Lower scores in younger grades a red flag for N.B. education system, advocate says

A continued decline in literacy scores among younger students, even as other grades improve, is a warning sign for the education system, according to New Brunswick's child, youth and seniors' advocate.

Kelly Lamrock says the latest provincial assessment results, issued on Wednesday, show an urgent need for changes to either classroom size or composition. 

"Something I do notice in this report ... it seems to be something that wasn't there in the past, which is there is more of a gap between early and later years," Lamrock said in an interview. 

"We are starting to mediate some of those problems, it appears, in later grades ... What we're not doing is giving every kid an equal head start."

The success rates for anglophone students in Grade 6 and Grade 9 improved to 76 and 82 per cent, respectively. 

The Grade 4 results for anglophone students dipped by a small amount — the fourth year in a row there's been a decline.

While the report says that decline was not a "statistically significant" change, Education Minister Claire Johnson still noted that result as a point of concern in a statement. 

"While the decline was small — one percentage point across the province — we are concerned because we know how important literacy is," she said. 

"We know that if we focus there, then it's kind of going to echo throughout their schooling trajectory," Johnson said in an interview.

The difference in success rates for older and younger students is reflected in both the anglophone and francophone systems.

Francophone students in grades 2 and 3 saw reduced success on reading evaluations, with 60 and 68 per cent pass rates, respectively. 

Grade 4 francophone students saw a notable decline in writing results, with a 60 per cent pass rate — 10 per cent lower than the previous year.

Meanwhile, francophone students in Grade 7 saw an increase in reading success to a 75 per cent pass rate. The pass rate for Grade 7 on the writing test jumped by 10 per cent to about 62 per cent.

The difference in success by grade was true both for students in early entry French immersion and in English prime.