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Government fails to respond to calls for a moratorium on Grade Level of Achievement Reporting regime

Since early spring, the Association has raised concerns related to two initiatives launched by Alberta Education: Grade Level of Achievement Reporting (GLA) and the Computer Adaptive Testing project, recently morphed into Computer Adaptive Assessment (CAA). Both initiatives were launched without consultation with the profession and education partners and will dramatically change the face of student assessment and evaluation practices in K–9 classrooms.

GLA reporting will see teachers and jurisdictions required to assign and report to parents a whole-number grade in four core subjects by 2007/08. (This year, school jurisdictions and charter schools will initiate pilots for language arts and mathematics from one or more schools.) While touted as a way to support teachers’ assessment practices, the initial GLA trial in seven jurisdictions, most of whom who were involved as AISI projects, indicated marginal benefits and only after considerable expenditures of time and professional development resources.

At the 2005 Annual Representative Assembly, Alberta teachers unanimously called for a moratorium on the GLA reporting regime and an immediate halt to any activity related to the Computer Adaptive Testing project. As we go to press, the College of Alberta School Superintendents has also formally expressed concerns to the minister about the GLA initiative, and has withdrawn its representatives and called for reconsideration of the implementation plan.

This month’s surprise announcement that $1 million would be committed this year to the generation of an online data bank of multiple choice test questions for field testing in four core subjects in selected grades from 1 to 9—CAA—raises further questions about the government’s long-term vision for GLA. Not only were teachers and school jurisdictions not consulted on this costly online testing boondoggle, the $25,000 being provided to prepare the implementation Guide to GLA Reporting pales in comparison to the millions of dollars being poured into CAA over the next few years. Not only does CAA represent important issues in terms of the inappropriate use of educational technology in schools over the next few years, CAA will duplicate the efforts and expenditures dedicated to the current provincial achievement testing program. How GLA, CAA the provincial achievement testing programs and school-based assessments will line up remains a mystery given the lack of consultation by government. Indeed, there are indications that GLA data will be uploaded to central databases and compared to provincial achievement test results. CAA could also be used to deliver provincial achievement tests on demand in Grades 1–9.

Department officials continue to make tenuous links between the Alberta Commission on Learning recommendations and the Guide to Education: ECS to Grade 12, claiming that the goal of GLA and CAA is to enhance the assessment and reporting of student achievement. These claims ignore the fact that Alberta teachers and school jurisdictions are already providing world-class assessments and reporting of student learning. Indeed, if there is a gap in the current accountability system in the province, it lies in the government’s inability to put sufficient resources into classrooms that will build capacity to respond to the learning needs of students who have already been identified as requiring enhanced support. Misdirected technological solutions such as CAA and imposed accountability regimes such as GLA direct scarce resources and education dollars away from where they are needed most and diminish the professional functions and responsibilities of Alberta’s teachers.

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