"Ministry defends use of standardized testing in gauging quality of schools." The headline in the Vancouver Province reads like something out of an Orwellian novel.
Every year this debate rears its head as the time for the administering of the FSA or Foundation Skills Assessment draws close. The B.C. Ministry of Education continues to defend the validity of these tests with education minister Margaret MacDiarmid ranking their importance with regular medical checkups.
At least with regular check-ups you have a good idea of where you stand and how you can improve your health. The FSA's do nothing to improve education. They are an expensive exercise that has little to no long term value in the education of children in British Columbia.
The results only serve as fodder for the right-wing Fraser Institute as a means for the ranking of schools throughout the province. The ranking process is based solely on the test scores of students in grades four and seven does not take into account socio-economic factors that may skew the results in favor of schools in well-to-do areas.
Standardized testing is an antiquated concept. It serves little value in a students education. In moving from a grade six/seven to a grade eight class over the past year I know from personal experience that the tests my students took last year have no bearing on their education this year. I don't even know their results from last year. Though the parents have received some indication of their child's performance such information is not readily shared with other classroom teachers. It is a pointless waste of time.
Even the British Columbia Principals and Vice-Principals Association has echoed the arguments of the BCTF spoken out against the validity of the FSA tests. Though they do not contest the governments right to conduct standardized testing which is a shame. Opposing the FSA's is a step in the right direction.
Parents have a right to be involved in their child's education and to have an understanding of their child's development. However, there are better ways than standardized testing and the ranking of students and schools based on the results of such loaded and narrow standardized tests to go about measuring student achievement and progress.
We just need the 'Ministry' to recognize this and do away with the Foundation Skills Assessments once and for all.
Comments Welcome.
The reason why we use FSAs to measure schools & students is because it is cheap, not because it is effective.
ReplyDeleteThere are measures that we used for thousands of years when school was the apprenticeship model of education. A student would apprentice with an adult and learn their trade, and you would know if they had learned it because they would be able to do stuff.
Parents want to know what their children have learned, and the only real way they will find out is by being part of the process, and being invited to see what students can do.
At the end of each year, we should have a learning fair, where everyone from the city is welcome to come and observe what our students have done. This would be much more expensive than FSAs would be, in terms of time inputted by everyone, but it would be a lot fairer.
Here in Ontario, we have had the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) for almost 12 years. With each passing year, the 'Agency' - as they prefer to be known - expands their mandate a little more. At this point, the CEO states that 'great teaching and learning begin with EQAO'. How do these test scores inform and enhance good student learning?
ReplyDeleteMany school PD days are devoted to examining the school's results with the goal of developing the School/Board Improvement Plan, the School Effectiveness Framework and the next stage of the Literacy/Numeracy focus. This is all based on the results of a snapshot-in-time test, in Grade 3 or Grade 6. How much can this influence good learning?
At least, in BC, your P/VP Association supports the position of the BCTF regarding the validity of the tests. By and large, this is not the case in Ontario. Individually, they do not necessarily support the government's insistence on the tests but do not oppose the administration of them, as is the case in BC.
As long as the government in power believes that test scores = public accountability, nothing will change.
David, I think the idea of a learning fair is a very good one as you said making parents and also the larger community directly part of the learning process is definitely where we should be going. Unfortunately as you note the corporate model of education, where the bottom-line is ever-important, has become the norm and education in general is suffering due to such a results based system.
ReplyDeleteCyneiej, thank you for the comment. The test scores=public accountability argument is entirely true. How do we go about changing that? I think David's idea of a learning fair for the community, though it is a bit of work, might be one way to start this off.