The vast majority of parents and Alberta teachers are on exactly same excellent page when it comes to education. We all want our kids to thrive academically and socially at school, correct?
This is why it’s been so painful to learn about a devastating trend in our schools. In the past 20 years the overall level of literacy of Alberta students has dropped, and, tragically, the percentage of children who are functionally illiterate has almost doubled. Results from the internationally recognized Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have also shown that our students are three times more likely to be math illiterate than they were 20 years ago, and there’s a double whammy, with far fewer Alberta students now able to do math at the highest level.
We must do all we can to reverse such trends, correct? But the devil is in the much-disputed details of how best to create a school system where this outcome is most likely.
We’re again in the middle of such a fight, this time arising out of issue provincewide testing of children. It’s something many parents and teachers avidly support, but something the Alberta Teachers’ Association has forever opposed. It’s doing so again with the new plan of Danielle Smith’s government to regularly test the reading math skills of elementary students.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides has promised that starting in September 2024, provincewide assessments will be conducted for all students in grades 1 through 3 in September and January, with an additional assessment in June for struggling students.
Added ATA spokesperson Jonathan Teghtmeyer: “I send my children to school to be educated, not tested. As a parent, I reject this obsession with over testing … I believe in teacher professional judgment. I understand that they see dozens of children and can tell me where my child stands.”
“Studies show that if a child isn’t reading by the end of Grade 3, they will usually face significant academic hurdles for the rest of their life. But, all too often, parents are left in the dark, because school boards have refused to implement effective screening and reporting mechanisms to catch this early enough.”
My take?
We know many of our kids have major issues in reading and math, that this problem is growing fast, and it’s our most vulnerable and disadvantaged students most at risk, correct? But how do we even attempt to fix this if we don’t know where our students are struggling the most, in which subject areas and in which classes, schools and districts?
Yes, parents can depend solely on the opinion and report card of the classroom teacher, but what if that teacher has missed something or is struggling herself to raise the literacy and numeracy of her class? Where is the second opinion? How can we be sure that struggling teacher gets the necessary help to turn things around? Under the current system, the teacher might not even be aware there’s a problem.
We’ve lacked the ability to closely track such issues since Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservatives foolishly axed Grade 3 provincial exams in 2014 and the NDP made their replacement tests optional in 2017.
Jason Kenney’s United Conservatives promised in 2019 to bring back Grade 3 provincial tests but it’s taken years to do so, meaning we have had no second opinion and no provincial data on how our students, teachers and system are performing until students take the Grade 6 provincial exams.
This lack of provincial testing has been grossly irresponsible.
I note Alberta is lucky to have one of the world’s leading authorities writing our K-6 Language Arts curriculum in ATA award-winning University of Alberta professor George Georgiou. Georgiou backs this new plan, saying: “Research studies around the world have clearly shown that there should be early screening and frequent monitoring of children’s reading and mathematics performance.”
This new testing system gives parents, teachers and administrators one more tool to help identify and correct critical problems. Such testing is not the be-all, end-all cure-all. It’s just one more tool. But it’s a vital tool, and we can hope the ATA will reconsider and get behind an excellent plan.