Nov. 02, 2011 - Issue #837: Cleopatra’s Sister

A question of standards

Redford reignites the decades-old debate over standardized testing

In the days leading up to being sworn in as premier, Alison Redford told a number of interviewers that one of her priorities would be to eliminate provincial standardized testing for students in Grades 3 and 6, reinvigorating a decades-old debate between the Alberta Teacher's Association and the provincial government.
The controversy over provincial achievement tests has been going on since before the minister of education first introduced legislation to establish the practice back in November 1979. As Catholic school board chairwoman Debbie Engel told the Edmonton Journal last month, some people argue the tests provide a valuable way to measure how students in various school divisions are doing compared to the rest of the province, while others argue it is too costly and too stressful for elementary students and their teachers.
"I've tried to convince ministry of education officials to abolish provincial achievement tests (PATs), especially in Grade 3. The resources expended by the province on those tests would be far better spent on early-learning programs," wrote Alberta Teachers Association President Carol Henderson in her organization's newsletter this spring. "The bureaucrats, however, argue that Grade 3 achievement tests provide them with important data. They insist that they must have a process by which to measure. If they didn't, how would they identify students at risk or students in danger of not completing high school? My response: just ask teachers—their information will be insightful and accurate."
As she wrote those words, one wonders if Henderson thought, "It would be easier to just change the person occupying the premier's office than it would be to get these bureaucrats to change their minds!"
"Testing was done in grades 3, 6, and 9, and the tests were worth 50 percent of the student's final mark. Four subject areas were tested in grades 6 and 9, but only one subject was tested each year, on a rotating basis," explain Cameron Graham and Dean Neu in "Standardized Testing and the Construction of Governable Persons," a chronology of standardized testing in Alberta published in 2004 in the Journal of Curriculum Studies. When the rotating nature of the tests proved to be a problem, the authors note, the provincial government introduced changes in 1994 to administer all the exams every year.
Since that time, the tests have included mathematics and language arts in grades 3 and 6, and mathematics, language arts, science and social studies in grade 9, in addition to grade 12 diploma exams. According to Alberta Education's website, all students in Alberta are required to write the achievement tests, including those in band-operated and federally-operated schools. Home-schooled students also write the tests, with their results aggregated as part of a home education report, not included with the schools at which they wrote their exams.

All of this has been reignited with the premier's recent comments. Calgary Herald opinion writer Licia Corbell triggered a flurry of letters to the editor when she wrote that the premier's intentions on eliminating the tests for the early grades were "ill-informed" and encouraged her readers to call the premier to say so.
Anita Madill, a former teacher with more than 25 years experience as a psychologist with the Calgary Board of Education, wrote in a letter to the editor, "I strongly believe that the PATs, while not perfect, are an important tool for teachers, schools and parents to measure curriculum outcomes and improve learning. The Grade 3 tests help teachers and administrators identify students needing extra assistance, as well as high achievers who would benefit from extra stimulation."
Not so, says the ATA's associate executive secretary Dennis Theobold. "We believe the goals of the program could be better achieved by using other approaches, particularly in the early grades," Theobald says. He explains that the original purpose of the testing—to evaluate curriculum—has been so diluted by using it for purposes outside of its original intent that the PATs cannot be saved in their present form.
Pointing to the Fraser Institute which uses the results to rank schools, Theobald says, "As the tests whole purpose became more and more corrupted, they became less and less useful for their original, intended purposes."
With the new Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk unresponsive to interview requests, it remains unclear whether the new premier will deliver on her statement to repeal the consistently contentious tests. vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus