Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I want to leave that for now and deal with the statement that the Minister made on page 3 in regards to their planning. It says here, during the next fiscal year, we are planning specific action to support improved results at all levels of the school system, and that got me thinking about how is the Minister planning on doing this and just give us an idea about what he has in mind. Also, I would like to know; there have been some discussions in the city about the Alberta achievement test for the grade schools. In talking to some of the parents in my riding, there have been many discussions about that. There are some parents who do not agree with the department and the school boards and the Teachers' Association all agreeing that it is better not to release the results of Alberta achievement test. I have heard the arguments for not doing that, but the parents that I talked to are very keen and aware. They are very involved with their children at school. They want to know how their children are doing. I know that they are allowed to get the results of their own kids, but they do want to know how their kids are compared to others, how their school is doing or how the school system is doing in Yellowknife in terms of how they compare with Alberta, other schools, and what are the areas that they are doing really well at and what sort of areas they need to improve on. I would like to ask the Minister whether he would reconsider that decision and go some distance to make that information available? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is our intention to make sure that that information is available for the residents of the North for the school districts. Basically on a regional basis, we will make the information available to allow people to see what the results are.

To compare how a school is doing or how a school isn't doing, there are, I think, compelling arguments for not getting into that level of comparison. I don't think that the tests are necessarily something that you should use to rate a school in how it is performing. I think that, at their best, the test helps us get a snapshot of how kids are performing on a given day. You have to take that information on a much broader basis. That is why we have said to schools, if they want them to share the information with individual parents, but I have said that the information on an aggregate level is to go out only division-wide.

Perhaps it would be useful to have Mr. Cleveland outline some of the specific areas that we are talking about for improving results over the next year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Cleveland.

Thank you, Mr. Cleveland. General comments. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence here, but I do have a couple of follow-up questions here. I have to tell you, Madam Chair, that I know everybody here are parents, too, but I happen to spend lots of time with parents who are involved in a number of parents' advisory groups in Yellowknife, not just in my riding but in other schools. Those are parents who are quite fair minded. They are very keen. They are very aware of what is going on in their schools, in their children's schools. They know what the strengths and weaknesses of the school systems are. They know how to compare our city and our schools to big cities like Edmonton or Alberta. Many of them have been serving in parents advisory groups for many years. They understand the trend. They know that, usually, the kids here do much better in Grade 3 than in Grade 6, and maybe not as well in Grade 9. They understand that the way the tests are implemented and tested in Alberta are quite different than up here. They are very fair minded, rational and intelligent people. I think the Minister and the department is missing out by choosing not to reveal this because, as the deputy minister suggested, you are looking at some people who are really strong, some who are not. You are looking at training the teachers, or improving curriculum or enhancing the inclusive schooling. All those are ideas that these parents can handle, let me assure you. I think that you would go a lot further and make it a better educational system by including them, and talking to them, and making this information available. That is my take from talking to them. I don't think there is anything here that they are not going to be able to handle. I think, though, in talking to them -- and they have asked me to bring this up in this House -- by not releasing it or by saying you could get your information about your child, about your school privately, but we are not going to announce a wide assessment, it just gets them feeling that that information is not being revealed because it is not very good. We have no idea if it is or not. I have no idea. I have no reason to assume that. I think Yellowknife has an excellent school system and I am a product of the school system here. I think it meets the challenges everywhere they face. If there are weaknesses or things to improve, I think they would be prepared to work on that with the school, teachers and everyone.

Another thing is, I don't understand this thing about how we can't rely on this test because it is a snapshot of any given time and day. You could say that about anything. The Olympic athlete who may not have a good day on that day, but scores are scores and we live in a society where we would like to have some kind of objective study about where things are at, not to label, categorize and reprimand anybody, but just as a way of having one more check about how we are doing, what we can do better, or where we are falling short. There are all sorts of positive ways to spin this thing. I don't know. I would like to urge the Minister and the department to revisit that issue because I could tell you that I had the occasion to again go up and down the street this weekend canvassing for the heart and stroke foundation. I have had some parents raising that issue with me. I don't know if it is going to be an ongoing issue, but just looking at it from my own objective point of view, I just think there could be a lot more gains to be had by revisiting that. I would like to ask the Minister if he would consider reconsidering that. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. When we got into this kind of testing, it was in order to try and improve accountability for what we are doing with educational funding to try and get a rough idea on how the system was performing. We do already publish, every two years, a document called Towards Excellence, which reports on education in the Northwest Territories and educational achievements, educational levels. What we were looking for was something that we could use that would help us study in a little more detail what was happening in grades 3, 6 and 9.

When we proposed doing this, we discussed it with stakeholders in the system. Most of the divisional educational councils were extremely worried about what might happen. The last thing we want to do is see comparisons between communities, and particularly the smaller communities in the North, because they were worried that that might stigmatize some of the schools in the regions. So we agreed with the point of view and said, no, we won't be releasing that information to allow those kinds of comparisons. It is not just to stop a comparison between Range Lake School and NJ McPherson, but it is to say that we don't think that it is valid to compare schools in our communities across the North. If you want an objective test, it would cost us millions of dollars to set one up because this test is not objective. It is not normed for our population in the Northwest Territories. It is designed for a different population. It doesn't reflect the realities of the situation where many kids come into our schools as English as a second language, and it is really not something that you could point to with any sense of reliability for how students across the North are performing. It gives us a snapshot that we can say, okay, based on this, we know that we need to put more of an emphasis on literacy, or more of an emphasis on numeracy, and we can colour our responses according to that.

Even more than that, the first year's test doesn't really give us much at all. We need to look for the first time that we have the test given to the kids for the second time, to look for a measure of improvement. If we are seeing that, then it tells us that what we have been doing this right. If we don't, then we know that we have to change our strategies.

The position is that we will continue to publish Towards Excellence. We will put out the information that we get from the Alberta achievement tests on a regional basis. We will be accountable to the people in the North that way. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think anybody could argue that Yellowknife or the Northwest Territories are the only jurisdictions with overwhelming population of students whose English is not a first language. Canada is changing. Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton or anywhere in Alberta, I am sure they have as much challenge as we do. I don't think we are really that different. I don't have a study to show that, but that is just one more argument that I am not prepared to accept there.

I have to ask the question about why are we doing the test then? I have been sitting in a parents' advisory group for at least six years. It was an issue when I got there in 1999-2000. They were talking about Alberta achievement tests. There is a controversy about it every time they take it. If the Minister feels that this is not an objective study for the North, you can't do a fair comparison of any kind that is worth anything, and you don't want to reveal it, why do we do it? Why don't we come up with a better system of figuring out how our kids are doing and how we could improve the system and use another tool to do it? Why do it? Why doesn't he just stop it, then? Could I ask that, please?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Basically because it was the least expensive way for us to get this sort of snapshot, but the same reason that we don't develop our own departmental examinations or develop our own individual curricula. We have to work with other jurisdictions. It is extremely expensive to develop something that would be normed to our population. An instrument that we could test our population would cost us millions of dollars to develop, and then we would then have to also incur the cost of setting up the marking.

This test, because it is being used by another jurisdiction, while it is imperfect, does offer us at least a rough indicator of how the system is performing in areas of literacy and numeracy. That was our object, was to get that rough indication for a relatively economic price. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Madam Chair, I would like to move a motion. I move that we report progress.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The motion is in order. It is not debatable. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

I will now rise and report progress. Thank you, committee. Thank you, Mr. Dent, Mr. Devitt and Mr. Cleveland.

Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Bill 18, Appropriation Act, 2006-2007, and Committee Report 6-15(4) and 7-15(4), and would like to report progress with two motions being adopted. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Is there a seconder for the motion? The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Third reading of bills. Mr. Clerk, orders of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Monday, February 14, 2006, at 11:00 a.m.

---ADJOURNMENT

The House adjourned at 17:53 p.m.