04) BC LIBERALS CHALLENGED BY FSA REVOLT

(The following article is from the February 1-14, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Kimball Cariou

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." - Albert Einstein

     These words by Einstein have a wide application, ranging from the student "testing" described below to the conduct of war. A January 2009 article in The Nation magazine, for example, describes a US military campaign in early 1968 to wipe out "enemy fighters" in heavily populated rural areas of the Mekong Delta. "Success" was to be quantified "accurately" by counting the number of dead National Liberation Front (so-called "Viet Cong") soldiers. Troops were ordered to count all those killed in the "free fire zones" as enemy combatants, not just those found with weapons. Months later, the percentage of NLF combatants among the 10,000-plus killed was found to be about the same as their presence among the overall population. In other words, far from a "scientific" analysis, the obsession with "hard numbers" had resulted in random slaughter.

     The consequences are less deadly, but public education supporters in British Columbia argue that a Fraser Institute program to "measure the success" of schools is equally bogus. As the May 12 provincial election nears, the Campbell Liberal government unexpectedly finds that "Foundation Skills Assessment" (FSA) testing has turned from a public relations asset into a political hot potato.

     Vancouver's new majority of Vision-COPE school trustees recently informed parents that they can keep students out of the controversial FSA tests conducted in grades 4, 7 and 10. It also voted to ask the Education Ministry "to take a leadership role in preventing the misuse of student achievement data such as the Foundations Skills Assessment". The move has opened the floodgates for other school boards to speak out against the FSA, which is widely seen as a tool to attack public education in the name of "accountability."

     The FSA struggle has been building up since the mid-1990s across British Columbia, with the sharpest debates in major urban centres. All public schools are required to do the testing, and private schools participate voluntarily. The theory is that FSA results accurately measure key student skills within each school, giving the province and school boards a better handle on where to direct limited resources.

     In fact, only the Fraser Institute uses the results for an annual "ranking" of all schools, widely published in CanWest Global newspapers. Early support for this initiative came from some parents looking for easy ways to research the effectiveness of their children's education. But the real outcome was to reinforce perceptions about "good" and "bad" schools.

     Private schools consistently topped the rankings, giving the impression that these are the "best" schools. Many families pulled their children out of local schools, spending thousands of dollars to enroll them in private academies. Similarly, schools in the wealthier west side of Vancouver invariably score higher than those in the lower-income east side, leading to an exodus of students westward when catchment area restrictions were eased.

     The problem is that the Fraser Institute report gives a warped picture. The FSA scores do not accurately measure student achievement or learning conditions. They do reflect class stratification; schools with a higher income population base tend to score higher marks in exams. This disparity is reinforced by other factors. For example, private schools have the luxury of selecting "better qualified" students, immediately creating an inherent bias in the FSA testing.

     There are also wide divergences in testing application. Private schools often "teach to the FSA," for example, in order to boost their rankings and attract more "customers." Principals in some public schools deliberately discourage less academically-advanced students from taking the test, as a way to artificially inflate the school's average. Other principals try to ensure maximum participation, which lowers the average score.

     As a result, the real achievements of local public schools are systematically ignored. Parents who know first-hand of the excellent teaching staff and positive learning atmosphere at their children's schools are deeply frustrated when the annual report gives a low score, scaring other families in the neighbourhood from enrolling their children.

     From the Fraser Institute perspective, none of this is a problem. The anti-union think tank seeks to privatize all public services, including education. The FSA encourages parents to enroll students in private schools, and undermines overall support for public education. It turns schools against each other, and pits families against teachers and their unions.

     Not surprisingly, the most consistent opponent of the FSA has been the BC Teachers' Federation, whose members face the heat every spring when the rankings are published. The BCTF has been campaigning for random testing, which would become simply one of many tools to measure overall achievement by school district.

     More recently, groups like the Vancouver District Parents Advisory Committee (DPAC) have taken a similar approach. Some lower-income schools in the city don't have PACs, so the DPAC position shows that growing numbers of parents understand that the rankings are deeply negative for the public school system.

     But it was the recent VSB decision which set off a political storm, including bitter editorial attacks against the trustees in the Vancouver Sun and National Post. Clearly, the right wing forces for which these media speak fear that the Fraser Institute agenda to privatize education is threatened by a broad revolt of teachers, parents and trustees.

     That revolt may be growing. The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Board has asked the Education Ministry to reconsider how it administers the tests, and the Coquitlam Board said it will send a letter to parents "similar" that adopted by Vancouver trustees. The Sunshine Coast board had already passed a motion requesting the Ministry to withhold the identities of individual schools when releasing FSA data, as the Ministry of Health does with individual hospitals.

     Given the Campbell government's diehard support for the FSA, nothing is likely to change right away. But the campaign against the Fraser Institute agenda is gaining momentum, and could become a big issue in the election.

sitemap