Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon, this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training. When the committee last sat, it was considering item 16.2. School Programs (c) Assessment and Evaluation (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits, on page 47 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?

Ms. Jean Friesen (Wolseley): The minister is aware of a number of concerns about the prospect of local marking this year, and I wondered if the minister had any response to the concerns that have been raised. One of the ones I think that perhaps is the most significant is the possibility of different standards being applied. Certainly there has been some training done from the department, but how is the minister ensuring that a similar standard is being applied?

Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Education and Training): Local marking was initiated partly in response to concerns that had been raised about the central marking process. That was one of the reasons for doing that. We are concerned about any suggestion that different standards might be applied to this effort. That is why training sessions are made available for local markers. There is a 20 percent audit of local marking, so that the department can compare that to the standards applied by the department, and I think that we need to gain some experience in local marking, having brought it in in response to concerns raised and, I guess, displeasure raised with the idea of doing it centrally.

These questions, by the way, were questions raised by the honourable member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) when last we met and we talked about these matters.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell me what the process will be after the audit? The audit will presumably attempt to evaluate whether similar standards have been applied across the board. In the event that similar standards have not been applied, what is the next step?

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, as I said, because there is training that goes along with the marking work, we would not expect to see a deviation of an extent that would cause concern, recognizing that the people involved are professional people, that they are of a high calibre. They are members of the Manitoba teaching profession for whom we have a great deal of respect. So we simply do not expect to see the kinds of results that are being discussed here.

I suppose if it turned out that we were wrong about that, we would have to re-evaluate the situation at that point, but knowing the high level of professionalism that exists with Manitoba teachers and knowing that we are attempting through training to have consistent results, we hope that this question is hypothetical.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell me the extent of training that teachers are receiving in local marking, and can he also tell me what avenues of appeal there are for students at the end of this process of local marking?

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, co-ordinators from the various divisions are given two days of training respecting the marking of locally marked tests. They return to their divisions and provide a half day of training for the teachers involved in the local marking.

With respect to appeals, which is simply another marking procedure, tests marked at the local level are appealable at the local level; tests marked at the central level are appealable at the central level.

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Ms. Friesen: Does the minister have a standard set of regulations for local appeals, for example, the time that must elapse, the price of an appeal, the usual regulations that surround an appeal, or is each division to be developing their own?

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, for centrally marked tests, there is a two-week appeal period, and when it is turned over for local marking, divisions are made aware of the policy that we use and they are at liberty to choose whatever policy they deem to be appropriate.

As to what it costs at the local level, that, too, is in the hands of school divisions. For centrally marked exams, there is a $35 administrative fee for a re-mark, and that includes administration costs and the costs directly for the re-marking process.

Ms. Friesen: Is the minister requiring divisions to submit information on their policy? Are we going to have a central record of what these policies are across the province? It would seem to me that it would be desirable to have some comparability between these or amongst these.

Mr. McCrae: This is the first year that local marking has been in effect. At this point, an overall policy is not indicated in my view, although I think we should keep our minds open to that for the reasons stated by the honourable member, that being consistency and comparability.

We are still trying to ascertain, and we will be using the Advisory Committee on Implementation in this regard, what are the weaknesses and strengths of the two systems and whether we should continue with the local marking. We have learned from the field that those involved in central marking certainly have spoken very highly of the professional develop-ment experience and opportunity it is for teachers. One of the reasons for moving to local marking is to extend the benefits of that, extend it to the school division level, so that we can see more of the benefits of the professional development opportunity.

I know that officially the Manitoba Teachers' Society has made certain positions known, has taken certain positions. I am not sure always whether the society–well, obviously no organization speaks for 100 percent of its membership and I can understand that, but I do know that teachers involved in the process have made extremely positive comments about what they have learned and what value it has been to them in participating in this way.

So it is not clear to me, having moved to local marking in response to concerns, whether we have adequately met those concerns. If not, as I say, our minds are open about this, but I would not like to take teachers out of the equation because they have demonstrated and made known the value of that process. Again, I am quick to add, I know that is not 100 percent, because certainly the Teachers' Society represents the views of lots of teachers in Manitoba. They have taken positions; that is their job to do so.

So I think we will be in a better position to be more definitive about the local marking experience and rules that might flow from that should we opt to continue along that path. If there should be rules that flow from that in order to protect consistency and comparability, that is something that can be considered in the future.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell me whether teachers who are to be involved in the local marking are making a commitment of one year or two years? Does this whole process have to be done over again with another group of teachers next year, and what are the criteria the department has suggested for the teachers who are to be involved? Are they ones who must have taught that particular year? Are they ones who must not have taught that particular year? What criteria and what comparability is there across the province in the level of experience, particularly immediate experience of the teachers?

The minister may be mindful of some of the criticisms that were made of some of the central marking in the early years, and that was that some of the teachers who were involved might have been retired teachers, had not taught the course itself, may not have been involved in it most recently. I do not know whether that is still the case or not. It is not a criticism I heard last year, but what I am looking for is who is going to be marking this, and has the department got some criteria that it is offering to the co-ordinators for the choice or volunteering of teachers?

Mr. McCrae: It is not the position of the department that it would restrict teachers should, in a subsequent year–now it would not be next year because there are different subject matters that will be marked locally and centrally every second year. So it is the divisions that we ask to choose the teachers to come in for co-ordinator training and then they return to the divisions. I do not think we have a concern with someone marking on more than one occasion, or for that matter for being trained on more than one occasion depending on who the divisions choose for these functions.

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Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell me about the half day of training that teachers receive, are there guidelines for that, or is that individually developed by each of the co-ordinators?

Mr. McCrae: The two-day training that is undertaken for the co-ordinator markers who come to the government for that training and then return to their teachers locally, to provide them with a half day of training, are provided with manuals, something we can share with the honourable member although we cannot do it today. If the honourable member wants that, we can make that available to her. That manual is used then to train local teachers and that manual is available to those local teachers. After all again I point out these are teachers who are trained and educated in imparting curricula to their students and to testing them themselves. So here we have them working with the department in an assessment process which includes, as I said, the production of a manual in the given subject that is being tested. As I say, I can volunteer to make those manuals available to the honourable member.

Ms. Friesen: Yes, I would be interested in seeing the manuals. I would like to ask the minister about the earlier years of the Grade 12 tests. There is, I think on average, about a 78 to 80 percent pass rate in English at the moment, but the pass rate in mathematics is much lower. But in both cases that is not the issue I want to deal with at the moment, but I am interesting in knowing how the government has tracked those who did not pass; how many are taking it a second time; how many are not appearing again on the records for the examination; what are the results for those who are taking it for a second time; do we have people who are taking it for a third time, for example, in the English which will have been there long enough for people to have taken it a third time.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, the answer is soon but not yet. Perhaps by the end of our next testing session we will be in a better position. That is a year from now. By that time we will have four years, I guess, of data to begin building the kind of database that the honourable member is talking about so that we can put the results of our assessment program to better use throughout the system. So I think the kind of information she is asking for is being gathered, but we are not in a position yet to rely on it because it is still rather new.

Ms. Friesen: Well, I am obviously interested in building the database, but four years seems to me time enough to have some understanding of the impact on students of the testing. The minister is aware, I think, that there are concerns in some cases that the testing may simply be something which pushes a child out of school.

I would have thought the government would have been interested in developing the data, finding the material that gave evidence to that one way or another. Now has it done that? You can certainly tell that after two years. You have four testings. I mean, you have two tests a year, so it is not just the year. You have two opportunities to do that. There have also been, I think, implications of difficulties with certain kinds of time tabling and the testing. Again, has the government looked at any of those and prepared any response on that for its own purposes or for the public purposes on the impacts of that on school timetabling and also curriculum issues?

For example, has the government also looked at the difference in pass rates? Obviously, you have set the bar very high in one area, and you have set it at a level in another area where 80 percent of the children can succeed. Why has that difference occurred? What kind of survey is the government doing? What kind of discussion is it entering into with the curriculum designers, with the teachers, with the professional development trainers, to look at these issues?

Four years seems to me long enough to have developed some principles and some means of response on that.

Mr. McCrae: I would have to take issue with the suggestion that the testing regime would have the effect of pushing a child out of school. Teachers are involved in developing the assessment process, and it is very simplistic to suggest that a test would put a child out of school. In fact, it is too simplistic and defies credibility.

An Honourable Member: Prove it.

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Mr. McCrae: Well, I think it is up to–

An Honourable Member: That is why I am asking for the evidence because there is that argument.

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. We will have to maintain decorum in the committee so that the information can be recorded. I would ask the honourable minister to continue with your response.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, the honourable member suggests, says that I should prove what I have said, and I guess it goes the other way around. There was testing long before the government came along with any testing. To say that the province-wide testing scheme that is designed to show we have quality in our curriculum and designed to show that the curriculum is being passed on to the students, that that somehow is a bad thing, is simply not meeting with approval. The people want to see that. If they are going to spend $781 million for an education program for their children, I would think that most people would be and are quite supportive of the concept and the reality of testing against the standards we are setting to ensure that we are meeting them.

I am as sensitive as the honourable member or anyone else with respect to children who have difficulties. To say, all of a sudden, that Johnny is having a bad time at school and it is all because of tests, well, you know, tests were here long before the New Directions came forward. One might want to dig a little bit deeper and find out just what is the problem with Johnny rather than simply because a certain group which I support is opposed, so I therefore have to be opposed and so that everything that goes on in the system is now going to be the fault of that which I and my friends are opposing. It is too simple; it defies credibility. Little Johnny has something else going on because the vast majority of children taking these tests are quite okay with them in the sense that it is not going to push them out of school.

I think it borders on irresponsible to suggest that a level of accountability in the system which helps us to identify just what it is in an academic sense that is not going right for Johnny or that we can improve, that would be a more responsible approach rather than simply to say, well, my friends are against testing so I am going to be against it too. That is not applying logical thinking; it is not applying reason; it is simply not looking fairly at the situation. The idea here is, among other things, to improve the overall level of education our children are getting. An awful lot of experts would agree that this assessment process, along with improved and updated curricula, is the way to go. If it were only Manitoba out on an adventure on its own, I guess there might be a little more there to be critical about, but when I know that other jurisdictions are doing the same thing, it is for a reason. It is because we are competing in a global marketplace.

The world of the future–leave the market-place out of it–our human and interpersonal relationships are affected by what we are learning in school and what are we doing to make the next generation ready. We are not doing Johnny a favour simply by off the cuff suggesting that the tests are pushing him out of school so therefore we will let him go, and we will blame the government. I mean that is just not good enough. Little Johnny deserves better from us than that.

If there is something wrong with this child, let us look at the reasons for it rather than to look at one of the effects of his problem and go after that. That is the shortest term, narrow kind of thinking that I can imagine, and it is the greatest disservice to a child. I mean I am surprised that responsible members of the Legislature would be taken in by that sort of thing.

It was not that long ago I had a meeting with a group of parents, and one of the moms was telling us of the trouble that her child was having, and she was attributing the troubles to the tests. Well, I think it turned out, after some discussion, that it was fairly apparent that there were more things to be looking at in this child's life than simply the fact that we are trying to establish standards and tests to see that we are achieving those standards.

Yes, we recognize there are children who have circumstances that require some special attention or special handling, and that is why there are children who are exempt from these tests because we know that not all children are the same, but most children, is what we need to keep in mind, most so-called normal children in today's society are not unable to take in what the curriculum implies and not unable to be tested.

I mean I have children too and I was a child and went through testing as well, and I remember thinking, my goodness, would school not be a lot better if we did not have to do these tests. Well, now in hindsight I think back and think it would have been a lot better for me, it would have been easier, not better. We are not doing anybody any favour by excusing them of the responsibility of having to achieve in order to achieve their school education because we can just excuse them, those who do not want to or those who are encouraged to rebel against a system that is designed to get them properly educated and excuse them and excuse them and excuse them, but who is going to look after them when they are 30? Who is going to look after them when they are 40 and when they are 50 and they need to be looking after themselves?

We can say, I guess, well, because of them, we should abandon the whole system, and you know, just leave it all up to people who do not see the need to measure up to any standards. But that will not only put our children individually into a disadvantageous position as they get out into the world, but it will place our province at a less competitive position in the scheme of things in our country and more and more inter-nationally. I mean if you just look at the people in this world that we are doing business with and, yes, competing with, we have to keep up or we will be lost economically and in a social context as well. Our children deserve a break. They deserve a responsible system that will allow them to achieve in those days when they are finished their formal education.

So I really do take issue with the comment about pushing a child out of school. If there are any circumstances where there are children who are simply not able, for health reasons, to handle the work, that is another matter, but to make a blanket statement like that simply suggests there is no support on the part of the honourable member or her party for New Directions which imply good curricula and imply good teaching and imply testing and imply the changes we need to make as a result of the things we learn from that testing.

The honourable member suggests that we should be moving faster than tomorrow. When somebody complains we are moving too fast, then we should slow down, and then we should speed up, and then we should slow down. I think the department has a big job on its hands. The leadership of the past few years has asked the department to do a lot of things, and the department has been doing a lot of things and attempting to be responsive to the field. The field has on occasion made a good case that we are moving too fast or we are testing too early in the year, too late in the year, whatever it happens to be, we are not getting materials out quick enough. All of those things, some of them have turned out to catch the attention of the department, and rightly so, and adjustments have been made. That is a reasonable thing to do. I think it would be unfair to the children, certainly unfair to the teachers, to be moving along in such a way that we are not listening to them at all, that we are not consulting them.

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The reason we can promote what it is we are doing is because we do have so much partnership with the field. That is something that I am sure I know my predecessors have asked happen, and I certainly would continue in that tradition to keep consulting people in the field. I guess one has to be careful about consultation because you never get the same answer, I guess, from any one individual, and you have to listen to all of the answers and try to build the best consensus that you can based on the principles you want to achieve. I think there initially was general agreement about the principles we want to achieve.

That being said, it becomes politically quite easy to agree with the principles but pick apart the implementation. I have seen it happen in a number of things in the past. It is just really easy from a political standpoint, which means that without being unduly unfair with anybody, look at where people are coming from and try to figure that out. If consistently they put the kids first, then they should have the ear of decision makers, they should have the ear of implementers. It is when we start veering off and putting some other agenda ahead of our children that we get off the track. I think we do a disservice to the children every time we do that. There are all kinds of excellent, excellent people out there who simply are there, and I have met lots of them. They are simply there because they want to see success achieved over and over again in the lives of these young people. I respect that very much. Those are the first people I am going to listen to.

Those who represent some political organization or some other kind of interest organization, well, I will listen to them, and so I should, but we have to remember from where people come. When it is a very simple concept that the children are the ones whose interests are being put above all other considerations, those people, they are simply credible, very credible, and deserve to have their point of view listened to. So when I know a teacher, for example, for most of the years of my life who simply makes the point that, you know, you are heading in the right direction, sometimes I think you are moving a little too fast, and, if we can identify where that is happening, slow it down a little bit, then we should do that. If there are other adjustments that need to be made, then we should do that and not hold fast simply because we are stubborn or because we have made a decision and that if we change it people will think that we are faltering along the route. Well, we are not faltering along the route. We have New Directions. We have the right directions. Sometimes we implement just a little bit wrong and need to make corrections. That has been happening. I think it is a sign of good will and a sign of co-operation with the field that we are prepared to do that.

The central marking business was one of the areas that I understand did not meet with everybody's approval. The department, in an attempt to work with the people in the field of education, made that adjustment to the local marking. Then the next thing you know some people are not happy with that too. So what it is that some people want? Well, I happen to know. Some people simply want to criticize the government. That is okay. That is what they are paid to do, and so that is what they do. They are earning their money. The fact is everybody should take a good, hard look at what their objectives are. Is their objective simply to replace the government? Well, that is one. Is their objective to get rid of the government in favour of one that they think is more favourable to them? That is another thing. It does not always turn out that way, I have found in the past. Is the objective the best we can do for all the children of Manitoba? Well, bingo, that is the people that we should be listening the hardest to, and when they point out the error of our ways, be big enough to admit that we have moved too fast or gone too far or too quickly or whatever it happens to be.

Sometimes it is that we have not done enough, that we have not moved fast enough. That is fair too–but in a general sense just to make the point that this whole business of testing is wrong, that it is not meeting with approval with the vast majority of Manitobans who know darn well that everywhere else you go in the world people have to be accountable and people are reaching for higher and higher levels of technology and excellence, and Manitobans have proved in the past that they are able to run with that bunch and we are not about to let them get ahead of us in the future, so that means that from time to time, we have to look at what we are doing in our education system.

That is precisely what has been happening. We have been implementing over the past five years or so and making some genuine improve-ments. Ask the teachers; they will tell you. That is exactly what we are doing, but when it comes to all of the data that we need to form certain conclusions, the honourable member may make the point that we should be further along in that area. We are listening to that, but I think that given the magnitude of the tasks that the department and the teaching profession and the division people have been undertaking, it might be worthy to say that we have come a long distance and we have made significant improvements in our education system, and with a few more hurdles to get over, we will be in a position, I guess a position to evaluate more definitively and in more categorical ways how we are doing with New Directions.

Anybody who has any common sense I think would have to admit that we have made some significant improvements. You do not put all that effort into something that everybody agrees on and call for the efforts of many thousands of others and get that kind of support and effort without some kind of positive benefit. We know that is there, but I guess there are some people who are just simply going to hold on to some ideas that are a little old now, a little bit out of step with the realities of the modern day society. That is okay. Everybody is entitled to his opinion, even opinions which ultimately it turns out are totally unsustainable. We do owe people the courtesy of listening to those opinions and working them into the equation as we continue to build a stronger and stronger system.

I think that is all I have to say about that.

Ms. Friesen: Well, the question dealt with evaluation of a government program. It asked for information and evidence about issues which clearly are concerning people, who I understand have already spoken to the minister as well.

What I had anticipated from the minister, I was asking for some evaluation after four years and in some cases eight exams, of the impact of these exams on students who for a variety of reasons are at the weaker end of the scale. It may be English as a second language; it may be the nature of their progress generally in school; it might have to do with other family responsibilities or other issues. What I had anticipated from the minister was an answer that said, yes, I have heard that criticism; we have looked at this, and we have found that the dropout rate at the Grade 12 level after the mathematics or after the English exam is 2 percent, 1 percent, 10 percent. If it is at the low end of the scale, we are looking at it; if it is at the higher end of the scale, we are assisting divisions to meet the challenge that comes with that.

The 50 percent failure rate in mathematics, I would have anticipated the government would have done some analysis on that that looked at whether this is an issue of the nature of a particular school; is it an issue of the nature of the test; is it an issue of the way in which the test was introduced or the kind of training that teachers have had? What are the reasons for this and what steps has the government taken to move these numbers up? The government might also have responded with, well, yes, when we first introduced the test, 50 percent of people did fail in math, but we followed this up, and we now know that another 10 percent take it and pass the second year, that a further 10 percent take it the third year.

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So that is what I was asking for, some sense of responsible evaluation of a system which is relatively new for Manitoba families. It is difficult to make generalizations. Well, in fact, one should not make generalizations after one event, but the government has had a fair experience now with some of these exams, and what I was looking for from the minister was information and evidence that will enable us to judge and to evaluate what the impact has been, fairly, across Manitoba of these exams.

The minister is aware of the criticism. I do not need to repeat that, but what I am asking for from the department is some response to that, some evidence-based response that will enable us as a thinking public to have some sensible discussion about that. At the moment, as the minister knows, much of this is in the realm of speculation from individual schools, from the experience of particular areas of the province.

So, again, I am asking the minister for evidence. I am asking for information. I do not know that the minister really understood the question.

Mr. McCrae: We are getting good feedback, lots of it, from the teachers and the markers in terms of building a good, strong system by which we can achieve the things that the honourable member is talking about, that, what did she call it, responsible evaluation of the students and of the system itself. We have to get the mechanisms in their place, and we have to get the feedback from the people assisting us in doing that.

I think what the honourable member is trying to do is to jump a little bit ahead of where we are, or perhaps to suggest we should be ahead of where we are, which is a fair comment. I am not saying it is true, but I am saying it is a fair comment. I do not know if she realizes how massive the change to New Directions is. I mean, she should talk to some teachers about this, and they can sort of fill her in on the magnitude of the changes, the magnitude of the curriculum changes that have been undertaken. In fact, this is an area where there have been some concessions made when it comes to the amount of new curriculum that teachers have had to address and work with. So it has been a very good learning experience for education generally in Manitoba, and not just the students but the parents, the educators, the people in the department who have been trying to administer an improved education system.

I certainly do understand what the honourable member is saying, and I think that we will be in a position of course to make more concrete use of the lessons we are learning, not that we have not made some pretty concrete use of it already, but I think what I am getting is simply that the honourable member is suggesting we should be further along. I think given the magnitude of the task, I guess I could say that I do not think that is a very fair criticism, but I mean it is one that the honourable member is free to make. I think she might find that there are an awful lot of people who might disagree with her that we have not moved fast enough. There are people in the field who have been feeling under a lot of pressure, and I think we have to have a little more regard for them, i.e., the teachers in the system, than the questions suggest that we should have. When it comes to evidence that the honourable member is talking about, that evidence is being made available through each passing year and will be in a better position to make use of it as we proceed down the road that we have been using.

The point is, I get back to the point that I believe is being made here, we have people who are coming and talking about test-free Tuesday or something like that, that tests are bad and that implies that a lot of other things are bad about New Directions. Really there is far more good than there is bad in New Directions. I do not think there is anything that you could identify as being bad except that there are things that we could do better. Everybody acknowledges that, and we have been doing that. We have been making adjustments to ensure that we are not asking more of people than their ability would allow them to deliver.

But simply, I cannot get out of my mind what was said earlier because it just takes this discussion from one of building on something that is strong to engaging in arguments that do not make any sense, like the business about pushing a child out of school and using that as a basis for scrapping the system of New Directions. It is too simple. Anybody can say something like that. It does not mean it is true, but anybody can say it with a view to sensationalizing an issue which is really intended to create a higher quality of education for our children and take an argument like that and really work against all of the improvements that they are trying to bring about. I know the honourable member is interested in education, and she would like to see improvements. Improvements are happening right in front of her, and because it is not she that is driving it, I guess, she has problems with it. Well, she is a politician and so am I, and I understand how these things come about.

Again, I go back to what I think I said last week about using the kids as sort of innocent pawns in this debate really does the opposite to what is intended. I think if it is intended to bring forward reasoned criticism of a system, then do it. But, to bring in outrageous comments like that one as a basis for scrapping New Directions, I simply am not able to go along with that kind of thinking because the whole–I mean, why would anybody engage in improving education if it was not because it was felt that we needed to do that for good and proper reasons, those reasons being the most precious resource we have, our children, and to ensure for them a chance to achieve all they can be, which, I think, is what parents generally want in their children?

Most parents that I know simply do not want to see any limits placed on the opportunities before their children, and I do not want an education system that did not keep up to be one of the reasons, especially when I was here and had an opportunity to support something that would indeed give those kids a much better chance. To use those same kids in such a way does them more of a disservice. There are kids for whom a school of any kind is a big challenge, because the children have special debilities and need specialized education. Well, we are working to address that, but simply to make a broad statement like that is just out of line.

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So we are able to draw conclusions from information that comes forward as a result of the testing of all of the people, all of the students in the province. The indicators of our system are being developed. That is when we are using this kind of data for that purpose, and we will keep the pressure on in that regard. When we have the opportunity to tell the honourable member more about what we are achieving with regard to those results, we will be making that known.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell me how many students who have failed the Grade 12 math exam have taken it a second time and what their result has been?

Mr. McCrae: By September when we are enrolling students, we will be able to answer that question.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, can the minister tell me whether students who took it–it has been offered twice now as a standard exam. I am trying to move away from the pilots. There have been pilots and there have been ones which have counted. I think we are in our second–this is the second year or third year of this.

Mr. McCrae: Will you ask me the question one more time? Sorry.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, yes. What I do not want to do is to get involved in the pilot testing. Those are pilots; those are experimental. That is different. So I am looking at the introduction of the Grade 12 mathematics test on a–I am not sure of the word to use–formal basis. [interjection] "For real," that is right, in quotes. I want to know how many times that has been taken, because my understanding is at least twice because we have two per year, and what the results of those have been. For example, did people take it the first time, fail, take it a second time, do better? Do you have those kinds of results?

Mr. McCrae: I think I am understanding the honourable member's question, and I can only repeat what I said: that kind of name- and student number-driven information, that kind of system will be in place by September of this year so that I would be able to answer that question in the affirmative by then, but I cannot yet.

Ms. Friesen: Does that mean, Mr. Chairman, that the government will not have information for those people who have already taken the tests, that actually the collecting of data based on the name, the number and the examination will begin this September?

Mr. McCrae: As I said, the information will not be available in a uniform way across the province until this coming school year. It is not available in that form yet, but it will be by next year, i.e., if a child or a person takes the exam a second time, then at that time it will be known what the previous history is of that particular student.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, are there instances of students taking an exam the second time to improve their mark?

Mr. McCrae: I guess the best way for me to answer that is to say that if the honourable member or if a parent or somebody was seeking information about a student, at this point, the school division would have that information. It is not necessarily available to the department at this point, but at this time next year we expect that would be the case; the department would have that information on all the students.

It needs to be added to what I have said that the only way you can get to take the test again is if you take the course again, so it is not simply a question of having a rewrite a year later or a month later or something like that. In order to take the test, you have to have taken the course.

Ms. Friesen: Can the minister tell me what kind of evaluation he will be doing of the testing in the years up to this September? If the beginning of collecting of this data does not begin until this September, then what kind of evaluation, what is the nature of the evaluation, what kind of information is the minister using for the evaluation presumably that is in place now?

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Mr. McCrae: I think I have some information that may give a better overall response to these questions than I have been to this point. It is about interpreting results from tests and examinations. The honourable member will remember New Directions, The Action Plan. That was the provincial program. It states in there that New Directions seeks to ensure that effective educational strategies are used consistently and appropriately across the system. Well, that makes sense. It seems to me that is what we are trying to achieve here.

The purpose of the program is to provide clear, accurate information about each student's skills and abilities in relation to the objectives or the expected learning outcomes set out in the provincial curricula. The results of examinations and standards tests can provide schools and divisions and districts with benchmarks to review student learning, local student assessment and evaluation practices and student achieve-ment relative to educational standards. This will contribute to a better understanding of student achievement across the province. I think this is what the honourable member is attempting to get at with her questions here: what is the student achievement across the province, how do we measure it, and what are results?

The testing program supports the implementation of curricula by developing test instruments that are curriculum congruent because the constraints of large scale testing, for the measurability of some outcomes and the duration of tests, it is not possible to assess the entire range of student learning outcomes. Therefore, standards tests and provincial exams need to be complemented at the school level by a variety of assessment methods such as teacher observations. These were always there. Writing samples, demonstrations, portfolio assessments or exhibitions. Provincial examinations and tests assess the performance of individual students, not the performance of the system; that is, the results of standards tests alone do not indicate how well curricula have been implemented. In order to assess the system, a much broader base of information is needed.

The Assessment and Evaluation Branch of the Department of Education and Training distributes provincial test and examination results in a variety of reports to schools, school divisions and districts and the community. Student profiles provide detailed information on each student's performance in the specific areas tested. Schools are required to share this detailed information with individual students and their parents. This is an important statement. Schools are required to share this detailed information with individual students and their parents. Teachers are encouraged to use this information in conjunction with their own classroom assessment results to enhance classroom instruction. That has been an important question for me.

Information about results are shared with schools and school divisions. That sharing is done for a purpose so that we can achieve something with our program. I have heard from a number of parents that while we do not know anything about what has happened with the results of our child's provincial test, that is in fact the folks who are talking about having a test-free Tuesday. They say that the only information you receive about your child's test results is a number. Neither your child's teacher, your child, nor you will see the marked test unless you fill out a form.

Well, that is what I have been a little bit troubled by, and this is one area I have discussed with my deputy minister because this is troubling me. We expect that part of New Directions is that parents are a key part of a child's education. I have even heard of stories where teachers themselves were not aware of what the test results were. Makes you wonder. I would be the first one as a parent to say, well, why do you have tests then if you are not sharing the information? I do not know all the reasons for this. Any reasons that relate to anything but some mistake in communication or something, I would not want anybody's strong feelings about or against New Directions to be the reason for information not being shared. There is no point having information if it is just going to sit on a shelf, because the information is designed to be used to bring about better educational opportunities and better results in the case of each and every child about whom these results are made available by the Department of Education and Training.

I really have a problem with this group that says the only information you will receive about your child's test results is a number. It is not true. That is simply not true. A detailed profile is sent back on each student. In too many instances in my opinion that I have heard about so far, this detailed information is not getting to parents. Why is what I have to ask and what I have asked my deputy minister to inquire into and see what we can do about that, because, as I say, it would be hard for me as a parent to want to support any kind of system if I am left out of it. Now, I do not know if it is on purpose or if it is not. I hope it is not on purpose because that says something else that is a very serious matter. These reports are sent. Student profiles are sent to each school. Divisional overviews are sent to each division. There are school summaries, division summaries, provincial summaries, and also division and school-by-school information is all made available. Information is power and all of this information, if it is used well, can result in some extremely excellent possibilities, not only for our school systems, but for each of the kids involved.

One of the other things the test-free-Tuesday people are saying is that there is no diagnostic value to tests because they occur too late in the school year. Any suggestion of a lack of diagnostic value relates again to the fact that the available information perhaps is not being shared sufficiently with parents. I do not think the real point here is when testing occurs. I think the point is what use is made of the test results. I mean the people in the Department of Education and Training are not the ones who work day in and day out with the kids. The ones who work day in and day out with the kids are the teachers and the moms and the dads, and to be told that that information is not getting to the teachers or, just as bad, to the moms and dads caused me some serious concern. I passed that along and I am sure that some efforts will be made to try to rectify that situation.

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The other one, one of the favourites that I hear by opponents of New Directions, is that the classroom teachers are encouraged to change their teaching practices to teach to the test even if that is not in the best interest of the children. Well, that is not what this is about either. All of our communications and policy documents have stressed that the best preparation is to teach the full curriculum. What a concept, but there it is. That is what this is about. If you teach the curriculum and the children are learning it, then the tests will not be a big deal for them at all.

Stress has also been laid on the importance of using a balanced assortment of assessment instruments and tools throughout the year and that standards tests are only one component of the overall assessment of a student. Any teacher who does focus on just teaching to the test, in the opinion of some people, would be acting unpro-fessionally, contrary to government directives and communications and even against the best interests of the child.

So when I hear that teachers are teaching to the test, I mean I am not a teacher, obviously, but I have a very high opinion of them and any suggestion that there would be people acting in an unprofessional way, teachers most of all, would be a real problem for me because I have, as I said, a high opinion of the professionalism of teachers. So maybe that is why I do not hear about it that often. I have heard it from parents, mind you, and from people who simply have their mind made up that New Directions is the wrong way, so they come up with this argument that teachers are teaching to the test. They must have got it from somewhere. I hope it was not from the honourable member, because I am told that that would be an unprofessional thing to do, so I hope that is not happening.

There is talk about this expenditure of money for standards tests. Of course, those who use the figure of $15 million are distorting that situation to some extent. I think that once everything is in place that could well be what it will cost down the road, but it has certainly not reached that kind of level to this point. So, you know, some of these things really cause me to be concerned in my job as Minister of Education. I mean to come out against New Directions and then to give a bunch of reasons for that that cannot be substantiated tends to stand in the way, really, of moving forward with the education of our kids, and that is when I draw the line. I simply cannot get along with the idea of making political pawns out of our children. I am just not geared for that sort of thing.

The branch, as I said, distributes tests and results in a variety of reports to the schools, the school divisions and to the community. Detailed summary reports provide schools and school divisions with a statistical information base by which administrators and teachers can address concerns regarding achievement levels and build upon strengths and improve areas of weakness. That is what I see as being one of the reasons for proceeding in the way that we are so that divisions and schools can have this type of statistical data. It is the kind that I think the honourable member was talking about too.

Province-wide school-by-school results are released annually to division offices and schools and educational organizations and the general public. This is another area of some concern with some people. I guess when we are dealing with public money, we should not be choosy about this. Public money is public money, and there is an accountability factor here that ought not to be ignored because you cannot decide that accountability is good in this area of public expenditure but not in that area of public expenditure. That is just too simple, again. The province releases test results with the hope that parents and schools and the community use these results in a constructive way to support the ongoing improvement in the areas of instruction, learning and curriculum development.

I would hate to think that those opposed to the release of this type of information are opposed because they want to protect a status quo which maybe is not as good as what we can develop. In other words, sometimes I think information supports change, usually change for the better, and those who resist this type of information being made available to the public, again you want to look at what their real agenda is. Again I say: is their agenda that of putting the interests of the children ahead of all other matters?

I do not know but why do we need to be so worried about releasing information to the public? I guess it is easy for me or for the honourable member to say, well, it is not that big a deal because sometimes they get it wrong; sometimes they get it right. The fact is whatever spin you put on the information is one thing; the information itself is another.

I guess it is hard to control what goes out in the public media. We can put out information. I have said to my deputy minister, maybe it is the narrative that surrounds the information that gets people off on the wrong track, and is there anything we can do about that? Frankly, I do not know. The answer is I do not know because you cannot write the newspapers for the newspaper people. They will think that you have a motive that is different from theirs and they will not go along with that.

So I am still kind of struggling with that. I believe that public information is public information, but, I, too, would not like people jumping to the wrong conclusions as a result of information that is made available. But that does not mean that I am God or that I should therefore then say, okay, we should be withholding this information which is produced through the expenditure of public money. The general public wants this information because they pay for it. They pay for all of the work that goes into the creation of that information. The Province of Manitoba will use the information to identify areas that require curriculum changes or the development of further support materials or in-services. I think that sometimes we take personally things that we ought not to. If professional development in a certain area is indicated by the information that comes out of a testing scenario, what is wrong with that? There is not a thing wrong with that. So I think that we simply need to use the information in a way that is appropriate, but who is to define what that is?

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I think, though, it has been argued that because of certain negative standing vis-a-vis other schools or other divisions respecting a certain school, it has been argued that teachers, if it is in math, then they will spend all the time on math and then they will not have time for anything else. Well, that, again, smacks of somebody suggesting that teachers are pretty unprofessional if they would do that. I would hope that anybody suggesting that is wrong. The vast majority of our teachers are certainly not unprofessional. They are quite the reverse. I have one sitting right beside me, two of them, on each side, so I better be careful about this. I know that that one, too, only talks about those people who are teaching who maybe ought not to be teaching because they are misunder-standing the role that they play and the role that this information plays in the building of a better education system.

With respect to Grade 3 mathematics in 1998, 13,657 students wrote the Grade 3 mathJ matiques standards test. Test results remained relatively stable in 1998 compared with 1997. A decrease in test score variability was detected for all programs from 1997 to 1998. This might be explained by the fact that the number of nonresponses to test questions was lower than in 1997. The 1997 students tended to achieve the highest scores in the curricular unit, patterns and relations. In 1998, students performed best in statistics and probability.

Feedback from markers indicated that students tended to demonstrate stronger problem-solving skills in 1998 compared to 1997. Though the open-response questions presented more challenging situations, students performed as well or better in 1998. In addition, markers indicated that students' ability to develop contexts or stories for mathematical procedures improved. That is very encouraging, I think, because it demonstrates a clearer understanding. Finally, students' ability to read and interpret graphical information showed improvement in 1998. These are encouraging things. I mean, I do not think everything that comes out is as encouraging as that, but this is certainly encouraging.

With respect to Senior 4 mathematics, since 1997, over 10,000 students have been writing the Senior 4 mathematics/mathJ matique provincial examinations each year, with more students writing in semester 2 than in semester 1. The results on the mathematics/mathJ matique pro-vincial examinations have remained relatively stable across administrations within each program.

On Senior 4 English language arts, each year over 11,000 students write the Senior 4 English language arts provincial examinations. More students write the exam in semester 1 than in semester 2. The provincial means and pass rates have been fairly consistent since the examinations began in 1996, ranging from 62 percent to 68 percent. The overall means and pass rates have tended to be higher in semester 1 than in semester 2 by 3 percent to 4 percent, and students generally score higher on reading than process writing. Student performance on the process writing component has been consistent over the years. The average marks are between 61 percent and 65 percent, with students scoring higher on the mechanics of writing like spelling, grammar, sentence construction, et cetera, than on the content, style or organization of the writing. Students do equally well on the latter three elements of writing. Improvements to the format, content and administration of the examination have been made based on feedback from the field and the Program Development Branch.

It is dangerous to make a comparison one year over the other or one school over the other in a short space of time, just like the questions asked by the honourable member. I mean, it may be that we could be further along in terms of all of the uses we can make of information, but it is always a good idea to be cautious too. It is like labour statistics, I guess. I know the member for Brandon East (Mr. L. Evans), there are labour statistics that come out every month, and, you know, if the unemployment rate climbs one-quarter of a percent in one month, you will not hear a word from the honourable member for Brandon East. If it stays the same for 12 months, you will not hear a word, but if it should drop one-eighth of a percent one month out of 12, you will hear from the honourable member for Brandon East that this is all the fault of the government.

So you have to be careful with statistics, as you know what they say about statistics. But here we do need to be cautious about comparisons from one administration of a test to another one because maybe that does not demonstrate a trend. It just demonstrates maybe little and local differences in a short space of time. Differences in the format of the instrument, differences in the populations being assessed, as well as a variety of other external factors, may influence overall performances across examinations. When looking at the results at the individual school or classroom level, factors such as the experience level of the teacher, the time allocation for instruction, student attitudes towards education and attendance rate can also have an impact on student performance. The standards tests and provincial examinations have been designed to measure individual student performance. The test results are only one piece of information about the student and must be interpreted along with a variety of classroom assessment results. As well, these tests and examinations by themselves should not be used to assess teachers, schools or the school system.

There are other ways besides simply provincial examination to assess teachers, schools or the school system, certainly on a short-term basis. Teachers involved in developing and marking the Grade 3 mathe-matics standards test view their experiences as valuable professional development. Depart-mental consultants have indicated that, in their in-services across the province, they notice a dramatic change in teachers' attitudes towards the tests since the administration and marking of 1998. The number of concerns, complaints and negative comments has decreased while the frequency of positive comments has increased. I think that is what you can expect if you have a good quality product. You need a little bit of experience for that product to become better known and somewhat better appreciated, work the little wrinkles out of your product–if it is in this case a Grade 3 test, work those wrinkles out, listen to the users of the product, and make those adjustments that result in a better test. As I say, you will get negative comments decreasing and positive ones increasing. I think that must be somewhat gratifying to the people in the department and those in the field who have assisted the department in putting this together. I know it is hard when you are faced with a barrage of criticism and that sort of thing which very often happens when you do something new or different. Feedback from principals, classroom teachers and markers at the Senior 4 level continues to indicate that the examinations are fair and consistent with the curriculum. Markers are also very satisfied with the process used to mark the provincial exams.

The direct involvement of S4 mathe-matics, mathJ matiques, and English language arts teachers in the examination development process, as well as in the marking of the examination papers, continues to provide valuable opportunities for professional develop-ment. This is a valuable opportunity for teachers, but it is a valuable opportunity for the department as well. So we are all learning and expanding our understanding, and we are doing it together.

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Ms. Friesen: Well, the response dealt with the process and the purpose of examinations, and the minister certainly filled his 30 minutes of response time to the minute. The question, of course, dealt with evaluation and dealt with the government's role and process of evaluation. I understand the answer to that is that much of the kind of information that I was talking about, which is not all of assessment, it is some of it, will not be being collected until this September and that the government does intend at some point to produce some evaluation of the whole process of examinations at the Grade 12 level.

Let me ask a policy question. There is clearly a difference in the pass rate at the Grade 12 math and the Grade 12 English, and I wondered what the government's analysis of that has been, what they think the reasons are, whether they are satisfied with that and how they think that that might change over the next few years. For example, have there been changes to the curriculum? Have there been specific changes in professional development that would address some of those issues?

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding that we do not yet this year have a thorough statistical base from which to draw a conclusion or multiple conclusions, all of our information to date, including our discussions with teachers, markers, principals, the minister's advisory committee on implementing education change, all those people tell us that testing is not causing students to drop out of school or to move to other provinces. To the contrary, we are hearing that our tests are fair, that they match the curriculum and they have been structured at the right standard, albeit sometimes challenging. Well, I have written challenging tests before. I have passed some and I have not passed some. But the field supports what we are doing, and I believe they know that we must have solid standards.

If you want to see a positive person, go and talk to a Grade 12 math teacher. I do not know how many of you have done so. I have. Talk about positive people. These people are down-right excited about the curriculum. When you are that excited about the curriculum, I do not think the testing on that amounts to a really big problem. When you see that kind of enthusiasm, you just know, and I do not say this is everywhere. There are obviously going to be dissenters, but certainly the ones I have spoken to have very, very positive comments to make about the curriculum itself.

It would be only too easy for us and for the system to scrap tests or, even worse, to make the curriculum and the tests that go with them a whole lot easier. If we do not challenge young people at a time when they are best able to accept challenge and turn it into opportunity, we are missing the boat as a society. It is a pretty simple truth that I think is evident to most fair-minded people. We are dealing with people at the time of their lives when they are able to take in more information, I suggest, than at any other time in their lives unless it is when they are tinier. The tinier you are, the faster you seem to learn and pick things up.

I have not even been tempted to scrap the system that we have been putting into place because I have been advised that it is challenging, and I am advised that it should be challenging and that those who are not as able to meet the challenge, then you look at their individual situations. That is what special education is about. I know of people who have not been challenged enough in the past, and I know how disappointed they have been for the rest of their lives. What kind of favour are we doing our kids by saying, oh, well, we know it is hard so we better just back off on all of this, this is too hard for you, so we will just scrap all the plans for excellence that we have for Manitoba.

Well that is one–I call it delusions of adequacy that some people suffer. I prefer the delusions of grandeur that others suffer. It is a better kind of delusion, I suppose. If you are going to achieve anything, you might as well go for the grandeur rather than the adequacy. But delusions of adequacy simply are not good enough for Manitobans, not good enough for my kids, not good enough for the kids of my neighbours and friends in Brandon or anywhere else in Manitoba. It would be very easy just to say, okay, well, uncle, I give up, this is too hard, cannot take the criticism, so we are going to forsake the future of our kids because we do not like to be criticized. Well, those who do nothing sometimes do not get noticed very much, but they do not accomplish or contribute very much either. So we want to base what we are doing, however, on a fair assessment of what is the right thing to do. I am not simply wanting to be stubborn about this, and I think we have demonstrated that we are not simply just stubborn about this. We are trying to do the right thing not only by the children in our schools but also those we entrust our children with to ensure that they get a good education.

You know, if we just scrapped everything or if we made the tests easier and the curriculum easier, we could really ensure that all students found the tests not very challenging. Then you would be worried about drop-out rates and students leaving. I mean, people of that age need to be challenged, not just left to try to find their way through their lives without meeting any of their own expectations, let alone the expectations of anybody else. So what would it do? It would give us all a wrong sense of achievement of our students, which really is a huge disservice.

The honourable member asks about differences between test results between Senior 4 math, and I can say that generally speaking they are a little lower than what the department might have hoped for. We can say that, not only looking at the mean scores over the last few years but also the results on student achievement indicators, they show that Manitoba can do better.

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In English language, on the other hand, scored provincially and nationally, it shows that Manitoba students achieve at a very high level. This reflects my own experience, by the way, and maybe a lot of other people. Some of us simply are not, or seem not, to be inclined mathematically. I never was, and that showed in my performance at school. But I know that my Canadian contemporaries and I, attending school in Los Angeles, outperformed our American counterparts on a consistent basis on anything related to English or grammar or spelling, any of those things. We outperformed them, and I was fairly pleased with myself. I think that a number of other people find this same problem, that they perform better in English than math. But in any event, our students, when compared with other students across the country–this is the good-news part of the language arts part–they achieved at a very high level.

We can do better in math. That is why we are bringing in new curriculum with a significant increase in standards and rigour and an emphasis on problem solving. I mean, we want our math to relate to something, so if we can use what we know about math to problem solve, then that is good. We need to see significant increases in in-servicing for teachers in math, and we are doing that. We not only give teachers new curricula, but we also provide them with excellent support documents called Foundations for Implemen-tation. Again, from my travels, that is what I am hearing. I am not just making this up and neither is my deputy. This is what I am hearing from teachers, and when you get that kind of enthusiasm, you want to respond to it in a positive way.

So, as I say, I think we are trying to do that. We do not see criticism always in a negative light. Sometimes it is meant that way. Even then, there is no point responding unduly negatively. We are on the strong side of this debate, in my view. As a parent, I can say that I want my children and my grandchildren to benefit from an education system that realizes that we are part of a larger world, that we are not just living here in some delirious isolation where nothing else matters and can we not all just be brothers kind of thinking, to some thinking that is realistic and suggests and says that we live in a real world, and our children need to be able to not only survive but to flourish in that real world. That is precisely what we have in mind as we develop New Directions.

But I just want to hasten to say again that I try not to take criticism in the wrong way. I think that essentially people who are critical think they are being constructively critical, and if you can view people in that way, then you can make the best of criticism that does not always necessarily come from the highest and best foundation, but I am interested in improvements.

I am about to suggest that since we are going to six o'clock that some people around this table might appreciate a five-minute break.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): Is it the will of the committee to have a five-minute break? [agreed]

________

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): The committee will come back to order.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, my question dealt with the differential pass rates between the English and mathematics exams and to what the government attributed this. The minister I think spoke for 15 minutes, and I do not think I heard an answer. I asked also what specific steps the government had taken in terms of professional development to deal with the issues in the mathematics exam. The minister's response was we have a curriculum, we have resources, and we do professional development.

So I wonder if the minister could be more specific on that. What areas of the curriculum has the minister identified as needing attention in mathematics, and how has the professional development in the past year attended to those issues?

Mr. McCrae: I thought I had answered the question fairly succinctly and in a direct way, but I will try again and see if I can improve on that. Some of your comments, Mr. Chairman, off the record, actually helped point me in that direction as well. So it is certainly not simply the honourable member for Wolseley who feels that perhaps I was not as directly responsive as expectations might have suggested I should have been.

When we talk about this differential pass rate respecting language arts and math–and math being the one where it appears a little more work is indicated–I think we identified through results that the area of problem solving was the area that we are concerned with at this point. The honourable member has to understand–I think she does–that professional development is an ongoing effort. It happens year in and year out. In addition, I am advised that individual school divisions can identify areas of need and request that in-servicing focus on those areas of need or those areas indicated by the testing that need additional attention, so that on request arrange-ments can be made and are made for in-servicing with respect to particular issues. That is one of the things that I think is a useful product of this system we have in place. We knew–I think everybody knew–that there were areas in Manitoba, areas of our geography where we were going to come up a little shorter than other areas. We learned that this problem-solving area of mathematics was one. We do have resources in place to address the specific issues that come forward, either through our ongoing professional development activities or, as I pointed out, in response to requests made by school divisions.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell me how many school divisions made requests for specific professional development and problem solving?

Mr. McCrae: I do not think I have information as detailed as that for the honourable member, but I know that, with respect to mathematics, there have been 26 sessions with teachers and principals in the southeast and Interlake regions dealing with mathematics. Now at any of those sessions I assume–in fact I do not have to assume, I know–that in all of those workshops, problem solving either was or became the focus of those sessions. That is 26 of them. There were five sessions with teachers and principals in mathematics in the south-central region. Now that would be the region represented by yourself, Mr. Chairman, part of your region. So we know there were five sessions there. You did not attend any of those?

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): I cannot recall.

Mr. McCrae: Cannot recall.

In the north region, there were eight sessions of teachers and principals in mathematics. There were four sessions in the Parkland and Westman regions involving teachers and principals, and 20 sessions involving Winnipeg teachers and principals, all of these sessions dealing with mathematics.

Again, I underline for this committee that problem solving is or becomes the focus of those sessions.

Ms. Friesen: So what would be the outcomes and the expected results of this emphasis in professional development on problem solving? Does the minister have a goal for the results of next year and the year after? Let us take it over a two-year period.

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Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, when you identify a need, and you conduct workshop sessions dealing with the matter identified, I think it is safe to say you are looking for some improve-ment in those areas. The school divisions know where they want to improve, because they can look at national averages and provincial averages and that sort of thing, and determine, well, there is an area here where we can do a little better than we have been. How much better? I guess it depends on a lot of players. It certainly depends on what it is the division wants to achieve.

I would think they want to achieve higher levels of achievement simply by enrolling their teachers in these sessions on mathematics, or by the teachers themselves in wanting to attend those sessions, because if there is one thing I have learned very clearly it is this burning desire on the part of teachers to bring out the best in the students under their direction. So in problem solving we would like to see, by the time the new curricula are fully in place, that the tests that come after that will show significant improvement over what we are seeing today, which means that, as with so many other things, education is a continual striving for being the best that we can be and bringing that about for the students as well.

So I guess, very simply, the answer to the question is that we want to see improvement in identified areas, where work towards improve-ment would be indicated. We would like to see teachers gain increasing competency in respect of their own understanding of the role of problem solving in each of the strands within the mathematics curriculum.

We and I think they would like to have a higher and higher understanding of the mathematical knowledge and skills required of students and their integral connection to the students' ability to problem solve. We also want to see feedback from schools that will indicate that students in the future will succeed better than they are now. It does not mean they are not succeeding well; it just means that there is always room for improvement.

We use national statistics to give ourselves an impression of how we are doing relative to students in the rest of the country. As we address mathematics marks as we know them now, we do it with a view to improving and to placing ourselves well in regard to other jurisdictions in Canada, which is I think a supportable thing to do, but I do not think we can say that we have a target that we want, an X number increase in the average mathematics mark.

We are at or below the national level in math, and there, again, I do not have delusions of adequacy. I would like to have delusions of grandeur or excellence, so we like to aim higher and higher. So if we can be the best in the country, I would prefer that to being at or below the national average. Best is not a bad thing to aim for.

I have some more information that I think the honourable member–it is very specific to the kinds of things she is asking here. An example of a workshop in Westman region mathematics, the K to 8 one, participants in that workshop from the eight Westman school divisions, those being Beautiful Plains No. 31, Birdtail River No. 38, Rolling River No. 39, Brandon No. 40, Port le Bois No. 41, Souris Valley No. 42, Antler River No. 43 and Turtle Mountain No. 44, this mathematics K to 8 institute is a project to provide training for two teacher leaders or facilitators per school division on the implemen-tation of the new mathematics curriculum, Grades K to 8.

The role of each trained teacher leader/ facilitator is to deliver math implementation workshops in his or her respective school division and to provide support for classroom teachers in the implementation of the mathematics curriculum. Manitoba Education and Training provides training for the teacher leaders, as well as administrative support in the operation of the institute. The current status is as follows: the training succession began with a two-day summer workshop in Brandon, August 24 and 25 of last year. Follow-up training sessions continued in Brandon on November 3 and 4 of last year and on December 3 of last year.

Twenty-one teachers are participating in this institute. A total of $5,570 has been allocated to this project for the current fiscal year. A continuing training session was held on February 5 of this year in Brandon, and each school division's administrative team meets with their teacher leaders and facilitators to plan for the ongoing implementation of the K to 8 mathematics curriculum within their respective division. A needs survey will be conducted to determine the focus of the training sessions for the fiscal year.

I mean, the teachers know probably better than anybody what the focus of these sessions ought to be. They know now what their curriculum is and what is expected of them, and if they are having any problems getting that curriculum implemented, they know where those problems are. They know what test results look like. These results are something that are made known. Here, again, going back to a discussion earlier on about the sharing of results and making them available, I mean it is pretty important that that happen. For anybody to suggest it is not happening is simply drawing attention to the fact that some people maybe are not sharing these results, and that is very important that they be shared. That is the thing that I have spoken to my deputy minister about. We want to ensure that happens.

Well, now we have an institute in the Parkland Region for mathematics. That is the 5 to 8 institute. The divisions involved here are Turtle River, No. 32; Dauphin Ochre, No. 33; Duck Mountain, No. 34; Swan Valley, No. 35; Intermountain, No. 36; and Pelly Trail, No. 37. This is a project, this institute, to train a minimum of four teacher leaders and facilitators in each of the six divisions on implementing the new Grades 5 to 8 mathematics curriculum. Each of the teacher leaders and facilitators will work with classroom teachers in their division to ensure the successful implementation of the curriculum. The project is in response to a needs assessment conducted by the Parkland Education Council which identified this as a primary need in the region.

Manitoba Education and Training will provide training for the teacher leaders as well as administrative support in the operation of the institute. The overall goal of the project is to provide assistance in areas of instructional strategies and teaching materials, assessment strategies. For the current fiscal year, a total of $8,500 has been allocated to the project. That was for last fiscal year. I think, with respect to the other institute, when I gave that figure, that would have been for last fiscal year as well.

Each division administration will meet with their teacher leaders and facilitators to plan for the ongoing implementation of the Grades 5 to 8 mathematics curriculum within their respective divisions. The teacher leaders who are being trained will provide Manitoba Education and Training with a group of trained teacher leader facilitators within the region, and the institute will move into year two this year.

You see, these divisions know that mathematics is an area where they need to do some more work. They know that, and that is why these institutes are at work. We know from national averages, and we know from testing results. This is one of the reasons that you have these New Directions so that you are able to identify where you need to put some emphasis. Then you are able to build curriculum and build implementation tools and get teachers positioned so that they are strong. I have heard that math teachers are in demand. This is something that, if we have these kinds of supports available, makes being a math teacher a more attractive prospect for a person because they know that they can move forward. They can move forward with some confidence that the appropriate supports will be there so they can do their jobs well.

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Our regional managers meet with superintendents to identify priorities for in-servicing on curriculum implementation. As I said, it is an ongoing challenge, an ongoing relationship between the department and its partners to have the in-servicing that is needed so that teachers can be kept up to date on curriculum and up to date on the latest in tools for implementation of curriculum and these various professionals getting together to talk about problems they are facing and how best to deal with those problems and put those problems behind them. Those are useful things, and I am pleased that my department is involved in that.

We then work with the staff that the superintendents have identified as their key people to develop plans and activities for their region or for their division. School divisions have not identified raising scores as the object of the exercise. I think that everybody knows, though, if they address areas where they think they are not as strong as they would like to be, and they make some improvement, I think it is pretty clear that scores will come up correspondingly. I guess it is one tool that we have. I mean why do they have other tests in schools that are not government tests. They have them so the teacher knows if his or her class is taking in the lessons that are being taught. The school divisions realize that more professional development for teachers to support implementation of curriculum will lead to improved scores.

This year's budget, the budget that everybody but the honourable member for Inkster (Mr. Lamoureux), everybody in the House supported, has another $900,000 in it for professional development to be added to the 10-or-so million dollars that is there for professional development already. That is there, and it allows for priority setting at a local or regional level through the process I just set out for the committee. This can even influence hiring. For example, southeast, Interlake and the northern regions have placed a priority on math, and we responded as a department by adding another math consultant to add to the two regional teams that I just spoke about.

So I think that there is one positive thing that can be said about knowing what the trends are, knowing what the statistical information tells us about how we are doing. It is important to know that. It is important also to remember that rather than just dealing with numbers, there are real life human results of knowing how to deal with the statistical information. I guess sometimes when you are a bureaucrat or a politician or something, your interest is getting those numbers up where they should be. I know that is important, but if you can remember when you are doing that the human element of that by getting numbers up or by an overall improve-ment right across the province in student performance, let us say in Grade 6 math or Grade 9 math or Grade 12 math, if you know that you are getting that, you know that you are adding by whatever measure to the ability of that person to have a better life, and that goes all the way not only from the economic side of things and the ability to make a living, but all the way to one's well-being and one's happiness which is what I thought it was all about.

So I hope that answers the honourable member's question.

Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, well, the issue at the Grade 12 level is that 40 percent of them are not passing, and I had asked for information whether they were taking it a second time and passing, and the government does not have that, although it may have it in some future years.

I am interested that the government has pinpointed problem solving, at least this year, as one of the issues, but I did not hear any specific references to professional development that dealt with that. There are lots of professional development that dealt with K to 8 or 5 to 8. Other mathematics professional development seemed very general, and the minister did not have any examples of ones that dealt specifically with the Grade 12 issue and the problem solving that the government had identified as their concern. So we can leave that at that.

It seems that the government has general answers but not specific answers. I had hoped that there would be a greater connection, a more tight connection between the development of curriculum, of resources, of performance on tests and the professional development that followed from that. I do not get that sense that that is there yet in the Grade 12 mathematics, and I am wondering if that is not one of the issues that is behind the differential rates, pass rates in the Grade 12 English and Grade 12 mathematics tests.

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I have a couple of other questions on testing which the minister, I think, has a number of additional staff here who may be able to answer these. One deals with home schooling. This is one of the groups–it is not the only group; band school students would be another one–but students who are home schooled in Manitoba do not take the tests, the standard tests. I wondered if the minister had given any consideration to this and whether in fact there were any plans to enable home schooled students to be part of the province-wide testing system.

Mr. McCrae: Well, maybe it is my way of dealing with the questions. I am not sure, but the honourable member, if I heard her right, has dismissed everything I just got finished saying about professional development and in-servicing opportunities, the fact that we have got–I do not always remember the titles of people, but these various consultants that are available to school divisions to organize: facilitator, trainer, teacher, people to bring about improvements in the teaching of math, in problem solving in particular, in various divisions, the $900,000 added in this year's budget, which the honourable member stood up and supported, in addition to the millions of dollars already in the budget annually for continuing the professional development of the province's teachers. So a lot of work is done. A lot of teaching tools are made available to Manitoba teachers to assist them with implementing the curriculum. All math professional development deals with problem solving. It is the central focus of all math professional development.

So, I do not know, I guess the honourable member has stated her feeling that this does not amount to much, but I think that if we asked the teacher about it who just finished attending these institute workshops and then went back to the division of their schools and helped other teachers pass on this information to the students and this ability to pass on this curriculum, you might get a different view of it.

Nonetheless, the honourable member also asked about home schoolers and the fact that they do not write our tests. That is not necessarily so. Home schoolers can indeed write the province-wide tests. We do get requests from parents for that. Nothing bars home schoolers from writing the tests. They can go to any local school and register to write tests. Having said that, we do encourage them to take the tests, and we are discussing issues of assessment with the Manitoba home schooling associations, those being the Manitoba Association of Christian Home Schools and the Manitoba Association for Schooling at Home. I think we do need to encourage them to take those tests because there can be a benefit for those youngsters, those students, in terms of the assessment, the diagnostic value of it for the home schooling experience. So we continue to work towards achieving the objective of greater participation of home schoolers in the provincial assessment program.

Ms. Friesen: Could the minister tell me how many home school students there are and how many have taken the tests?

Mr. McCrae: The vast majority of home schoolers are home schoolers for religious reasons. The number is 1,185 that are home schoolers, and three have taken provincial exams, which tells you I think the feeling that home schoolers have about the public system. We do not want to offend against any religious reasoning they may have for not enrolling their kids for the provincial testing. However, I think that we have a job to do to show them that the purpose of the testing has nothing to do with offending against their religious beliefs. I am advised that for various reasons, religious ones included, home schoolers, many of them just feel they do not want the government or the public system to be interfering with the lives of their youngsters. It is a pretty hard case for the government to make when people have those feelings, especially when the government does not want to offend people's religious rights.

On the other hand, if we can show them, and we are attempting to do that through our dealings with the Manitoba Association of Christian Home Schools and the Manitoba Association for Schooling at Home, we are attempting to show them that indeed there is no offence here, in our view at least, to their religious beliefs and indeed could provide quite a benefit to their children who are taking their lessons at home.

So I agree with the honourable member that there is plenty of convincing to do here, but I am not about to venture into territory where I am going to be in danger of offending against somebody's religious principles because I believe in the constitutional right of freedom of religion. That being said, I would hope that there would be some openness to looking at these provincial exams, and maybe that is what these meetings will be about, is to show them by way of reference to past exams or whatever way that that can be done, that we would like to see greater participation of home schooled children in the provincial assessment program.

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Ms. Friesen: Mr. Chairman, the minister suggested I made a statement on this. I am actually asking for information at this stage, and I did not make any statement one way or the other. I am wondering how many students in the home school program are at the Senior 1 to 4 level. My impression is that many of them are at the elementary school level, but I do not have that information. Are there any at the Grade 12 level, for example?

I have a couple of other questions on home schooling that maybe I will just add at the time being. One of the issues in home schooling has been that the numbers have been growing but that the departmental support in terms of personnel does not seem to have been growing. I wondered if this year there had been any increase in departmental support. For a long time even when the numbers were increasing at sort of 10 percent a year, the departmental support had actually gone from one person to 50 percent of a person, or .5, and I am wondering where that stands at the moment because obviously the numbers have gone up again.

Mr. McCrae: Mr. Chairman, with respect to the number of home schooled students in 9 to 12, I will see if I can round up that number for next day.

With respect to the second part of the question about the departmental support for home schooled kids, this is a difficult one. By the way, there is one staff year designated for home schooled students. I want to be careful about seeing a large bureaucracy develop around home schooling simply because I want, as much as possible within the bounds of respect for people's rights, religious and otherwise, to see a strong and healthy public school system in our province. So the one staff person that I referred to acts as a liaison between the department and the home school community, which, as the honourable member knows, is spread throughout the province. There are pockets of larger numbers of home schoolers, but generally in one area or another. Generally speaking, you will find home schooling going on in most of the areas of the province. So, with respect to the number of S1 to S4 home schooling, if that information is available, I will make that available tomorrow.

There was some information last week that I told the honourable member I would be bringing forward. I am trying to keep up with my under-takings here and not let too many get away on us–do not want any to get away on us.

Question: How many more staff do I project to hire in the Assessment Branch? We expect to hire seven more in the year 2000-2001, and after that, no more.

The enrollment at the Manitoba School for the Deaf for the last three years is as follows: 1996-97, 74 students; 1997-98, 81 students; '98-99, 89 students. The department employs six consultants for the deaf and hard of hearing who work with approximately 210 deaf and hard-of-hearing students in school programs throughout rural and northern Manitoba. These are outside the actual School for the Deaf. Seventy-nine of these students in rural and northern areas are supported by Level II and Level III low-incidence grants from the province. Urban school divisions provide their own programs for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. The province supports 86 urban deaf and hard-of-hearing children with Level II and Level III grants. The summary of all these programs in 1998-99 is that Manitoba Education and Training provides support to approximately 385 students who are deaf and hard of hearing in this province, including the 89 at the School for the Deaf.

The other question: How many students will be enrolled with Morris-Macdonald School Division via its partnership with Anokiiwin Training Institute? The answer: The total "head count" will be about 200 as of September 30, 1999, but many students will take less than a normal full complement of subjects, which is usually judged as six courses in Senior 4. Hence the full time equivalent student count, although unknown at this time, will be somewhat less than 200. For adults in public schools, the depart-ment pays on full-time equivalent count, not on head count. I hope that is clear. It is not really clear to me, but it means that there will be 200 people but not that many enrolled in full time, and we will have a better count for you later in the year, of course, as well.

I have a document here to table. The first document is a Foundation Document for the Western Canadian Protocol for collaboration in basic education, The Common Curriculum Framework, the Foundation Document for the development of The Common Curriculum Framework for Social Studies, Kindergarten to Grade 12. It is a draft dated April 8, 1999. Then, each member of the protocol has a website, and with respect to the first document I have filed just now, there is a Review and Response Form on our website, and that is available in print or on-line, and this is the Review and Response Form that I am tabling now.

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Ms. Friesen: The minister mentioned in the speaking of his approach to dealing with home school parents and the standard exams, the issue of making more public the exams so that parents would understand them and see the potential value of them. I wondered if the minister would be prepared to table the Grade 3 exams that have taken place so far, or the Grade 12. In fact, all exams, is he prepared to make those exams public?

Mr. McCrae: Hold that question until tomorrow?

Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. The hour being 6 p.m., committee rise.