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Shelley Svidal
Universal Grade 3 achievement tests are here to stay—if the government accedes to the wishes of delegates who gathered in Jasper October 3–5 for the annual convention of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta.
Delegates defeated a resolution urging the government to discontinue universal Grade 3 achievement tests and to substitute small sampling tests that achieve the same result.
"Universal testing at the grade three level creates a level of undue stress to the students," states the preamble to the resolution, which was sponsored by the Bonnyville–Cold Lake Progressive Conservative Constituency Association. "The provincial testing program undermines the professional role of teachers and consumes vast sums of public funds that could be spent on curriculum development, implementation, and classroom instruction. The Department of Education maintains that provincial achievement tests are intended to inform government and the public that the standards of the curriculum are being met. Statistically, this data can be gathered through a sampling procedure, which would be
less expensive and
less disruptive to the educational process and to grade three students."
Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) District Representative Sharon Armstrong says she just about fell off her chair when a delegate described universal Grade 3 achievement tests as a way to rank students. Another delegate suggested that the purpose of achievement tests was to test not students but teachers, schools and school jurisdictions. Still another delegate identified teachers, not the tests themselves, as the cause of student stress.
Armstrong, who spoke in favour of the resolution, disagrees. "If we’re going to spend money testing kids, why don’t we spend money on testing that is valuable, such as diagnostic testing, which allows the teachers to find out where the students have strengths and weaknesses, to focus in on the weaknesses and to help them improve in areas in which they need improvement," she says. "Many parents do not appear to have an understanding of ongoing assessment in the classroom, or they don’t trust teachers."
ATA District Representative Mary Dunnigan, who also spoke in favour of the resolution, agrees. Still, she says, those who spoke against the resolution carried the day. "I was surprised at the vote, which made me wonder if people hadn’t made up their minds ahead of time. They didn’t seem swayed by the arguments presented. Even if the vote had been closer, I would have understood, but it was overwhelming."
In his address to delegates, Premier Ed Stelmach cited resolution of teachers’ unfunded pension liability as concrete evidence of the action his government has taken over the past year to begin building Alberta’s future.
"We took action on long-running issues that a lot of people said couldn’t be resolved, like the teachers’ pension fund liability, a planning framework for the Capital Region and a historic immigration agreement with Ottawa," he said.
Stelmach identified the provision of school and other public infrastructure as one of his government’s priorities over the next three to four years. "We’ve embarked on an unprecedented 20-year plan to deliver the schools, hospitals, roads and other public infrastructure a growing province needs."
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