SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

Evaluation IS part of education

Let’s face it.  The goals of “education” are very complex.  We all want our kids to graduate competent in literacy and numeracy, but we know that having a sense of place in terms of history, geography, politics, and the sciences as well as an appreciation of the arts are also parts of a truly “educated” person.

But our children gain these skills, knowledge and abilities to appreciate art as part of a process which can and should be continually monitored and improved.  Also, their ability to obtain and benefit from this more broadly defined “education” is contingent upon their possessing adequate literacy and numeracy skills. And like any process, education has specific outcomes, some tangible, some not so, that it is trying to achieve. The education system owes it to our country, its taxpayers, and, most importantly, our children to monitor outcomes against expectations and continually refine the process. 

No evaluation process can possibly capture everything that a student gains going through the schooling process, but, at a minimum, we must do everything we can to ensure that students are obtaining the literacy and numeracy skills that are the gateway to higher order skills and other subject areas (how can you solve problems or appreciate the majesty of the universe or the beauty of great literature if you can’t read and compute?)

 Consequently, when I learned that that Elementary Teachers Union in Ontario was calling for a two-year moratorium on province-wide testing, I felt this needed to be challenged.  My opinion column on this topic has just been published in the Mississauga News (http://www.mississauga.com/opinion/columns/article/870566—don-t-drop-eqao-tests) . 

By the way, the fact that the elementary teachers’ union commissioned a poll to find out what their members thought about EQAO testing rather than, say, what they thought about whacky constructivist methodologies prevalent in Ontario classrooms, is quite telling.