FSAs not the answer to under-funded education

Grade 4 and Grade 7 students in our district will soon be required to write the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) test. For many reasons, the B.C. Teachers' Federation, the Nicola Valley Teachers' Union, and the Princeton District Teachers' Union have opposed the mandatory writing of this test for years. This year we ask parents again to consider exempting their children from this test. Some people believe that public school teachers are somehow opposed to testing, let me assure you that we are not. What teachers oppose are inappropriate testing and the inappropriate use of the results of tests.

Teachers do not assess students' learning simply so that they have marks to put on report cards. The main purpose of classroom assessment is to support student learning, not simply to measure it. Teachers remain opposed to the FSA because it does not support student learning and actually interferes with instruction and learning opportunities. Furthermore, it is a costly waste of time and resources and is ineffective in improving student achievement. The result of this assessment does not help our students to learn or their teachers to teach - the FSA marks are not put on report cards. Nothing produced from the FSA is of any practical benefit for individual students or teachers.
Public school teachers are urging the Ministry of Education to adopt a two-year moratorium on all standardized tests, including the FSA. For all the above reasons we ask parents of students in these grades to consider having their sons and daughters excused from writing the FSA.

Improvements in public school education in B.C. will occur not as a result of any test analysis, but by ending the chronic under-funding of public education in this province.

Loch Eddy
President: Nicola Valley Teachers' Union.
Co-Chair: Nicola Valley and Princeton Teachers' Union

Robert Tarswell
President: Princeton District Teachers' Union
Co-Chair: Nicola Valley and Princeton Teachers' Union

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