It is that time of year in public education that I affectionately refer to as "survey season". In the month encompassing late January to mid February, schools will complete provincial exams in grade 10, 11 and 12 the FSA tests in grades 4 and 7, the provincial satisfaction survey in grades 7, 10 and 12, social responsibility ratings for grades 7 and 9... and I may be forgetting to list one or two as my mind is also focused on the 1701 enrolment re-count, the Bill 33 compliance forms and mid year class rotations.
If this sounds like a complaint, it is only a conditional one.
It feels like the Satisfaction Survey, while a good idea on paper, is not reliable in practise. Very few parents and almost no staff participate. Students do not want to do it, but are made to which means they are not vested in their responses. I have to question the investment of time and energy on this one.
The other is the FSA. I do not object to the idea of "light testing" of the system. I remember a comment from a seminar I attended with Linda Kaiser and Judy Halbert (provincial leaders in education) where they made the comment that low stakes testing at grades 4, 7, 10, 11 and 12 was appropriate as "checks on the system". I agree. Provincial testing is by no means perfect, but don't we want an indication that kids in Nelson can demonstrate learning outcomes at similar levels to kids in Prince George to kids in Vancouver to kids in the Cowichan Valley... and bodies who use that information for questionable purposes should not deter us. As a respected colleague of mine stated at a staff meeting "I am not a card carrying member of the Church of the Fraser Institute... but measuring performance matters".The FSA is too politicised and it is probably too long. What would happen if it were replaced with one hour provincial exams in Math and English (reading and writing) that were worth 5-10% of a final grade? Low stakes, worth something to the students and provides an indication as to how the system is performing.
I (and I might be in the minority here) like the provincial exams as they currently exist. The grade 10 Math, English and Science exams as well as the Socials 11 exam are worth 20% of a student's mark. That is a good percentage. It means the exam in meaningful in the calculation of the final grade, but it is not high stakes testing. We always wanted our students to go in with a "magic 63%" as their course mark as that means no matter what happened with the test, they would know that the blended mark would be a passing 50% (by the way, I never had a student score a 0 on an exam). In this way, students are nervous, but not paralysed by fear. If I had a suggestion here, it would be to consider moving the only other mandatory exam, English 12 or Communications 12, from 40% of a student's final mark to 20%.
I also like the fact that most provincial exams are an ending assessment of mandatory courses that students have been taking since elementary school. SS 11 is the last of the Social Studies courses for graduation before it breaks into electives such as History 12, Law 12 and Geography 12. Science 10 is mandatory and then it can be a choice of one or more of Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science and others for the grade 11 Science requirement. English or Communications 12 is the last of the mandatory courses for graduation.
Interestingly, English has both a measurement at the grade 10 and 12 level. What about Math? Students need to complete a Math 11 course to graduate, so why not have the final measurement at that level? If we want a check on math skills between grade 7 and 11, why not move the Math 10 exam could be moved to grade 9?
It feels good to get these thoughts out now, as in two weeks we will be knee deep in "survey season" for another year.
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