huffing and puffing

On Friday I wrote about the National Union of Teachers' position on standardized testing for elementary students in England.

That afternoon I received a newsletter from the Ontario Literacy Coalition pointing me to this release from the Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities about a "a study on the feasibility of creating an assessment tool, or suite of tools, for the Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) program."

Why?

• Because no single tool currently exists that meets the assessment needs of all streams and transition pathways;
• To provide a means that is compatible with the Adult Literacy Curriculum [due in 2010] of assessing learner skill attainment as part of the Continuous Improvement Performance Management System (CIPMS);
• To advance the work of the Learning Ministries in developing a common assessment environment based on the Essential Skills between MTCU, Ministry of Education (EDU) and Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (MCI)
• To provide Ontario with the capability of measuring literacy gains across LBS streams and sectors in a way that is compatible with other jurisdictions in Canada and worldwide, building on the 500-point scale common to both the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the Essential Skills.

And in plain English?

• we want to create a test that will work in all the learning programs funded by the government
• we want to measure students' achievements against a standard developed by the government
• we want the standard to be the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the Essential Skills
• we want to be able to compare student achievement in Ontario with student achievement in other provinces and other countries

How?

• Evaluate the requirements of the Learner Skill Attainment assessment framework that will form part of the Adult Literacy Curriculum;
• Analyze MTCU, EDU and MCI assessment needs and requirements;
• Identify the range of assessment needs that could be met through a tool or suite of tools;
• Determine stakeholder assessment requirements, considering factors such as ease of use and length of time for test administration;
• Gauge the capacity of stakeholders to deliver assessment services, their training requirements, and ongoing support needs.

In plain English?

• we will make sure that the test will measure student achievement against standards developed by the government
• we will make sure that the test will meet the needs of the government
• we will make sure that the test is easy to administer
• we will determine what training and support literacy workers (?*) need to learn how to administer the test

Professor Smithers will be truly chuffed.

And just to continue with this incredibly garbled metaphor, here is one of my very favourite You Tube videos:

*I am never quite sure what the term "stakeholder" means from place to place.
In this document it seems to refer to different groups in different sentences.