There has been quite a lot about Education in the media in the last few days. I'll be the first to admit I don't do a very good job of getting my head out of the classroom and taking a look at the bigger picture issues. But here is an opportunity for us to do just that. I've collected a few articles and blog posts to read surrounding the new assessment plan implemented by the Saskatoon Public School Division (SPSD). The essence of the subject of debate can found in the the following quote from the SPSD's Administrative Procedures Manual.
"Separation of Academic and Non-academic Evidence: As indicated in all renewed curriculum documents, assessments collect information about student achievement of curriculum outcomes. Personal and social behaviours are important and are reported separately from academic behaviour." - Administrative Procedures Manual, Saskatoon Public Schools, page 119.
Below are a number of articles and videos I've found about the controversy along with the primary sources for each.
CBC article from September 27th - English teacher Katie Kehrig, SPSD superintendent John Dewar, assessment expert Ken O'Connor
Toronto Sun article from September 27th - SPSD superintendent John Dewar
CBC article from September 28th - U. of R. English professor Marcel DeCoste and SPSD Superintendent John Dewar
National Post Article from September 28th - SPSD superintendent John Dewar
CBC radio interview - assessment expert Ken O'Connor
CBC video from September 28th - retired teacher Cheryl Shirley (spelling?) and U. of R. English professor Marcel DeCoste
CBC article from September 29th - Premiere Brad Wall
MacLean's On Campus article from September 29th - no direct sources mentioned
CBC video from September 30th - other Saskatchewan school divisions websites
CBC article from October 1st - Prairie South School Division Director of Education Jeff Finnel
I'd also like to add Dean Shareski's blog post as another good read on the issue. Dean goes broader and brings in the issues from the US and a new documentary out called "Waiting for Superman."
I recognize that the list is VERY slanted towards the CBC. I tried to find other news items on the story, but wasn't able to find many. If you have other sources, please edit this page and add to them.
Please check out at least a few of the articles and get a sense of the issue. In the comment section, write down your reflections.
UPDATE:
Some new news articles:
Saskatoon Homepage article from Sept 28th - retired principal Denis Hall
Winnipeg Free Press article from October 4th - no primary sources listed
The StarPheonix article from October 7th - SPSD board chair Ray Morrison and assessment expert Ken O'Connor
The StarPheonix article from October 7th - no primary sources listed, but refers to Quebec study from 1990s by Perron
Comments (3)
Russell Munkler said
at 11:48 am on Oct 8, 2010
First, I'd like to say that I am a proponent of a new assessment, evaluation, and reporting system. I believe that academic ability and academic behavior need to be reported separately. However, before such a system can work, there is one key paradigm that needs to shift. And that paradigm is the belief that a student's entire success (academically and behaviorally) can be summed up in a "two digit number," to quote Dean Shareski.
I believe that behaviors such as poor attendance, handing in assignments late, or plagiarizing work need to have consequences and need to be reported (to students, parents, and others such as Universities). Not only do we need to change how we report our evaluations, but we need to change what we report as well.
I believe I understand Professor Decoste's opposition to the new system. Within the old system, those who had sound academic ability, but with poor academic behaviors typically had average to poor marks. Those who lacked the academic abilities but had good academic behaviors also had average to poor marks. Only those who had sound academic ability and had good academic behaviors got good marks. Reducing these two facets of a student's learning to a two digit number made it easy for universities to determine who would be most successful in their institution.
Continued in next comment
Russell Munkler said
at 11:48 am on Oct 8, 2010
Reporting on academic behavior is even more difficult to quantify than academic ability and as such any new system that separates the two will most likely lead to a more qualitative reporting on academic behavior. This would make it very difficult for universities to determine entrance requirements. The admissions department would need to actually read the descriptions of those behaviors and somehow combine that with a report on the student's academic ability to determine who would be successful in their institution instead of allowing a computer to simply compute an average mark. This would be a costly process. So I can understand why universities might resist this change.
But as a K-12 teacher, my responsibility is not to make it easy for universities to determine who would make good candidates, nor it is it my responsibility to make it easy for employers to determine who would a good employee. My responsibility is to help students learn. To help them learn both the academic skills and the behaviors necessary to be successful. That means teaching them curricular content, learning skills, and appropriate behaviors. If I don't assess AND REPORT these factors separately, how will a student know what they need to do to improve on a whole?
There must be consequences for poor behaviors, and those consequences must be separate from academic consequences. But it will be very difficult to create appropriate consequences to poor behavior for high school students so long as we maintain the paradigm that believes, in the end, the only evaluation of a student that matters is the 2 digit number on the report card.
dchernishenko said
at 10:21 pm on Oct 8, 2010
I totally agree with your last comment. I feel that the biggest stumbling block is "what other consequences for late and plagiarized assignments?" What if the student doesn't complete that task? I think that a lot of emphasis is on that 2 digit number. There were other perspective teachers that had higher grades than me when I applied for my job. If that 2 digit number was all that mattered, I would not be employed right now. Other things need to be considered when looking at a student's success as a whole. Is this new grading policy the answer, probably not. It has a lot of "what if's" and backlash already. Remember, the education that we went through made us the people we are today, I think that they did a good job for me. Maybe not for everyone, but does that mean that all of these new ideas and paradigm shifts will? I know that the skill sets for today's jobs are different, but how different? I guess only time will tell.
You don't have permission to comment on this page.