The Harm of Competitive Testing

This meme appeared on Facebook last week. Perhaps it isn’t a coincidence that at the same time in my local paper, The Delta Teacher’s Association posted an add saying “Cancel the Foundation Skills Assessment Tests.” The B. C. government still believes in testing children against norms of age and grade, and teachers have been protesting for at least 20 years that I can remember. The old methods of testing children are flawed, and a lot of people are dragging their feet about fixing the problem.

Is This a New Problem?

Fifty or sixty years ago in British Columbia, the Education Department started giving out High School Graduation Certificates to Special Needs students, to signify that they had completed a modified program. I recall an employer complaining, “This kid comes to me with High School Graduation, and I find he can’t do…” well, you fill in the blank. My response to the employer is not to blame the education system or the kid. He needs to look more carefully at the documents his employees present and keep up to date on what’s going on.

In the 1960s, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby was holding pass/fail courses, and allowing students to give input into the mark they achieved in other courses.

In other words, we’ve been working on this approach for a couple of generations, but we still have the same misunderstandings. Old habits, especially when they work to the benefit of society’s leaders, die hard.

Why This Change? Compulsive Competition

Sometimes the educators are ahead of the curve, trying to use their specialized knowledge to help society improve. Most of the time we’re behind the curve, training students to be good little citizens the way society wants them to be. It’s a fine line, and we’re crossing it quite a distance in this case.

We come from a highly competitive society. You only have to look south of the border to see the results; the rich get richer, and the poor get more desperate.

The old testing system was based in competitiveness. Everyone was given the same lessons and the same amount of time on the subject. This was considered “fair.” To get an “A” on the test or assignment, the student had to prove more knowledge and a better ability to use that knowledge. “More” and “better” than what? Than a norm established by the Education Department. Success and failure in that system isn’t based on what you learned or didn’t learn, it’s based on how fast and well you learned it, compared to other students.

What is “Fair?”

The “Fair” we were brought up with was a yardstick invented by a social and economic elite. Of which, I must state, I was one. I went to a small high school in the Middle of Nowhere, B. C. I had a grad class of 26, of whom I believe 4 continued to higher education. I got ALL the scholarship money that was given out that year. Why? Because I got the highest marks on the Provincial Exams. No other criteria. If the money had been spread around, maybe 5 or 6 people would have gone. And society would have benefitted, because I took my scholarships and proceeded to waste my first year of university because I wasn’t mature enough to handle it.

I would suggest that “fair” isn’t achieved by judging everyone against others who have different background, socio-economic status, home life and other intangibles. Our “fair” is set by the leaders who have already fixed the game for themselves and their offspring.

To Be Fair…

The Foundation Skills Assessment is a legitimate way to gather data in general about the learning of B. C. children. You want to know the effects of COVID on education? Check the FSA results in 2018 and 2023. That is a fair, scientific use of data.

Hoewever…

These tests were never intended to test individual students for reporting purposes. A worse problem is that various people with political or bureaucratic axes to grind want to use this data to judge the skills of individual teachers and the accomplishments of individual schools or districts. Make data available to everyone, and someone will abuse it. Competition junkies who want teachers to be part of a meritocracy will misuse this data to judge the teachers.

So, no matter how handy it is to have such a huge test sample, the BC Education Department is using faulty procedures and sending out mixed messages, and the FSA has to go.

Competitive Testing is Lazy.

You need marks for your students in shooting the basketball. Line them up, have each child shoot 30 foul shots, score the results and hand out the letter grades. What have you tested? Almost nothing, including the teacher’s ability to teach anything.

You’re an employer looking for the best new employee? Look at their transcripts and pick the best one. Most people understand how well that will work.

Is There a Place for Competitive Testing?

Of course. If you’re trying to select the most knowledgeable candidate for a certain job, a knowledge test is obvious. But it ought to be the exception, not the rule. Parents need to be taught that there are other types of tests. Employers need to understand the data they are given.

The Bottom Line

Education systems around North America are learning that they motivate children better if they test precisely what the children learned, and they give parents better data on their children’s development if reporting is based on individual progress.

Now we need to make sure parents and employers understand what we’re doing. Then we will have improved society.

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