FSA

Local successes

Maple Ridge

More than 35% of students in Grades 4 and 7 in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school district didn't write the Foundation Skills Assessment after many parents requested their children be withdrawn from the tests.

Coquitlam

Almost 400 Grades 4 and 7 students didn't write the exams in the Tri-Cities area, representing 12.25% exemption. This does not include any special education students already exempted.

Cowichan

All but five students opted out of the FSA at Koksilah Elementary, Cowichan Valley. The majority of Grades 4 and 7 parents at the local elementary school, which is almost entirely made up of Aboriginal students, wrote to Koksilah's principal requesting their children be opted out of the examination under the extenuating circumstance clause. The parents reasoned the exams fail to acknowledge differences in culture and learning styles, and the results are used to inaccurately label the students and school.

(Cowichan News Leader and Pictorial, March 4)

Nanaimo

One elementary school with 24 Grade 4 students and 24 Grade 7 students has a 100% exemption. Not one student wrote the FSA. The parents cited their concerns about the rankings as reasons for withdrawing their children.

Creston

At one elementary, almost 100% of the Grade 4 and 7 students didn't write the FSA. Parents stood their ground firmly, and only one Grade 7 student and one or two Grade 4 students wrote the FSA.

West Vancouver and North Vancouver

School board chairs in both West and North Vancouver wrote letters to the editor opposing the Fraser Institute's school rankings. In West Vancouver, administrators are marking all of the tests.

Howe Sound

In Howe Sound, no teachers are marking the FSAs, despite an invitation from the district to provide release time for any teachers who volunteered.

Okanagan Skaha

There was very good support in and from the local press. The board chair has said she would like to see the issue resolved by next year, and that she opposes the use of the data by the Fraser Institute to rank schools.

Vancouver Island North

The board of trustees sent a letter to the minister of education and all other boards in the province condemning the inappropriate use of FSA results to rank schools.

The results reported to parents

The ministry website indicates that the FSA results will be sent home to parents by March 31. The BCTF is preparing a letter for members and locals to provide to parents, putting the results firmly in context. It will be available online for members and locals to download. Watch for an e-mail letting you know when the letter has been posted to the website.

Bart Simpson on standardized testing

You'll want to check out the current episode of the Simpsons titled "How the Test was Won". It's well worth watching!

Other voices speaking out

BCSTA

Motion passed by BCSTA:

That the BCSTA urge the Ministry of Education to revise its policy relating to the release of assessment data sets, specifically the FSA results to external bodies, such as the Fraser Institute, so that access for the purposes of ranking or identification of schools is no longer allowed.

John Simpson, superintendent, School District #42 Maple Ridge

"If they came to school we didn't force them to write so we found the alternative activities," said District Superintendent John Simpson. He added the schools didn't want to send children home to empty homes, but decided to respect parents' wishes. Earlier Simpson had sent a letter to parents saying if they didn't want their children to write the FSAs to keep them home that day...Simpson said the data from the FSA this year is "compromised" because of the large numbers of students being pulled out of the exams, and it won't be used when the school district writes its achievement contracts this year...While Simpson said some parents weren't happy about the message from the union, he pointed out a ruling last year gave teachers the right to send political information home with their students.

Maureen Dockendorf, assistant superintendent, School District 43 (Coquitlam)

"What we expected to happen did," she said, noting that concern about FSAs was highest among parents of elementary school children.
According to Dockendorf, FSA tests have improved over the years but she still doesn't like the way the results are used to rank schools. She agrees with the BC School Trustees Association, which is calling on the Ministry of Education to prevent the results of the exams from being made public. "It's when you rank and sort schools, all of us know it's wrong," she said. "We don't object to the FSAs being used as a provincial snapshot."
(Tri-City News, March 3)

David Murchie, trustee, School District # 68 (Nanaimo)

Trustees want Education Minister Shirley Bond to follow the example of Health Minister George Abbott, who instructed health authorities to refuse to divulge the names of hospitals checked for 39 quality indicators, meaning hospitals were identified by numbers only. "We are asking the minister not to release any information which can identify individual schools," said Murchie.
Murchie said trustees are the only jurisdictions in the province solely for the purpose of educating BC's students. "It was a unanimous decision and every single school district in the province was represented at the provincial council," he said. "We are not telling (the education ministry) how to deal with the FSA results, we are just asking them not to identify individual schools."

Hannah Seymour, trustee, School District #65 (Cowichan)

Cowichan school trustee Hannah Seymour, who opted her Grade 4 son at Koksilah out of the exam, said she was not aware of any repercussions to parents, the school, or the district as a result of the almost school-wide opt out. Meanwhile, students who did not write the exam did class work while other students wrote the FSA exams. "My son was in the classroom learning, which is fantastic and what I want him to do at school," said Seymour.

(Cowichan Valley News Leader and Pictorial)

Learning from the FSA

A great story from the Sunshine Coast

FSA: A student's perspective

Last year, when he was in Grade 6, the son of a local teacher heard his mother discussing the FSA and the concerns she and other teachers had. This issue captured the young man's interest and on his own went to the BCTF website to find out more about the issue. This year, when the boy was in Grade 7, he again heard his mother talk about the FSA and how teachers were signing letters of support for one another as they undertook to eliminate the tests.
The boy brought home the brochure with the sample letter provided by the local and sent by the teacher. In response, the mother sent a letter to the principal requesting her son be exempted. The mother then met with the principal who then explained that, if the boy was in the school when the FSA was being written, he would have to write it. Of course, if the child were absent no test need be written.
The first day the FSA was being given the boy was in school. Finding himself stuck there he was furious that he had to write the test as he was caught between sticking to his principles and not wanting to offend his principal. He made sure he knew the future dates when the FSA would be written and stayed at home those days.

Another take on ranking

The BC Foundation Skills Assessment test is a test of basic skills for education in BC, just as the Ten Commandments is a test of guidelines for living a certain religious lifestyle. The score on a written test at any grade level does not remotely reflect on what goes on in a school, just as accordance to the Ten Commandments does not remotely reflect on what goes on in a church or religion.
Schools ranked on the basis of a crude instrument like a paper and pencil test is just as absurd as churches and religions ranked on the basis of adherence to the Ten Commandments, or abstinence from beef, or any other criteria. Ninety-nine per cent of what goes on in schools is unobservable; the same in religions and in churches.