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Beyond Excellence
My daughter is a division one player in U12 community soccer and when she is not kicking a ball around, she loves to dance; as I am writing this article, I am also watching her soccer practice. Her last academic report would make any parent proud. Her brother occupies his time with community hockey and school basketball, along with dance, sewing and academics. Participating in my children’s activities is a highlight of my day and a welcome release from my day-to-day work and worries.
Contributing to that work and those worries is news that Alberta’s ranking has dropped on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Math scores are down and, across the province, anxious parents and self-proclaimed education experts are reaching for their flash cards and trying to recall exactly how long division works as they yearn to “get back to the basics.”
Of course, the reality is not quite as dire as some suggest. Alberta’s education system still ranks among the world’s best, and the province is tied for 10th place in math, 6th in reading and 4th in science in the PISA rankings. Still, the questions remain: Why have we dropped and what can be done? Can we or should we transplant strategies from other countries now at the top of the PISA rankings to Alberta?
To answer those questions, we need to start by asking ourselves what we value in education and how we can achieve it. PISA tests students on a fairly narrow band of cognitive competencies, and the resulting rankings reflect this. Jurisdictions where students commonly take intensive test preparation in private after-school programs are the ones that top the rankings. But even those jurisdictions, including Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore and Macao, are now actively questioning whether their heavy emphasis on rote learning is equipping their students with the skills they need in a rapidly changing global economy where creativity and problem solving are highly valued.
In Alberta, the professional formation of our curriculum, its programs of study and the daily classroom practice of teachers all emphasize the development of a broader range of competencies that includes student advocacy and agency, ingenuity, and creativity. When assessed on these competencies Canada and Alberta are still well regarded. The PISA report recognizes this, noting that Canadian teachers “often present problems for which there is no immediately obvious way of arriving at a solution.” Further, 66 per cent of Canadian students reported that their teachers “often present them with problems that require them to think for extended time.” The report stated, “Education systems could and should do more to promote students’ ability to work towards long-term goals.” Unfortunately, this more complex picture tends to be disregarded by commentators who want to report on education outcomes as if they were hockey scores.
Reporting only that we have dropped, without a deeper analysis of the report or consideration of other limiting factors and contexts, does a disservice to the families of Alberta.
All this would be only mildly irritating if the PISA results were not being used to promote simplistic assertions about the determinants of school success. For example, PISA report author Dr. Andreas Schleicher — trained as a physicist and mathematician — argues that it is the presence of excellent teachers that makes all the difference in the classroom. This is far too convenient for politicians. After all, why should governments worry about ridiculous class sizes, inadequate infrastructure, cultural complexity, social and economic disparity, historical inequality, insufficient learning resources, and an appalling lack of support for integrated special needs students if the real problem is apparently the failure of teachers to be sufficiently excellent?
In the real world of the classroom, though, excellence is not enough. Excellent teachers need classroom conditions that support teaching and learning, class sizes that permit them to work individually with students, and time for collaboration, preparation and planning. What they do not need is to be made scapegoats for the systemic and financial deficiencies of the education system and made responsible for patching over the cracks. Providing public assurance is a shared responsibility, and teachers, school boards and the provincial government all have roles to play.
And so as practice comes to a close, it is home time for my soccer girl and then it is off to hockey with my son. I am left with a sense of pride in representing Alberta teachers and our professional organization. I’m gratified knowing we work in a province that has a public education system and community that values more than rote learning and test taking—one that encourages children to grow in other areas, such as the athletics and the arts. I only wish our public policy and practice would catch up to our values.
