Alberta teachers say government’s assessment increase for elementary students ‘makes no sense’

The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) said students should be getting more support, not more tests, amid changes the province is making to its early years assessment framework.

In a letter to provincial school boards dated July 5, provided to Global News by the ATA, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides outlined changes to the mandatory literacy and numeracy screening for elementary students.

Kindergarten students will be required to do literacy and numeracy screening in January of each year, starting in 2025. This is the first time kindergarten students will do such assessments.

Starting this fall, children in grades 1 to 3 will go through mandatory screening assessments in September and January, with additional assessments in June for students identified in January as needing additional support.

Starting in September 2026, literacy and numeracy screening assessments for students in Grade 4 and Grade 5 will be introduced.

“When so many kids are falling through the cracks, we need to be giving them a safety net instead of measuring how fast they’re falling,” ATA president Jason Schilling said.

“Teachers don’t need a test to identify which students are struggling; they need smaller classes and more supports to get those kids additional help.”

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The education minister said Thursday the changes are meant to ensure students aren’t left behind and that they’re provided with early interventions if needed.

“The more that can be done to strengthen a student’s success in literacy and numeracy at the earliest possible opportunity, the greatest chances that they have for continued and future academic success,” Nicolaides said in an interview with Global News.

“This is all about supporting Alberta students and providing them with every possible resource in those critically important foundational years so that they can succeed.”

Students who struggle the most could go through as many as 32 tests by the time they leave elementary school, Schilling said. The previous total was 10, according to the ATA.

“Politicians and bureaucrats who have little knowledge and experience of the realities of Alberta’s classrooms might think this is a great idea, but teachers, who will end up spending hours administering tests and preparing students for them in September, January and June, do not,” Schilling said.

“They’re time-consuming, they take away time from teaching and they don’t necessarily tell information to teachers that they don’t already know from working with (students).

“You don’t need to be a teacher to see that this makes no sense.”

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Schilling said the ATA has been in talks with the government for a while now, trying to find ways to scale back the amount of testing for students, in order to provide teachers more time to spend directly with their students.

He believes teachers should be allowed to determine which students could benefit from an assessment and when.

“Teachers, who work day in and day out with children, already know how they’re progressing and who might need additional help. Teachers don’t need mass assessment to tell them what they already know from working with their students one on one or communicating with the student’s parents,” Schilling said.

“A better approach is to respect teachers’ professional judgment and allow them to determine which students could benefit from an assessment rather than repeatedly testing every child.”

Nicolaides maintained these are assessments, not tests, and they are meant to provide teachers with information to determine if a student is below grade level.

“The foundations in these early years is fundamentally about literacy and numeracy, and we have to pull out all the stops to make sure no student is left behind.”

Nicolaides said $10 million is allocated in budget 2024 to assist with early literacy and numeracy screening and assessment.