Make lemonade with FSA Lemons


(Vancouver Sun; published May 20th)

I agree with many of the criticisms of FSA testing made by BCTF president Irene Lanzinger. I am an experienced (Independent school) administrator of the tests and I concur that the style and substance of these tests is highly flawed. Accordingly, drawing conclusions about a child’s intelligence let alone a school’s performance based on FSA test results is suspect.

Where I part company with Ms Lanzinger is in her zealous insistence on scrapping of the tests. I think that if the Ministry truly wanted to do students a service it would support the FSA experience as an opportunity for all students to learn various test-taking skills, to analyze test results, to sit tests until they were satisfied with their results, and to recognize how they could improve testing performance the next time they faced them. Tests are a fact of life. Why not seize this opportunity to provide students with something of lifelong value instead of a two-week migraine.

– Michael Maser
Director, SelfDesign Learning Community

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