My January newsletter is up on our district website at http://www.sd63.bc.ca/super_newsletter.htm.
Included is an overview of where we are with the Foundation Skills Assessment for 2009. FSA is currently the subject of controversy in that teachers have voted to not prepare for, administer or mark the FSA in 2009. Part of the challenge, aside from people's beliefs about assessment in general and the FSA in particular, is that Boards of Education, as employers, are needing to deal with this as an employment issue. Each Board, as an employer, is having to decide how to deal with teachers standing down from what is their normal work. But whether this is job action or political action, someone has to administer the FSA and in most districts while the "work requirement" issue is being worked out contingency plans are being made to have FSA overseen by principals and vice-principals if necessary, supported as possible by each Board.
The FSA is currently the only province-wide measure of student performance in relation to the BC Performance Standards for reading, writing and numeracy. While there are legitimate concerns about how much emphasis is put on a one-time snapshot assessment and how the scores are used (inappropriately and harmfully) by external agencies to rank schools, there is also a legitimate concern framed by some as "if not FSA, then what?" What is needed is a province-wide dialogue about high quality, consistent, standards-based assessment that works for students, teachers, parents and the system. We need a standards-based way to understand student learning and to plan for school or system level improvement.
In the end, we may find that FSA is still the best instrument, and that having every student do the assessment every year makes sense. We may find something better, perhaps through a different way of administering that same FSA. Meanwhile, this is a mandatory assessment and one that we will be sure is administered in Saanich as is the case in other districts. Then . . . on to that high level dialogue. I am interested in your thoughts.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
Not very high-end dialogue from me on this one. I do see the merit in a standardized assessment. I also see the downfall of it. I see the risk of putting too much meaning to the results of these tests for the child who took the test. It's a snapshot and IMO more important for its *general* averages for the school than it is for the students themselves. If the schools/ districts use it as a snapshot with a margin of error to indicate the quality of their schools for the learners at those schools, and how each school compares to the others in that district/province and on a national level, then I'm fine with it.
I do not believe that it gives an accurate indication for each child where they are at. There are too many individual criteria that can impact the child on that day, in that week, month or even year. These individual qualifiers are often (IMO) overlooked or glossed over, whether by the teacher, the school or even the parent. Having worked with children who've taken these standardized tests I have seen criteria such as unrest in the family, a recent move, not having the best rapport with the teacher, etc impact the confidence level of the child, and thereby the outcome of the test. I've also seen the child and parent put too much importance on the outcome when that wasn't warranted.
Personally, I'd like to see other elements added to the test, to give a more personalized reflection of where the learner is at. These additions would include questions that could help bring forward unrest in the family, relationship with the teacher, overall self-confidence. I would also like to see included more elements that reflect non-linguistic, non-logical/ mathematical and perhaps (to use Daniel Pink's expression) more R-directed elements.
Actually Global, that is high-end dialogue. These are the kinds of perspectives that need to come into the next round of discussions at the provincial level. One of our concerns is that FSA is currently the only way we have of gauging student performance and system performance on a common measure in areas of reading, writing and numeracy. Many of us are wondering about ways to use the BC Performance Standards in other ways that are more consistently embedded in everyday authentic practice to add to the FSA picture in support of individual children and their learning as well as school, district or system planning.
You wrote:
ways to use the BC Performance Standards in other ways that are more consistently embedded in everyday authentic practice to add to the FSA picture in support of individual children and their learning as well as school, district or system planning.
I'm looking forward to hearing how these will take shape and what the SD's criteria are, which concerns they have when considering existing and potential criteria, etc.
What I'd also like to know, is whether it's possible to see an example of FSA test questions mostly in regards the use of current language: the way in which questions are phrased, the language used, when the last language update was made, etc. I have seen assignments come home with my children (now in grades 1 and 3) which had used language and symbols that are what I would consider 'outdated' in that the objects are no longer called that or look like the symbol which was used to represent that. Another issue is cultural reference - my husband and I were not raised in Canada and do not have the same cultural references as the majority of our peers. This means that our children don't always 'get' a reference that is assumed to be 'common'. Assignments wherein our children have missed the language or cultural connotation come back as 'incorrect', but when they are asked for their reasoning, I'd say they've done remarkably well.
You can probably tell by my use of English that I am no stranger to the English language, and my husband is British. The children are being raised with English as their main language. It's not as if they are somehow at a disadvantage. Perhaps it is because of my own awareness of how language is used that I notice these linguistic and cultural discrepancies and biases? All that to say that I'd love to know how 'modern' and 'culture neutral' the FSA test questions are.
(I found the samples on the website in your original post.)
Hey Doc,
From the perspective of a fairly new teacher, I have felt pressured not to administer the FSA tests by my colleagues. As someone who would like a 'continuing contract', I administered the tests to my grade seven students.
While I agree that there needs to be some indicator for teachers and students to see what areas improvement is needed, I also feel these results can be done without being published in the newspaper. At the end of the day, when I see my school rated as one of the last in the Province, it is difficult not to take such results personally.
I know I am doing a good job, I know my school is full of dedicated teachers, yet when the results are published, we all (students and teachers) end up feeling defeated, frustrated and ultimately, annoyed that our school, staff and students are being represented to the Province as an undesirable school to enroll one's child in.
My real problem with the FSA's is that they are released to the public, encourage private school education, do not consider special needs students or students with IPP's, and work to create a hierarchy of sorts. As I am a new teacher, I appreciate your blog and look forward to your insight
Thanks for these comments. I think there is rather universal agreement that the Fraser Institute rankings are misleading and inappropriate, although I must say that Peter Cowley and others have long called for better measures to round out the FSA-focus of those reports. My concern about those publications is not that they bring results into public focus, but that their focus is too narrow and that the rankings are harmful. I look forward to a day when results of a full range of measures are shared in ways that support schools in their improvement efforts and in ways that recognize the complexities associated with human development, community context and system imperatives (without rankings). I do believe that, done right, school plans and district achievement contracts can fulfill those purposes.
As for FSA, we are all in the midst of making sure it gets done and gets done well, after which we look forward to a province-wide conversation about assessment, standards, accountability, autonomy and more.
Dr. Elder, a question. Does the FSA keep track of learning outcomes per gender?
We do have overall results by gender, as can be found on the Ministry website, but in relation to learning outcomes, or at least items on the fSA, that is a different question. Let me see what kind of public information there is in that regard.
Thank you for taking the time to do that! I'm looking forward to your reply.
Hi Keven. I just wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how much I enjoyed my visit with the outstanding group of school leaders in your District. I've worked with quite a few school districts over the years, but I can't remember working with a more positive and responsive group. The extremely positive attitude displayed by your leadership team is a credit to Saanich District 63 and to your leadership as Superintendent. Clearly, your leadership team appreciates your visionary leadership. They "Say," they "Stay" and they "Strive." What you and your team are accomplishing in Saanich 63 is quite impressive.
Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your leadership development program. I was honored to be asked to come and be with you and your team. My best wishes for continued success, good health and happiness in the years to come.
If you're ever in this part of the USA, please come and stay with us for a few days. We live in a lovely place just as you do.
Leonard
Thank you for these comments Leonard. It was our great privilege to have you work with our principals, vice-principals and district senior staff. For anyone else reading this, you should rush right out and get a copy of the book that we used as a book-club base for a two day leadership session we had last week with Leonard. His book is Caring Enough to Lead: How Reflective Practice Leads to Moral Leadership (Corwin Press 2008).
As Terence Deal (noted author on educational leadership and change) said: "This book represents a gift from someone who shows us that leading and caring go hand in hand. This book got my attention through a rich collection of anecdotes and stories rather than pronouncements and recipes. I know it will grab yours."
Well, not only did the book grab our attention, but so did the author. We are all better for having you in our circle of professional friends Leonard. We will be sure to call on you again and we look forward to seeing your work in print in the future.
For others reading this entry, I would be curious to know about your thoughts on caring as an element of leadership. For me, leadership begins with deep caring: for children, for learning, for the adults who serve children, for families, for community and for our future. To me, caring is the third leg of a three legged stool of effective leadership, the others being will and capacity. And for what it is worth, I can tell you that a room full of Saanich leaders (positional and otherwise) is a room full of those very traits.
Global, with regard to you comment above, in which you ask about gender specific results for FSA, we don't have results by provincial learning outcomes because FSA is designed go capture basic (foundation) skills that should have been accrued by the point in time (grade 4 or 7). Thus the items are not matched to specific learning outcomes.
What we do have, however, is access to an excellent publicly available website hosted by Edudata out of UBC. On that site are item level analyses for a number of provincial assessments including grade 10 exams and the grade 12 English exam, as well as FSA.
The item level analysis for FSA can tell you, for example, how many students in a school or district got a particular questions wrong, what concept was covered by that question, and the type of error that was likely made. This is a resource used regularly by teachers and administrators to determine where we might need to focus our efforts. The best way to understand the richness of that resource is to view it at:
http://edudata.educ.ubc.ca/parents/parents_service.htm
Unfortunately the data are not disaggregated beyond whole groups into sub-groups such as gender.
I agree with Global on many points regarding the FSA testing...and to add to that conversation, I'd like to suggest that having the testing in the middle of the year means that not everyone is in the same place in the curriculum - Teacher A covered fractions and decimals in the fall, but Teacher B is planning to finish up the year with them...Teacher A's students will do fine if decimals show up on the FSA, Teacher B's class won't. Why not have the testing at the end of the year?
What about the issue of teachers preparing their classes for the testing - pre tests, sample questions, reviewing curriculum, etc. What about the teachers who don't do this? Doesn't this skew the result as well?
The French Immersion aspect - scores for elementary schools with french immersion classes are going to be skewed because French Immersion students have had only a year of ELA, and though their math skills, verbal and reading language skills may well be on par with their "English" peers, their writing skills certainly are not. How does this relate to the way the province and districts use the statistics?
And lastly, teachers attitudes to the testing can have an impact on the students, and therefore the results. Last year, one of my children, knowing that her teacher did not "buy" the validity of the testing, deliberately turned in a blank test, even though she is generally a high achiever academically. I was shocked on several levels about this...but my child's perspective was that her teacher didn't agree with the testing so wouldn't care about the class results, and that since the FSA result didn't affect my child's marks, what was the point of putting any effort into it? I'm guessing this is not a unique attitude at the Grade 7 level.
Could the tests not be adminstered by non-teachers? Then teacher bias, anxiety, whatever is not an issue.
Can you give some examples of ways in which this school district has found the test results useful, and/or examples of change made as a result of that?
Leonard, it's very encouraging to hear an 'outsider' speak with so much praise of the leadership in this district. Thank you! I will also be sure to check out the book.
Dr. Elder, thank you too for getting back to the question I posed earlier. I find it interesting that there is no differentiation between FSA outcomes per gender. Perhaps, given the recent resurgence of interest in variables within male and female learning, this will be explored in the future?
Anonymous, you bring up some interesting points. (And having worked with teenagers for quite a few years, I'd say that your teen's behaviour brought a smile to my face.) I'm looking forward to reading Dr. Elder's (or someone else's thoughts on the points you mention. Language, its use and place within the larger context has always been one of my major interests. Your questions about French Immersion brought up a question for me - how children who are in English public schools, but who are from bilingual backgrounds, are performing in the FSA test. I will check out the link Dr. Elder posted to see if there's any information about that there.
Anonymous asked some good questions about the utility of FSA for teachers and for the system, and I can say that as a school district those results are useful as gross (by which I mean large measure) indicators of how students are doing in our district when it comes to foundation skills in the three areas. Of course we have to put those results in context, including in the ways that you described.
There is, indeed, a degree of variability based on how the process is treated by teachers. I am not sure how beneficial it would be to move to a more clinical model of assessment, for example by having external evaluators managing for all of the variables, simply because FSA results are such a small part of the data set that we use for system planning. In each of our schools and classrooms we have assessments administered throughout the year that are based on the BC performance standards (as are the FSA tests) and that we can collect and use for planning. Needless to say it is also those results that are most meaningful for parents and children, and for teachers as they plan.
One thing that high quality assessment does, as supported by the snapshot that is FSA, is inform teachers and administrators, and by extension district staff and the board, of areas that need attention and resourcing. One example is the understanding that came from FSA and other system-wide assessments such as Benchmarks reading and the DART district reading assessment that we needed to provide better resources for struggling young readers. Out of that analysis came a commitment to Reading Recovery for primary children and Target Reading for middle school students. You can find out more about those by checking our achievement contract, literacy plan and achievement report, all of which can be accessed from our district website.
Post a Comment