It's that time of year again when BC grade 4 and 7 students write the standardized Foundation Skills Assessment tests, a reading, writing and numeracy evaluation. It is therefore also the time of year when the BC Teachers Federation and their legion of educators get out their self-serving soapboxes and start the annual season of FSA complaints. Each year BC Teachers come out in force to advocate against students taking this particular test. This year, teachers are not only advocating through the media their ideological position, they are also using students are conduits for handouts and letters aimed at getting parents to try and have their child opted-out. The BCTF argues that the FSA wastes classroom time, forces teachers to "teach to the test", and takes attention away from more effective learning tools like field trips, such as the annual trek of school aged kids to Playland amusement park that masquerades as a physics lesson, or a trip to an IMAX theater to watch a movie about warm water coral reefs, both of which are clearly educational goldmines! However, the BCTF's constant griping is wearing thin. The FSA is just one test of many that students must take throughout their lives. It tests kids for reading comprehension, writing skills and numeracy abilities, all things that teachers should be passionate about. Teachers should want to know how their school is doing in these areas and should welcome any such data. The FSA takes a total of 4 hours to complete, which is spread over multiple testing days. 4 hours out of 10 months of instructional time is hardly the waste of time the BCTF claims. As for educators having to "teach to the test," wherein they allegedly must forgo meaningful teaching and curriculum to help students prepare for the test, I would expect no less! The FSA asks questions such as this:
To make 2 dozen cookies, they need 350 g of chocolate chips.
What mass of chocolate chips is needed to make 15 dozen cookies?
. 1.875 kg
. 2.45 kg
. 2.625 kg
. 5.25 kg
I would expect 12 year olds to be able to answer this question. I expect teachers to have been teaching math skills such as this. If teaching this kind of math is the type of "teaching to the test" that the BCTF wants to get rid of, what kind of teaching do they want? More colouring? More field trips? More of the limp curriculum that has our kids lagging behind many other countries in basic skills? More of the kind of teaching that has resulted in 21% of kids, that's 1 in 5, not being able to answer this type of question, or write a proper paragraph, or understand the content of a short piece of reading, as the FSA results have shown? Dig a little deeper and you begin to see what all this bellyaching is about. The BCTF is a left wing entity with strong ties to the NDP. This ideology leads them to scoff at anything that resembles meritocracy, whether its standardized testing or capitalism. They ideologically oppose allowing some kids to succeed and others to fail. They'd much rather let everyone slide through with whatever hand-holding and educational pablum it requires. The BCTF announces proudly in a YouTube video that the opposition to the FSA is all about "social justice," yet another leftist plank they share with the NDP platform. Isn't it about time the BCTF and its teachers started caring a little less about politics and a little more about teaching?
1 comment:
The FSA is a discredited and invalid assessment tool the Liberals are quick to embrace for political motives. They ignore important factors influencing student achievement and instead rely on the facile FSA results and the misleading stats of their bedfellows at the Fraser Institute. This specious data becomes part of the dynamic for the creation of the Liberals' education policies.
Playland physics and IMAX cinema? Shhyaaa! Dude, education is lighting fires not filling buckets.
Post a Comment