Building a Bigger Tent Is A Badly Needed Critical Analysis of New Brunswick Inclusive Education Policies and the Porter Aucoin Report

New Brunswick Legislature Fredericton 

Photo By Harold L Doherty June 17, 2012

The New Brunswick government needs to do a critical analysis of the Porter Aucoin inclusive education report. Porter Aucoin is not an arms length objective review of NB inclusion practice and policy. Too many ties between Alward-Carr government and Porter-Auocoin-NBACL-CACL. Paul Bennett and Yude Henteleff are two excellent external critics whose views should be considered carefully by NB government in setting inclusion policies if the 2009 NB government policy defining inclusion as evidence based on the best interests of the individual child is to mean anything. Yude Henteleff's 2004 paper on flexible, evidence based inclusion recommendations consistent with Canadian jurisprudence is already posted and his presentation to Atlantic Human Rights Centre inclusive education review June 14-16-2012 at the Crowne Plaza in Fredericton will be posted on this site when it is made available to participants.

Building a Bigger Tent Serving all special needs students better in New Brunswick’s inclusive education system  by Dr. Paul W. Bennett, June 2012  is an arms length analysis that has been made available free of charge to New Brunswick. From the Building a Bigger Tent summary on the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) Facebook page:

"Many research findings in New Brunswick’s 2012 report Strengthening Inclusion, Strengthening Schools raise serious questions about whether the existing ‘full inclusion’ model can ever serve the diverse and complex needs of today’s students. There is a place – and perhaps a need – for specialized learning programs where provincial education authorities build a bigger tent. 

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It’s time for New Brunswick to embrace 21st century education. Bennett recommends a provincial review of New Brunswick’s current model of special education delivery, and ultimately the development of a new continuum of service, including self-contained classes and special education alternative schools."

New Brunswick education policy is important to all New Brunswickers.  It is of particular importance to students with special needs who require accommodation within our education system, including those students for whom the mainstream classroom is not an appropriate or even a safe learning environment. The contributions of serious analysts like Yude Henteleff and Paul Bennett should not be ignored in  designing policies to address the complex and demanding challenges facing special needs students in our education system.