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Measuring What Counts and Engaging in Community
To deliver on the directions of Inspiring Education, Alberta needs to move from our current accountability structures to a model of public assurance. The features of such an initiative are described in this issue of the ATA Magazine with the help of a cast of teachers, school administrators, university professors and others.
Veteran Edmonton social studies teacher Robert Gardner talks to his students about the implications for their own learning and candidly asks them “What did you learn today?” The answers are very interesting, and demonstrate an active, not passive, commitment to learning. Public assurance includes students’ reflections on what the school is good at and how they are learning. Jim Brandon’s article focuses on public assurance through the collaborative leadership across the school system and demonstrates the potential for stronger system-level planning and deeper community engagement. Retired associate dean Hans Smits calls for a wider focus for curriculum, so that the curriculum that’s easiest to test doesn’t shape the program—he suggests a program of studies that revolves around “capabilities,” seen as answers to the question “What is this person able to do and to be?” Public assurance is well suited to such a program, ensuring a deep conversation about what is required to build and protect the future for each child. Dennis Shirley and J-C Couture point to very encouraging signs around the world that high-stakes accountability testing is being dialled down and replaced with a much greater focus on the instructional leadership role of school principals. As a counterpoint to public assurance initiatives in education, Stephen Murgatroyd provides constructive examples of public assurance models now being used in Alberta’s health care system and offers suggestions about what a balanced scorecard would look like for Alberta’s education system. Brenda Spencer compares accountability structures to the new discourse available through public assurance models, noting its potential for a discourse of fidelity, confidence and shared ownership. Sherry Bennett, executive director of the Alberta Assessment Consortium, imagines the possibilities for Alberta’s students through a public assurance model, including an expanded range of assessment methods, new ways to report student learning, improved support to develop the assessment capacity of teachers and leaders, and greater involvement of the community in the conversation. In the final article, People for Education’s Annie Kidder, Kelly Gallagher-Mackay and Charles Ungerleider make clear the importance of measuring what matters, not what is easy to measure. They are spearheading efforts in Ontario to broaden measures and the definition of school success through programs of public assurance.
Public assurance holds much promise as we move from the old accountability models to effective, dynamic and descriptive opportunities to ask “What did you learn today?” “How are we doing?” and other similar questions designed to systematically provoke thinking, school and professional practice improvement, and community engagement.
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Association staff at Barnett House and SARO, along with many members from all over the province, have been mourning the death of Karen Virag, the Association’s publications supervisor. Karen provided editorial services to the Association’s specialist councils, filled an assortment of ATA roles in publications and in our diversity, equity and human rights work, and was a regular contributor to this magazine, including a period as interim associate editor. Karen’s death was sudden; she was diagnosed with a form of brain wasting disease and passed away, in the prime of her life, only a few weeks later.
Karen was always able to light up a room with little effort and had a remarkable ability to put everyone at ease and bring people together. You always liked working with Karen—she made you laugh, she always had great ideas and she was perpetually vivacious. She was also superb at her job and nationally recognized by her peers. We miss her enormously.
With respect, admiration and much affection, this issue of the ATA Magazine is dedicated to Karen’s memory.
