NSTU president says publicizing student assessments is wrong

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union fails to see how schools, students and teachers benefited from the education department’s release of a school-by-school summary of provincial assessment results.

Alexis Allen says the assessments – these ones conducted in 2007 – are really just one snapshot of the education system and not a true picture of what is happening on a day-to-day basis.

“There’s more to school than one assessment. You ask any teacher in this province and they’ll say that they’re the best evaluators and they are,” she says.

Allen says the problem with assessments is they can tend to be just a reflection of how a particular student did on a particular day. The test, to a student unfamiliar with them, can be grueling she says, and may cause anxiety for a young child. Teachers often say with the length of the assessment it’s hard to keep students focused.

But then what of the flip side? Wouldn’t you want to highlight schools that did exceptionally well on the assessments?

“But it’s a snapshot again,” Allen says. “They did well that day.”

What Allen will say about standardized tests is they’re an assessment tool, but just one of many that teachers can use to evaluate how a student is doing. And, she adds, the assessments fail to reflect other issues that are part of the classroom like socio-economic issues, class size, class composition and special needs and behavorial needs.

And, Allen says, often the results aren’t so surprising.

“If you look at the assessments across the province, you’ll see the richer areas did better, it’s as simple as that,” she says.

So, says Allen, use the assessments as a tool, but keep in mind they’re only one tool. And don’t publicize them because that only serves to rank schools. Allen says schools are given the results and they and school boards can and do react according. Parents are also told where their children stand.

“To publicize it just stigmatizes schools and demoralizes teachers who are giving it their all. To publicize it and put it out there didn’t serve any purpose, it certainly didn’t help student learning.”