- Mood: thoughtful
- Music: Bryan Adams
Well it's a new year again, and with the start of the new year, talk about the Foundation Skills (FSAs) begins again. Each year, students in grades 4 and 7 in British Columbia are given standardized exams to check up how they are doing in numeracy, language arts and other subjects. And each year, the BCTF (BC teacher's federation, or union) suggests that teachers do the bare minimum when it comes to doling out these outside the school tests. There are several reasons why:
First, these exams are written by external researchers- many I am sure do have years of experience in the education field- but do not have any contact with the students writing the tests themselves.
The tests are then marked by other teachers (paid a good wage for doing so) and the scores for the school are averaged out and then published so that school boards, government, teachers and parents can compare schools to one an other. In the newspaper, the schools are ranked by their scores, and very little information about the school (demographic, ESL level, special needs level, school focus, etc.) are given. The address of the school might give readers the idea, but not the whole picture. In recent years, they have added ESL and Special needs info, but those are also sets of numbers that can not really be compared to one another either.
Teachers of course have a problem with the schools being ranked- after all, just because a school gets a high score, doesn't mean that it's the best school to go to. Many private schools regularly come out on top, but if you count in the fact that they seldom have classes full of ESL or Special Needs children like some other schools, it doesn't seem fair to have them all judged the same way.
The reason why ESL and Spec Needs come into play is the tests are often multiple choice standardized tests (I remember them not so fondly as they were boring! 
) which some students might have trouble with, and not because they do not know the content. The language of the questions themselves might confuse some students, even though the test makers try really hard to make sure they are not "ambigious." One man's unambiguity might be another's confusion.
It is known that some people do not respond very well to the standard tests- some can spell words perfectly in writing projects, etc., but freeze when a spelling quiz is given out. Same for math- some students can do computations standing on their heads, but can't solve a word problem to save their life. I have found that even printing and handwriting abilities can go out the window when a test appears!
A bubble sheet might stymie the best of students, In the case of my brother, who takes tests VERY SERIOUSLY, the fact that the scores could paint a good or bad picture of your school might make (him) the student over-react, therefore impairing the test results.
Bad days, bad timing, and not caring can also alter results, so while the scores might give researchers a picture of what is happening at a school, the picture might only be truly valid that day. If the students were given a chance to write the tests a second time, the results could be drastically different.
There lies another problem....
Teachers who want the best for their students will prepare them for the test- perhaps reviewing content or practicing writing mock exams. While these are important skills and information to know, the students who get a lot of practice before hand will have an advantage over the students who do not get prepared. When I was in grade 4, we spent virtually no time preparing for the exam other than practicing filling out a bubble sheet, while in grade 7 we had a week to review what might be on the test.
There lies the quandry for teachers: do we prepare our students to write a test so that they perform well (and we look good) and so they don't freak out when they get the booklet? Or do we follow through on what the test is supposed to do: take a snap shot of where the students are on their educational journey? If we prepare them weeks in advance, perhaps aiding them in focusing on content that will be on the test, we're not really positioning them for a snap shot are we?... It would be more of a posed portrait.
I think we all need to remember that every student is different, learns differently and demonstrates their knowledge in a different way. Some will do extremely well on the tests, while others will shock you with their performance.
Parents and politicos seem to like seeing the results of schools compared to each other. They seem to think that the scores show who is a good teacher and who isn't. While the tests may lead some to believe that a good teacher will always give great test results - and great students always give great test results- I wonder how they would like it if their own children's scores were compared individually to see if that truly is the case. Just a thought.
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