N.B. plan to build nationally leading education system by 2026 ends in failure

N.B. plan to build nationally leading education system by 2026 ends in failure

10-year plan to reach the top concludes with student test scores falling to last place in Canada

A decade-long plan launched by the New Brunswick government to create one of Canada’s leading public education systems by September 2026 has officially ended in failure.

Scores on a series of assessments of New Brunswick elementary, middle and high school students released last week all fell well short of 10-year targets set by the province back in September 2016.

In the case of high school assessments, New Brunswick results deteriorated markedly, falling from seventh to 10th place among provinces in all subject areas over the 10-year period.

"New Brunswickers have every right to be concerned," said Paul Bennett, an education consultant and senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said in an interview.

"In every recent assessment, New Brunswick students perform at the bottom of this country and it's getting worse and the spread is growing."

Education gap between N.B. and Canadian average growing

On Sept. 1, 2016, then-New Brunswick premier Brian Gallant and former education minister Brian Kenny announced a 10-year plan to dramatically lift the quality of public education across the province.

The plan aimed to significantly raise student test scores from below national averages where they had languished for years to above average by 2026.

"Our government will make education a priority in order to improve results and provide our children with the best system possible, here in New Brunswick," said Gallant at the time.

"We've got to aim and reach for the top on this," said Kenny in an apparent reference to the decades old Canadian school quiz show.

But student test scores failed to improve at all over the 10 years and gaps between New Brunswick and other provinces have instead grown wider.

N.B. students falling behind, test scores show

Results of 2025 testing released last week by the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, showed 15-year-olds in New Brunswick high schools finished last among provinces in every subject tested, including science, math and reading.

New Brunswick students scored between 34 and 36 points below the Canadian average in each subject.

In 2015, the year before New Brunswick's 10-year project to fix education began, New Brunswick 15-year-olds had finished seventh among provinces in each category. At the time, the gap between New Brunswick scores and Canadian average scores was between 22 and 23 points, more than 10 points closer than they sit today.

Louis Volante, a professor at Brock University who researches international achievement testing, said there are some weaknesses in PISA's 2025 testing in Canada that could be overstating or understating some results, but he said, generally, a 20-point spread between jurisdictions equates to one grade level of difference in student achievement.

In New Brunswick's case, he said because its math score was 51 points below the best results, which were posted by students in Quebec, New Brunswick 15-year-olds are well behind in their relative development.

"If you take a province like Quebec, they're 51 points ahead of you," said Volante.

"Essentially what that would mean is the average 15-year-old student in New Brunswick would be two and a half grade levels below their same age peers in Quebec."

Elementary, middle school scores dropping

It's not just a problem in high school.

In June, New Brunswick Auditor General Paul Martin released a review of literacy scores in New Brunswick elementary and middle school assessments against targets set by the province in the 2016 education plan.

Scores were nowhere near the levels set for them in any grade or on any subject.

"No provincial literacy target was met in any year of the audit period for any assessment in either linguistic sector," said Martin in a presentation to MLAs about how younger school children have been faring.

Last week, updated test results for the same grades were released by the province and in most cases results had further deteriorated from last year's results that Martin had reported on.

Bennett openly predicted in 2016 that the 10-year plan would fail to produce positive change. He said it lacked substance and was an unserious effort from the beginning. Between the recent PISA results and the elementary and middle school results, he said he is hoping parents will make some trouble and demand better.

"I would say it's a protracted crisis that is becoming so normalized that it's desensitizing New Brunswick people," said Martin.

In the spring the New Brunswick government announced a pair of of new 12-year education plans for the French and English school systems to turn things around.

A request to interview New Brunswick's current education minister about what lessons have been learned from the failiures of the previous plan was not granted.

One element of the new plans that appears to be an obvious reaction to the last 10 years has been a decision to lower student achievement targets.

For example, Grade 4 students in New Brunswick's anglophone system who are not enrolled in French immersion have had the percentage of them expected to be reading at grade level dropped from 90 per cent to 56 per cent.

In an interview in June, Education Minister Claire Johnson acknowledged that will make it easier to be successful.

"So the target was 90 per cent, but we missed those targets," said Johnson.

"We missed them again and again and again and again and again, and what we wanted to avoid this time around was to have too much time passing without us meeting targets."

Robert Jones has been a reporter and producer with CBC New Brunswick since 1990. His investigative reports on petroleum pricing in New Brunswick won several regional and national awards and led to the adoption of price regulation in 2006.