The Refusal to Test Is the Refusal to Teach

Teachers develop and hand out tests to determine if students are learning the material presumably covered thoroughly in class.

If not, why not?

Consider who is demanding that teachers do their jobs and note the patronising response:

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, Cheryl Casimer of the First Nations Summit and Chief Terry Teegee of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations were among the seven leaders signing the Nov. 18 letter, which defended the tests as a way to enhance equity in the school system.

The Indigenous signatories say the FSA results “support the needs of populations underserved and marginalized by public education systems.”

Despite the fundamental disagreement with First Nations over this issue, the BCTF has not been ready to stop its extensive efforts to encourage public-school parents to withdraw their youngsters from the FSA tests in an attempt to undermine them.

“We see the rankings as being very damaging and dangerous to public education,” BCTF president Teri Mooring says in an October video. “The rankings serve no purpose except to perhaps promote private education.”

(Sidebar: would that be because teachers in those schools actually put more effort into teaching than banning province-wide testing?)

The “Cancel the FSA” website of the BCTF, which represents more than 45,000 public-school teachers, alleges the tests “take away from valuable classroom teaching,” “do not result in increased support for students” and “create anxiety for students.”

(Sidebar: testing shows the strength of teaching methods, the appropriateness of the curriculum, the fitness of the student and his home environment and if there are problems with any of them.)

When Mooring was asked what it feels like to oppose the First Nations leaders over the usefulness of the FSA results after talking this fall about the importance of “listening and learning with humility and respect” to Indigenous people and “decolonizing” education, she said, “I understand there’s tension there for sure.”

(Sidebar: how do you decolonise multiplication. I'll wait.)

The BCTF, she said, has for more than a decade found it “unethical” that the Fraser Institute publishes the results of the FSA and other standardized tests. The BCTF claims the institute wants to show most B.C. schools with top scores are private.

Saying she “totally understands and respects” that First Nations people and others want to collect information on learning, Mooring maintained the BCTF is shifting and “we’re not saying there shouldn’t be a provincial assessment.” She repeatedly talked about the need for a wide “conversation” about improving standardized testing.

 

(Sidebar: that's not what you are saying. That is not why you are trying to ban testing.)

 

How dare aboriginal parents demand that teachers do what is expected of them and fill in the gaps in their children's education?

Note how "colonisation" is like a cloak that covers a multitude of academic sins.

There is no self-reflection, no professional evaluation or a promise to do better on the part of the teachers. They desperately cover their unwillingness to test and respond to the results of those with some solid action, sound solutions. There is racism of lowered expectations and that cringing mention of “decolonizing".

(Sidebar: what a patronising cow!) 

If were the parents, I would block the teachers' paths to Starbucks.

Seriously.