just like to pick up on the deputy's comments. Our analysis of the data shows that with the spiral curriculum, particularly in mathematics, we're seeing gaps as early as Grade 2. When you look at the qualifications of teachers at the elementary level, many of them haven't had mathematics since they were in high school because they've taken an Arts university degree. So I think, as a province and with the department, we're going to need to develop strategies to make sure that our teachers have the base to be able to teach good mathematics curricula as early as Primary. If those concepts are missed, they just spiral through and then by the time the student gets to high school, it's very difficult to make up for some of those gaps.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: If I could, I don't have too much time left but I'd like to ask a couple of questions as well. I wonder if you could put a price tag on all of the cost of developing these tests you spoke glowingly about and the made-in-Nova Scotia solution, the tests are designed, piloted, and you gave us the flow chart on all of that. Is there a dollar figure you can assign to that intensive effort?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, well, our total budget is $2.9 million in the testing and evaluation division. But for example, in 2006-07, to develop the Grade 3 math and literacy assessments and the Grade 9 assessments, we're going to spend $343,000.

MS. WHALEN: I thought the $2.9 million was what you put back to help those students who are falling behind.

MR. COCHRANE: No, it just happens to be similar. It's less than one-third of 1 per cent but it's actually a number that's very close. It just happened.

MS. WHALEN: So you then, in addition, put another $2.8 million or $2.9 million back into the classroom?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, into the follow-up in Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, very good. Thank you. In terms of the testing that's done throughout the course of time, like the Grades 3, 6 and 9, I think that's explained very well, that there's follow-up and that students are supported. I think that's extremely important. The Grade 12 test is where things get dicey. I think my colleague, Mr. Glavine, used the right term, it's high stakes for these students.

In my own area, and I'm sure all of us as MLAs have heard parents' concerns, if you're a good student, it's the difference between getting a scholarship when you go to university, and we know the cost of university, those scholarships are very valuable, or maybe not even getting into university if you're a marginal student, or not being able to take the sciences you want because your math mark was hauled down. Often there's a big disconnect between the 70 per cent mark they're carrying forward and this average of 54 per cent that they're getting on advanced math.

So do you think it's defensible to assign those marks so that you can do your further follow-up and research, but those students carry it forward?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the Liberal caucus has expired.

MS. WHALEN: Can we not get an answer on that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Next round.

MS. WHALEN: Save it for the next round, okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Next, the PC caucus.

MR. MACLEOD: I have just one quick question. I'm a little bit unsure, but it was brought up by Mr. Estabrooks about teachers not teaching in their proper areas. Is that a result of board policy or union contracts? How does a situation like that come to be?

MR. COCHRANE: The boards can speak to their own. There are union contract issues, obviously, and there is a belief amongst most professional unions across the country, not unique to Nova Scotia, that a teacher is a teacher is a teacher. We don't accept that, and the onus is on the employer to show that the individual is having difficulty doing that particular subject. I don't think we probably spend enough time trying to do that because that is a very awkward, long process. What we spend most of our time on is trying to give that person the resources and the professional development to help them do it.

Math is the one that really is glaring, in the sense that you can probably make a language arts teacher into a history teacher, most of the time people can usually cover that kind of thing. It's hard to make an English teacher into a math teacher, particularly because they would have chosen their courses for a reason, and you know the question of whether it's a B.A. or a B.Sc. or a B.Com. and so on. So we have a whole combination of things that are causing this to happen, declining enrolment is certainly one.

We are seeing all kinds of other factors coming into our school system as well. As you get an immersion school and as immersion grows, a teacher who may get displaced says, well gee, what do I have to teach to stay here? So they may end up teaching junior high but they were a Grade 2 English teacher and a great one, but because immersion grew, they had to go somewhere else. So there are a whole number of combinations and some of these are real human issues that we have to take a look at. I don't know if Keith and Carole want to add to that, from the board perspective.

MR. MACKENZIE: Just a comment, two things, one I will again allude to. If you have a small, rural school, teachers are teaching multiple subjects and as teachers change, you might have the math specialist who was teaching the math and science, they move on and now someone else has to pick up some of that. That happens frequently within our system.

The other thing is that teachers may be hired for a particular job but as they get their tenure and get permanent contracts, if another job opens in their school or in their district that they are qualified for and they apply for it, they're entitled to go for it as much as anyone else, even though it may be their secondary specialty, that they are still the best qualified. So we do have problems, and unfortunately we don't have any restrictions at this point that we can keep them within where we think they should be, as far as subject areas go.

MS. OLSEN: We have, within our board, what we call a Staffing for Excellence Committee that's looking at this particular issue so we can make sure that when we recruit teachers into positions, they are highly qualified and we have people in terms of succession planning, with the retirements we are facing right now, that we have the right

people in the right positions. Jeff can talk about what goes on at our job fairs, in terms of really monitoring the qualifications of teachers for placement in positions.

MR. CAINEN: We go through many boxes of Kleenex. We really do monitor their credentials. Teachers come to the job fair with their resumés and the jobs they're looking for and quite often we will tell them that they are not qualified for that job. If they've been an elementary teacher and they want to teach Grade 7 math, for example, we're saying that unless you have secondary methods, you're not eligible to teach that. So we try to stick to those credentials all the way along.

We're also looking at offering in-house courses, a French methods course for French teachers. We've offered summer institutes in literacy and mathematics to look at trying to improve the credentials of our teachers.

MR. COCHRANE: Just a quick little anecdote on that. When I was a junior high English teacher, I had three periods a week that the schedule didn't work, so I was assigned to teach Grade 3 French. Now, I had a limited amount of French. You would see me going through the hall with my clock, and I would go in and say a quarter after 12, et cetera, and I taught this and taught this, and still only a third of the kids got it.

I'll tell you the difference between a junior high school teacher and an elementary teacher, it finally dawned on me. I said, how many of you can tell time in English? The same third. I didn't realize a kid in Grade 3 couldn't tell time. Then, of course, they were all into digital. We talk - and we're going to lose this in our language - a quarter after 12. There's no such thing as a quarter after 12 in a digital clock, it's 12:15. Gumby me got out there thinking these kids could all do this, and I was teaching right along, doing a wonderful job, but I didn't realize the limitations that came with a Grade 3 kid.

I didn't have the methodology that I should have had. I had the willingness and the keenness, but I didn't have the methodology and the understanding of children and how they learn at that level. All these things are factors, and it was just one of those lessons you learned back when Eisenhower was president.

MR. ESTABROOKS: We were teaching fractions then . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Right. I could. (Laughter)

MS. OLSEN: I also think with our declining enrolment in many small communities within our province, we're going to be needing to look, more and more, at creative ways of getting the right teacher with the right qualifications in front of the kids, and that may be distance education, because you can't expect a very small school to have . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the PC caucus has expired. The NDP caucus is next.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Chairman, time is of the essence, as was mentioned, so I'll have a couple of quickies. I want to know, how many new math textbooks were purchased this year for high school students?

MR. COCHRANE: I can look it up. We spend $9.1 million on resources. We keep half of the money because of new books we buy as part of the system. I can tell you there's a brand new Math Essentials 10 and Essentials 11 that have been purchased, a beautiful book for that level. I could actually get you the number.

MR. PARKER: If you can get us that, I would appreciate it. The other question I want to come around to is, why is it that our test scores have been so low here in Nova Scotia compared to Alberta or Quebec or Ontario, most other Canadian provinces? We're second from the bottom, and we're certainly well behind many other countries. So I guess it's a multiple choice question; is it because of inadequate funding to our education system, is it because of the lack of teachers or the lack of trained teachers to teach the courses that are needed, or are there inadequate resources in the classroom? Which one of those three is it?

MR. COCHRANE: There's probably a little bit of everything. One of the things that we don't have that Alberta does is we haven't created a culture that - the first thing a child would ask Mr. Estabrooks or Mr. Glavine is, does this count? As soon as you give them an answer other than yes, there's a different attitude toward it. What we have to impress upon our children is you work hard and do the best you can every day, every time. We haven't been able to create, necessarily, that culture.

I have some suspicions about Alberta and our good friends out West.

MR. PARKER: They're doing pretty well.

MR. COCHRANE: Look at their drop-out rate. A lot of people that - our kids who are in school writing the exam never get to stay in school long enough in Alberta to write. There are some interesting exemptions. There are drop-out rate issues and so on. But at the end of the day there is kind of that right-wing, do the best you can every day kind of thing that we have to continue to work at with our children, and with our teachers and with our parents, everyone should strive to do that.

I don't know that our resources - if you look at our average class size, it's basically the same in Alberta as it is in Nova Scotia, maybe a little bit better. There's a combination of things, perhaps. We're not unique in Atlantic Canada. We really do the

best of the four of us in most subjects. I think in science, Newfoundland and Labrador crept ahead a little the last time.

MR. PARKER: And Prince Edward Island, I think, as well. I guess in order to fix a problem you have to identify what's causing it. If it's a multiplicity of reasons . . .

MR. COCHRANE: It's certainly not our teachers, because they're down here recruiting them every day. So we're proud of that. It's just a combination of things, I think.

MR. PARKER: It's no question, we need to do better.

MR. COCHRANE: Yes, we're starting. Our testing regime is really only - you mentioned about math, the first math exam was in 2004. Really, we're new at this, and we're new at the idea that this is the curriculum that has to be covered and the test should be an accurate measurement of how much of our curriculum the students have achieved.

MR. PARKER: Due to my limited time, I'm going to pass it on to my colleague. He has a couple of questions, as well.

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Mr. Cochrane, you sort of indicated that one solution may be, in the area of math, to sort of make the testing more simple. You didn't use the words "dumb down" but I think . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Ontario has done that, and I disagree with them.

MR. MACKINNON: I think a previous minister, in 2005, suggested that. I'm wondering whether, in fact, that is the solution.

MR. COCHRANE: It's not an acceptable solution, and it's not something we're going to pursue in Nova Scotia. I do have suspicions that Ontario has just done some of that, in fact I think they admitted it. I really have a difficulty with that concept. Our children deserve the exposure to the best curriculum by the best teachers, and we're working to get that for them.

MR. MACKINNON: What are we doing to get more good math and science teachers in relationship to recruitment, i.e. bursaries or whatever? Is there something being looked at to try to get, as Mr. Estabrooks indicated, the phys. ed. teacher from teaching math, if the phys. ed. teacher has no background in math?

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. COCHRANE: We don't pay a differential. Obviously, it's a negotiated agreement, and the certificate levels are the same regardless of your subject. So we don't pay a differential. We are doing our recruitment early. The purpose behind the job fair was to get out there in January before a lot of our children were snapped up in other jurisdictions. We've been able to have a fair amount of success with regard to that. It's constantly pointing out the importance of mathematics.

If you look in a lot of our schools now, you'll see the whole curriculum, career guide, what you need to be certain things, and where you go on that continuum. We've really focused a lot on those areas that we want people to get involved in. We do give some support to women in engineering, those kinds of programs that are a little bit different that we try to recognize.

We're out there recruiting early. We would like to reflect upon our teacher education training program and how we do it. It has been a number of years since Shapiro, and maybe it's time to reflect upon the way we train our teachers and the kind of exposure we give them to the classroom and all the issues of our curriculum and that kind of thing. That's controversial and it's big, but we are looking at that in Nova Scotia.

MS. OLSEN: In terms of the early hires, we had mathematics as one of the subjects that we were going out in January and hiring through the department early hires. What we're finding, though, is that the mathematics graduates are being snapped up by private industry. They're very competitive right now. A lot of them are not going into teaching as a career.

MR. COCHRANE: We did drop the first level of the pay scale this year in the round of negotiations. In other words, whereas before you started on level one, we knocked that off and you'll come in at about $2,500 to $3,000 higher than you used to. That was to make us competitive with other companies that may be competing, or even other jurisdictions. That was negotiated, but we weren't opposed to that because we recognized it is a recruitment tool.

MR. MACKINNON: We had so many retirements this year, and it looks as if, with the aging population of our teachers, we are in fact going to continue that trend. I'm wondering, as a follow-up to what has just been said, how many math and science teachers did we actually lose this year, and how many math- and science-qualified people did we in fact hire?

MR. COCHRANE: I guess we could attempt to find it. The number of retirements this year - we've done a study on supply and demand, and we had some projections. We knew that 2006-07 was going to be our bubble year, and next year will

be similar. We had a bump, because, of course, of the changes in the pension adjustments, but it wasn't significant. We were expecting a large number of teachers to go this year anyway. Like Carole said, there were some difficulties finding some people to come because there is a lot of competition out there for that math and science person.

One of the things that we did approach universities on a number of years ago was, I asked if anyone was interested in the 14-month program to maybe attract some people from industry in.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the NDP caucus has expired. The Liberal caucus.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Cochrane, maybe without my repeating the question, you could just go to the gist of it, which was, is it defensible to have 30 per cent of the final mark . . .

MR. COCHRANE: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Why is it?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, 30 per cent out of 100 per cent isn't huge; other jurisdictions have different numbers. The other thing is that the teacher actually has the test and marks the test themselves, so they get the immediate reaction as to how those children have done, and so on. But it's a compilation, 70/30 is not an unusual breakdown.

I guess, member, what's the option? I look at the option and say, does 100 per cent then come strictly from the class mark and the day-to-day mark?

MS. WHALEN: That seemed to work for about 25 years.

MR. COCHRANE: Well, but at the same time one of the things we want to make sure is that there is some indication to parents that when your child leaves that school they have had an exposure to the curriculum. I can remember a letter from one of the physics teachers the first or second year we wrote physics. They wrote to us and said, I'm sorry, I disagree with the exam, I disagree with the curriculum, and I'm not teaching it. Well, they don't let me write my own answers in the department, but my suggestion was maybe you should find a job where you can do whatever you want to do. Yet, we've moved toward getting some standards to make sure - and one of the reasons for some of these tests - that our teachers expose the children to the curriculum.

MS. WHALEN: I think that if they've gone through Grade 12 math, they're going to be exposed to the curriculum, and I don't think parents are concerned that they haven't learned any math. I don't think that's an issue.

MR. COCHRANE: No, I don't think so either.

MS. WHALEN: I just wanted to hear why you think it's important to tag that to these students, particularly in the first few years when the teachers are learning how to teach to that test and there were all kinds of other problems fraught with it, and yet those students carry that mark forward forever. It has an impact on their future. Again, maybe an example would be to move to Grade 11, as was suggested, and it doesn't impact their future options to the same degree.

I wanted to ask Ms. Olsen, if I could, about ESL and how that's factored into your standardized tests at Grades 3, 6 and 9. Are they taken out of the test for literacy and writing? We have certain schools, and I know you're well aware of which schools would have a high percentage of ESL students or new Canadians.

MS. OLSEN: I'm going to ask Mr. Cainen to answer that question. No, we don't take the ESL students out of the testing.

MR. CAINEN: We haven't taken them out because there's an assumption that they're working on the same outcomes as the other students. So, for that reason, they have remained in. If they were on some kind of IPP, and therefore looking at different outcomes, then we would be removing them.

MS. WHALEN: And of course it's not like an IPP program, they simply need additional - would they, therefore, probably have extra resources come to their school, if in fact they weren't up to the Canadian level of English in writing?

MS. OLSEN: We certainly have English as a Second Language teachers we deploy to those schools that have a high number of English as a Second Language students in them.

MS. WHALEN: Well, I guess my question is, assuming that their involvement in the test would bring the average results lower, would they not also draw additional resources for literacy?

MS. OLSEN: Certainly if they haven't met the outcomes in Grade 6, they would get the resources from the Department of Education, and we would be monitoring all of those students for the resources from the school.

MS. WHALEN: Again I have a question for HRSB, and that is, when your children are writing these tests at Grades 3, 6 and 9, are the individual results given to the parents or must they come in and get the results? It seems to me that when my children were writing that, we had the option to go in and we weren't otherwise given it.

MR. CAINEN: Initially we asked the parents to come in and get the results, and then, having gone through that, we recognized that in some schools that created some difficulty. You're speaking about our HRSB assessments, not department assessments.

MS. WHALEN: Yes.

MR. CAINEN: What we've done subsequent to that is sent the results home with the students, making sure that it's well documented that the assessments have gone on and that you should be looking for results, it's on school Web pages, it goes home in the newsletter, and then it's followed up on parent-teacher interviews.

MS. WHALEN: I think that is a better way, because often parents won't come in and make that effort. It's just not across the board that all parents are comfortable or willing to make that extra step. I think it's an important thing that you provide it to them.

Mr. Cochrane, on the discussion about universities and their expectations of your graduates, I know that you're also responsible for post-secondary, and you would have a good sense about what employers want down the road, because you've been doing a lot of consultation with employers and with the universities. Can you tell me if they're satisfied with the numeracy and literacy of your graduates from Grade 12 right now?

MR. COCHRANE: Well, the universities have some concerns, obviously. Interestingly enough, the employers are very happy with the university graduates. That was the most satisfaction amongst the employers I met. I had 11 CEO round tables in the province a year and a half ago. The university got away with the nicest, comfortable ride as far as people acceptance of the graduates. The biggest criticism came from, obviously, Grade 12 and when they come out, and we've done a number of things.

The universities themselves, occasionally, come back to us and comment on the graduates, and I think Mr. Glavine mentioned, they have a good idea what a 75 from one school is and what an 80 from another is worth. But at the same time, they're also very supportive of the testing regime, because they are anxious to make sure that the kids who come through their doors have all had equal exposure to the curriculum.

MS. WHALEN: All the universities seem to be offering a mandatory literacy program for first-year students. Wouldn't that indicate to you that they feel they're arriving without the basics?

MR. COCHRANE: I think they're trying to make sure they bring them all up to a certain standard on the way in, and that's reasonable. We are making sure, and trying to drive the engine so that will not be a necessary thing as a result of our kids going through our public school system.

MS. WHALEN: I do think it's important, and you have the global view that you connect those dots between what we're talking about here, the Primary to Grade 12 assessments and where it goes, and maybe try to make that an unnecessary step at the universities.

MR. COCHRANE: I've always said I'd like to put our adult literacy business out of business, but, quite frankly, it will never happen, but I would love to have that as a goal.

MS. WHALEN: I have another question on the advanced math. A lot of the students are writing that in Grade 11, and there seem to be an awful lot of extra math courses that the students are being advised to take. My son has finished the advanced math in Grade 11, and so did most of his friends. I talked to a French teacher who said the reason they're not taking enough French is because all the students are focusing in on math. Why are they doing that? Can you tell me how many are taking it in Grade 11? It's not an exit exam, they're still in the system.

MR. COCHRANE: I don't know the number - I can find that.

MS. WHALEN: Is it significant?

MR. COCHRANE: Yes. We could find that. One of our problems, there's no question, is a lot of people . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time for the Liberal caucus has expired. I would entertain closing comments from the panel.

Mr. MacKenzie. Three minutes, please, and I'll strictly hold you to three minutes.

MR. MACKENZIE: Well, I won't need the three minutes. I enjoyed the morning. I think it has been a learning experience, certainly from a board perspective, for me. I certainly enjoyed listening to the comments from you, the MLAs, around the table. Actually, if there's one thing I would like to just mention in closing, it's that - and Mr. Cochrane did allude to it - this testing program that we're doing is really in its infancy. We've just really gotten started. I can see nothing but positives as it evolves and it gets refined down the road. We've done this, and I bring up my accountability word again. I think it's going to make it much more so, and we're getting that right now through the schools. The teachers are now much more aware of what is expected and what demands

are on them than they were before, when they could operate in isolation. Again, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Olsen.

MS. OLSEN: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to be here. I think the topic is exceedingly important, and you've asked some penetrating questions. I think what you have suggested through your questions would be an opportunity for the department, with the deputy minister and the superintendents, to put some of these agenda items on our ECF meetings and follow up as we build the program. I thank you very much for the invitation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Cochrane.

MR. COCHRANE: It would be easier if we didn't test anything, and we just stuck our heads in the ground and merely went along thinking things were fine. But a system that's honest and up front and wants to be accountable has to measure what we do. Every year when the minister has to comment on the math scores, we're tired of writing excuses and apologies, but if we didn't measure we would have no idea how we're doing and how our children are going to have a chance to compete with that global economy. I think it's the least we owe to our students, and I think we're doing a very good job at the board level, at the department level, and at the national level and international level, of moving forward on that agenda.

I do want to make one comment before we go, because anybody who was listening to just this conversation would think that we're only focused on literacy and numeracy. There's an old saying: All that matters cannot necessarily be measured. There are good things happening in our school system with teachers - they're teaching public speaking, they're teaching group activity, they're teaching all kinds of other things that aren't measured - and those are the qualities that are going to come along with this and make our children good citizens. I think a balance is out there, and I think we've probably reached that balance, and we're going to now try to perfect our system to make sure that we give our students, indeed, what we owe them.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much to our witnesses for coming today. It was a very interesting discussion. We have some committee business we have to conduct as well. Thank you, again.

The next thing we have - I'm going to change it around just a little bit - is a possible discussion of the meeting of the subcommittee on advertising. I think it's possible that we should do that earlier than later. With the committee's concurrence, what I would suggest we do is that the clerk get hold of the members of the subcommittee - Joan Massey, Diana Whalen, Chuck Porter and myself - and see when

there is a convenient time, possibly early next month, when we can meet to look at the advertising issues so we can bring it forward to the full committee at the October 31^st meeting. If there are no objections to that, we'll move forward on that basis. Does anyone have any comments or anything?

Okay, that's great, so the clerk will look after that.

A review of our witness list. Is there anything else on the witness list that you would like to add or change, or do you want to look at that again at every meeting so we can review it?

MS. WHALEN: I don't have the list.

MR. MACLEOD: Maybe we can review it at every meeting.

[11:00 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, okay, that should be good then. We have the next meeting set for October 31^st, tentatively 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., so it's Agency, Board and Commission appointments, which I make sure I state this time, and Bill C-48, Student Debt Relief. Now the clerk has been telling me that there are a tremendous number of people coming in for this one so we have possibly the choice of extending the meeting another half hour or hour, or breaking it into two meetings. Maybe you could give an idea of potentially how many people could come in for that.

MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): We have representatives from the Department of Education, Student Assistance Division, and we have the Canadian Federation of Students, their representatives coming in as well.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: What is the normal practice? Do we normally do this split up?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any way the committee likes.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: What has been the protocol in the past?

MRS. HENRY: Well, we have always been doing the meetings this way, as well.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: So we have split them into two different days?

MRS. HENRY: We can, yes. We have done that.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: Have we in the past?

MRS. HENRY: We have in the past.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that we add an hour to the day and hear those who want to come forward. I don't see a need for putting one segment off for another period of time. I think it's imperative on this issue. I think some of us suggested that this issue was the number one issue that should be coming forward, like it should have been today's issue. So I believe that time is of the essence in dealing with this particular matter and I strongly suggest that we add an extra hour.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. MacKinnon. Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: Two comments. Number one, certainly I think it's a topic that warrants at least half an hour of additional time. The committee can decide whether we need half an hour, or perhaps the hour, by a vote. The second point I would make is that I think the student association, ANSSA should be invited. CFS represents only a minuscule number of students in the province now and I think it's great to hear from both organizations, in my view, on this all-important topic. ANSSA probably represents the vast majority of students, in fact 80 per cent.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, do I have a motion for a one-hour or a half-hour extension?

MR. MACLEOD: I just have a comment before that. It's Halloween, some of us live five hours away and would like to be home with our families that day. I live in the middle of the woods and I really don't like the idea of my wife being home alone that day. It sounds a little bit obscure, but it's real in my life.

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that comment taken under consideration, do I have a motion to extend the meeting?

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I was going to move an extension of an hour but hearing what has been said, I would move that the extension be for half an hour and that we go until 11:30 a.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker.

MR. PARKER: I guess I feel as it's such an important topic and that it's going to continue to grow and be more so, what would be wrong with two meetings? One on October 31^st and one a week later, but with the other half, the rest of the student associations. You're indicating that we have a lot of witnesses, why not give adequate time to everybody?

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's up to the committee, however they want to handle this. We do have a motion on the floor. Do I have a seconder for the motion - we'll deal with the motion . . .

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I will second the motion to extend it for a half-hour.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, it has been seconded by Ms. Bolivar-Getson.

Would all those in favour of the motion please raise your hand.

We have seven in favour.

Contrary minded, please raise your hand.

We have two against.

The motion is carried.

We could entertain another motion, if you wanted to have a second meeting. If you would like to do that, that's possible to do as well.

MS. WHALEN: Can I just suggest that at the end of the two and a half hour session we can see if we're satisfied with it, that we had enough time to ask our questions, or that people were heard. A decision could be made then, whether we want to extend it to another meeting.

MR. MACLEOD: I understand what you're saying, but it's kind of not fair to the people who are coming because they have schedules they have to develop, as well. If they think they're going to be asked - do you know what I'm trying to say here?

MS. WHALEN: Well, then I say, let's do it once, get it over with. I think people have a month in between, and they can decide. They want to air their issues. If they come here, they're looking for a platform, so I don't see a problem giving them a second platform.

MR. GLAVINE: I would echo that comment. This is a critically important topic to Nova Scotians, but at the same time when I look at our proposed agenda for the year, we have some other very needed topics for discussion as well. I think one meeting of two and a half hours, and should this meeting develop to the point that some kind of follow-up is needed, then perhaps the committee could indeed look at that. I think we need to schedule, my view, the one meeting.

MS. BOLIVAR-GETSON: I agree with Mr. Glavine 100 per cent. I think that we do have an agenda. If we do need more time for this topic, besides the half-hour that has been extended, we look at it at the end of our current agenda. There are other people there who equally feel their topic needs to be discussed. I would support what you just said.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any other comments on this? If there are none, the motion has been passed.

We stand adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 11:06 a.m.]