Foundation Skills Assessment Test for B.C. Students - Motion

May 8, 2006

"Today I would like to introduce the following motion:

Be it resolved that this House support the Foundation Skills Assessment as it provides valuable information on how well BC students are learning skills necessary to succeed in life.

I hope members from both sides of the House will support this motion. What is the foundation skills assessment, FSA? FSA is a set of tests taken by grade four and grade seven students in B.C.'s public schools and funded independent schools. Starting today these tests take approximately four and a half hours to complete. That is an annual assessment of how students are performing in reading, writing and math. The reading comprehension and numeracy components consist of multiple choice questions and open-ended questions. The writing component consists of first drafts of two writing tasks.

Madam Speaker, the foundation skills assessment is an important tool that has helped us measure how students are doing in school since 2000. Schools and school districts need to know how well students are doing so that they can make plans for improving achievement. Teachers and parents would like to know how well students are performing in important skills and whether the students need support in a particular area to ensure they receive the best overall education possible.

Government and taxpayers are interested in how well the school system is doing and in ensuring that resources are directed where they are needed most. Based on the FSA results and other information provided by students, teachers, parents and principals, school planning councils would have the information necessary to set goals and direct the resource needed to aim for these goals.

The overall majority of B.C.'s parents, and aboriginal parents in particular, support the provincial assessment program because it provides a fair, clear way of seeing how their children are doing in the key areas of reading, writing and math. The foundation skills assessments are carefully constructed to connect directly to our B.C. curriculum, which is the product of thousands of B.C. teachers' efforts and is one of the finest and internationally recognized curriculum programs in the world.

Teachers who cover the provincial curriculum will prepare their students for the FSA task. Teachers don't have to teach to the test if the provincial curriculum is covered in classes. The FSA gives a snapshot of the progress of B.C. students in reading, writing and math — key skills that all students need to have to succeed academically.

These tests do not come to us as students' marks in any way, so the students shouldn't suffer from any so-called test anxiety. It is part of their learning process. Foundation skills assessments are provided as an information service, and unlike the high stakes system, no students, parents, teachers or school are negatively impacted by the information.

Last Friday I attended part of the BCCPAC meeting in Burnaby, and in one of the booths I found a display very interesting. It's a computer program which analyzes the FSA data-set to provide answers to questions like: are there any trends in student performance at
the school, district and provincial levels? The availability of the foundations skills assessment data as well as performance-standard data allows B.C. districts and schools to have a student achievement focus that is reliable and valid. I believe that FSA results would be important information for district accountability contracts and for school long-term plans developed by school planning councils.

Over the last five years FSA results in British Columbia have indicated that our school system, our educational system, is doing an excellent job. Last year 79 percent of grade four students and 77 percent of grade seven students were meeting or exceeding expectations in reading. B.C.'s standard for meeting and exceeding expectations are among the highest in the world. We should encourage our students to write these FSA tests between today and May 19.

In 2003 the student achievement task force examined improvement systems around the world. They came to the conclusion that the amount of classroom and provincial assessment is at the right balance in this province. Systems with too much national, state or provincial assessment become test-dependent, and performance on tests drives the system. Systems with too little large-scale assessment lose the confidence of the public because of the absence of independent information about how well the system is doing.

Madam Speaker, I welcome the debate on this motion."

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