Article:“Educators Worried About Losing Achievement Tests”
Author:Susan Jones, writer, St. Albert Gazette
Originally Sourced:St. Albert Gazette, October 8, 2011
Educators worried about losing achievement tests
Premier Alison Redford’s campaign quest to end provincial achievement exams for grades 3 and 6 received mixed grades from local educators and in the end may not pass the test.
“Students must be at the heart of any reform, freed from the one-size-fits-all attitudes of the past. This requires … An end to provincial achievement tests for grade 3 and 6, as these are too stressful for students and do not [give] the information we need to measure performance,” Redford wrote in her campaign platform regarding K-12 education.
Her pre-election musings echo similar proposals by the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA), which date as far back as 1990.
“Teachers have long advocated [argued] for the elimination of achievement tests for grades 3 and 6. It was our policy in 1990 because we believe tests are harmful to students,” said ATA spokesman Jonathan Teghtmeyer, who could not say exactly, but speculated grade 3 and 6 students underwent provincial testing at least as far back as the 1980s.
“We believe teachers are in the best position to assess their students and to communicate those assessments with parents,” Teghtmeyer said.
St. Albert public and Catholic school officials both disagreed with the ATA stance, saying provincial testing is an important tool for educators.
Accountability
While he agreed with Redford’s assessment that achievement testing sometimes caused students too much stress, Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board Superintendent David Keohane also argued that provincial testing is the key tool used when it comes to making positive changes that benefit students.
“The use of achievement tests is pivotal to our being able to assess the needs of our students. If we don’t have this mechanism, this diagnostic tool, then what do we use? How does the public know that good learning is taking place?” Keohane asked.
Redford’s proposal is too new to have been assessed properly at a school board level, Keohane stressed, so he was leery about making judgment until he sees what alternative suggestions may be in the works.
“We do not know the alternative but I am confident that the new premier has a replacement plan. It may be similar to proposals by Alberta Education to heighten literacy and numeracy awareness to Grade 6. But it is imperative that we be able to demonstrate to the public that learning is getting better,” Keohane said.
Resource allocation
St. Albert Protestant School Board has not discussed the merits of getting rid of provincial testing either, but Glenys Edwards was reluctant to completely dismiss the examination method from the classroom.
“It helps the schools analyze how their students are doing. I think there is value in knowing how students in grade 3 and 6 are doing and once we know that, school boards can allocate resources as needed. We can intervene all kinds of ways if students need help or teachers need help,” the associate superintendant of the Protestant school board said.
But Edwards also wondered if provincial testing is the most cost effective way for school boards to assess their students’ needs.
“We have many other ways of assessing how a child is doing. Provincial testing is incredibly expensive. The question will be, are we really benefitting from achievement tests? Do the results warrant the expense?” she asked.
Teghtmeyer argued that standardized tests do not take into account socio-economic backgrounds or special needs. He recalled a personal teaching incident when one of his special needs students was required to take the provincial Grade 9 tests, even though he functioned at a Grade 3 level.
“On one day he was reading at a Grade 3 level and the next day he was taking provincial Grade 9 tests. That never made sense to me,” Teghtmeyer said.
“The ATA advocates for the complete discontinuation of provincial testing at a Grade 3 and 6 level and for Grade 9 there should be testing of a sampling of students,” he said.