Media Clipping — Friday March 21, 2008, The Chronicle Herald

Testing Times in Education System

By Paul Abela

"I can protect myself from my enemies; may God protect me from my friends."

This old Italian proverb came to mind as I read Dr. Michael Corbett’s March 15 commentary embracing the findings of GPI Atlantic’s "Education Indicators for the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index."

I share Dr. Corbett’s commitment to a progressive vision of education, and there is much in the report of value. However, I strongly disagree with the proposed move away from universal testing signalled in the document.

The motivating impulse throughout Dr. Corbett’s overview is the idea that standardized testing promotes the image of education "as a functional tool for the perpetuation of a particular kind of economy or an established set of social relations." We are invited to view the activity of universal testing, and the rankings that follow from the data, as akin to "a simple input-output, production procedure like any industrial process."

By contrast, the model offered by the GPI "through a focus on multiple literacies … goes well beyond traditional definitions of print literacy to include scientific, health, nutritional, arts, media, civic, political, ecological, statistical and other literacies." The GPI approach is "also sensitive to indigenous knowledge and by the way that formal education has typically been constructed and measured as a neutral process which both ignores the culturally contested nature of knowledge and the way that identifiable equity-seeking groups have been excluded from full educational participation."

I do not have the expertise in educational theory to evaluate these claims. But I can offer reflections from years of teaching university students, and share some concerns as the father of a five-year-old.

The best gift I can receive on the first day of term is a classroom of students who can read carefully, write effectively and have basic literacy in the sciences. Such students can think critically and are alert to the prejudices, and fads, of the day. They are positioned to go as far as their talents will take them. None of this is possible without the basic skill set in place. No sum of "multiple literacies" is an adequate substitute. No appeal to "equity-seeking groups" will successfully camouflage the omission.

By diminishing, or eliminating, the role of universal testing in our P-12 system, we remove the one scoring system that can map how well the core elements in education are being realized. Progressivists in education should be alarmed by this prospect. It robs the system of the ability of oversight and self-correction. It robs students and parents of the confidence that the system is delivering the basic skill set that makes critical reflection in a complex world possible.

Unwittingly, the shift away from universal testing signalled in the GPI report plays into the hands of ideological conservatives. It is worth remembering that standardized testing originally came from progressivists. It offered a way of pushing merit to the centre of education, pushing out privilege and the climate of "who you know" over "what you know."

It is often the case that universal testing offers the one hope for a ticket out from under the sharp edge of exclusion. Readers will have their own examples. I have two. My wife found her initial evaluations, prior to the taking of tests, slotted her into the B level stream. It was only testing that revealed that the truck driver’s daughter outpaced the doctor’s son. My mother, born in England during a time of intense class prejudice, had a similar experience. It was only the British civil service exams that afforded her the opportunity of a position in Westminster.

Watering down the role of universal testing will effectively cut the legs from under this ladder. Moreover, it will diminish the already too weak public voice that can hold our politicians accountable for failure in the educational system.

The recent OECD PISA data (2006) ranked Nova Scotia’s students (15-year-olds) substantially below the national averages in reading, mathematics and science. Can any parent forget (or forgive) successive education ministers shrugging off dismal universal test results with the embarrassing refrain that "there is room for improvement"?

We will not have even that small degree of leverage if we shift policy away from measuring a few core capacities (reading, writing, basic literacy in science). Nothing will make the politicians blush if they can disguise failure behind a broad array of alternative measures of "success."

Copyright © 2008, The Chronicle Herald