More to ranking than meets the eye
Shannon LeClair
Times Reporter
The Fraser Institute has once again released its report card on Alberta Elementary Schools. Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk says the Fraser Institute uses the Provincial Achievement Test (PAT) to determine the rating of different schools.
Lukaszuk said it is a test specifically written to measure curriculum, and the curriculum is a living document, which is continually revamped and updated.
It is meant to field test curriculum and to give curriculum developers with Alberta Education feedback on what is appropriate, and whether the teaching resources, such as textbooks, get the subject matter across properly so that the kids are actually learning it.
“Tests are much like polls, it depends how you ask a question you will get a different answer, that test has just been designed just for that curriculum,” said Lukaszuk.
“What Fraser Institute does is it takes that one test that was actually designed to measure just a little bit of curriculum, because every year we test something different in curriculum, and they make an assumption on how well a school performs.”
Lukaszuk said first off the test wasn’t designed for that, secondly it measures something different every year and finally it doesn’t take into account many other factors. Some of the other factors include the social economics, who the students are, what the population of the school is, what the parental involvement is, what the parent satisfaction is, and how many kids in the school qualify for either academic or sports scholarships.
“None of that is considered, it’s just a very, very narrow snippet of information. Actually what I am doing is, I will be putting out on our government website for ministry of education an information package on every school in Alberta that you will be able to click and then get all that additional information. Then you as a parent will decide which is the best school for your child,” said Lukaszuk.
He said something that may be important to one parent is not necessarily that same for someone else, and while the Fraser report will rank schools from first place to 665, the school which may be the first option for one parent, isn’t for another.
“All schools in Alberta are performing at a very high level, except they are different, they have a different flavour, different demographics,” said Lukaszuk.
“There are some schools in Alberta where 50 per cent of kids that enter that school don’t speak English, that is not taken into consideration when you look just at the score of PAT, but they have teachers that specialize in teaching English as a second language, that specialize in working with immigrant groups. Those kids by the time they reach Grade 12 perform at the same level as any other student.”
Lukaszuk said none of it is captured in the narrow snippet of information the Fraser Institute is testing on, which is why he plans to release the information packet online so that parents are able to make an informed choice on what fits their needs as the best school.
“We celebrate the success, but, and I’m telling you a big but, there is more to all of our schools than the PAT scores, and we are so fortunate in Strathmore to have great schools in our community,” said Paulette Chotowetz, principal of Sacred Heart Academy.
“Where I think people need to focus is that our students in Strathmore have choices and they have good choices of schools to go to. Every teacher in this community works very hard to do what’s good for kids. At Sacred Heart we’re proud of accomplishment but we take it in stride and we know that it is just one day, one hour of a moment in a whole school year.
“All of schools know that the Alberta Accountability Pillar is the best report for us, because it is input from our students, and our staff and our parents.”
Laurie Huntley, principal of Brentwood Elementary School, and Wayne Funk, principal of Westmount Elementary School, echo Chotowetz’s sentiments and agree the Alberta Accountability Pillar is what they choose to follow.
“As a school, we put considerably more stock into our Accountability Pillar results than we do in our rankings by the Fraser Institute. The Fraser Institute takes only one thing into consideration and we know that students are a lot more complex than that,” said Funk.
“Our Accountability Pillar Report is based on surveys of parents, students and staff as well as our PAT results. This report is prepared by Alberta Education, and we use this report as a guideline for our future planning. The report is dozens of pages long and we annually share the most pertinent results with our parents and staff.”
“This type of report allows schools to build on their strengths and address areas where growth is needed. The PAT results at Brentwood Elementary have maintained a rating of Excellence on the Accountability Pillar Survey over the past five years,” said Huntley.
“The same is true for all of the other categories as well. But we are much more than those statistics. We are a dedicated group of educators and parents who strive for excellence in education, and who are very proud of our school, our students, and all of our accomplishments.”
“Educationally I don’t think it (the Fraser report) is a very good tool in picking the school you need to be attending. Get into the schools and see (them) and have a conversation with the people there. That would be a much better way of taking a look at what you’re getting,” said Wheatland Elementary School’s Principal Kevin Lane.
Lukaszuk said the information packet is being created from information which has been collected over a number of years and he hopes to have it released to the website, education.alberta.ca in the next few months.