藤儿点评：在加拿大BC省，“基础学能测验”（FSA）的结果，是评判一个学生或一个学校好坏的唯一标准。

BC省的这一做法，违背了具有加拿大独特价值观的《自由与人权宪章》——倡导宽容、多极、个人和政府在行使权利和责任方面的自觉意识。

以位于BC省东南部一夫多妻社区的Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School为例，2011年的菲沙学会（Fraser Institute）年度排名也在满分榜上（10/10）。那是否说明一夫多妻孕育的宝宝更聪明呢？然而，这所学校的课程由于受到特定宗教信仰的影响，而没有得到BC省教育厅的承认，因此校方不能向毕业生颁发中学毕业证书。虽然在这个一夫多妻社区出生的孩子在全省（FSA）学测中排名全省第一，但是，这些孩子很多都中途退学，绝大多数都不会中学毕业。这一典型范例，说明无论是什么学校，学生自己想要用功念书，以及家长的督促才是孩子求学路上的重点。这个重点在每个家庭落实了，无论何时何地参加何种小学、中学和大学的标准化考试，孩子们都会鹤立鸡群。

......

事实上，同上述的一夫多妻社区一样，很多一夫一妻家庭中聪明伶俐的孩子最终都一事无成，难道不是家长的问题？

排名（10/10）在BC省教育厅的眼里是打分（scoring），而在老天的眼里，它只代表了一个孩子的潜能的很少的一点儿......

孩子就是孩子，他们不需要FSA。每学期/学年的考试还不够吗？FSA测试的是一个孩子所拥有的无限巨大潜能中的那点区区雕虫小技（reading, writing and numeracy）......

既然是“雕虫小技”，BC省教育厅就应该放手鼓励，让每一位家长/监护人带着孩子们DIY。也许官僚们还没注意到，在学校成绩优秀的孩子，不光他/她自己在家里也很用功地学习，他/她的家长/监护人通常都是尽责尽职的。

再说，在工业自动化为导向的今天，无人汽车已经上路了，没必要逼迫公立学校的老师们做“累脖工”吧？通过学校、家长和孩子们的共同努力，让孩子们的“悟性”早早地觉醒，学校成绩自然水到渠成；老师们上课时只需抛砖引玉、画龙点睛，家家英雄出少年；老师们人人拿着高福利的年薪，享受着带薪的长假，笑傲江湖，何乐而不为啊！同时，BC省特殊需要的学生和ESL学生的表现也会随之显著改善，省下的钱可用于奖励优秀学生。当然，一副为人师表，却不会“画龙点睛、抛砖引玉”的老师，就直接淘汰了。

总之，必须面对现实：虽然随着BC省政府逐年不断递增教育拨款；从2000年就开始专款大力推动开展FSA标准化考试，如此BC教育并未从实质上改变BC人民的命运。BC省的低收入家庭比率却在全国居首，且继续增长。目前，即使有低收入家庭补助，仍有多达20%的孩童及青少年位于贫困线之下。这些孩童现在还在不断地遭到FSA的大规模折磨和摧残。等到他/她们成家立业之后，不难想象，接下来的一代将会坐上赤贫的直通车......

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来源：网路 2015-02-11

你怎么看:卑诗中小学终止统一考试

图片来源: CBC

加拿大不列颠·哥伦比亚省（卑诗省）最近正在对小学四年级和初中一年级的学生进行一年一度的统一考试。这种称作“基础学习能力评估测验”的考试今年从1月12日开始，到2月20日结束。

该省围绕此种考试的争论已经多几年。卑诗省教师联合会呼吁停止这种考试。教师联合会的主席吉姆·艾克尔（Jim Iker）说，基础学习能力评估测验即不会对学生的学习有帮助，也不会对教师的教学有好处。相反，他会给很多学生带来不必要的压力。艾克尔还说：“这种测试是在给学校上弦，让他们互相比较学生的分数、对立竞争。每年都会发生一次”。因此，今年从一月中旬起，他们给家长发出信函说，可以让孩子找理由不参加这一考试。

省政府教育部门以前是说，此项考试的目的是了解全省学生在阅读理解、 写作和数学方面的全面情况，以便帮助省教育部门，地区教育局乃至各个学校对教学质量做出评估。但现在也开始重新考虑这种考试的利弊。

在家长委员会方面， 目前仍是以赞同这一测验为主。 赞同者认为它可以提供有关学校教学质量的重要信息。联合会的主席普迪福特说：“比如一个地区的教育局发起一项早期阅读的项目， 另一个教育局采用的是不一样的教学方法， 采用基础测试的方法就能鉴别出两种方法的区别”。



但艾克尔说，省教师联合会正在研究是否有其他的评估方法来考核学生的学习效果和学校的教学质量。

围绕着这一争论，卑诗省教育部正在研究和起草新的教育战略构想，并为此在1月30日召开研讨会，邀请了一些国际知名的教育专家，听取他们的意见。参加会议的有150多名教育工作者及对教育改革感兴趣的商界和社区领袖。 来自美国的华人教育专家赵勇博士以自己在中国学习和教课的亲身经历说，所有的标准化测验都是为了教育机构的需要，不仅会扼杀孩子们的学习热情，还会浪费大量的时间。

赵勇曾在中国的中学教授英语。现在是美国俄勒冈大学教育学院“全球及在线教育中心”的主任， 也是一名资深教育顾问。他在2012年被美国《教学杂志》评为在教育科学方面最有影响力的10位专家之一， 并在2013年获得教学领导者杰出贡献奖。

周勇博士在研讨会的发言中说，当今世界实行的一套教育制度使创造力降低，歧视那些有不同能力的学生。如果要让学生具有创造性， 勇于创业，那有些基本的东西是无法越过的。这些基本的东西来自激情和智慧。而有时候，我们有些教育方式却在扼杀他们的兴趣。

他建议教师在教学时尽量少给出明确的结论，而是给学生更多的学习主动权，更加重视学生的独立思考，鼓励他们发展富有意义的技能，同时更好地去利用全球资源。

他在研讨会后接受记者的采访时说：“我的终极建议是废除所有的标准化测试。 因为它不仅浪费钱，没有什么价值，还毁了家长，毁了学校。它把学生和教师都绑在测试的风险上面”。

教师联合会主席吉姆·伊克尔很欣赏周勇博士的主张，说像是“呼吸到了新鲜空气”。他说：“现在的工作场所都希望年轻人能够创新，自信自力，有社交能力。而这些都不是标准化测试所能带来的”。

卑诗省教育部长彼得·法斯宾德（Peter Fassbender）则在会上介绍说，政府正在与几所学校的教育工作者合作开展一项试验性教学，称作“K-12创新战略”。这种教学的重点强调根据每个孩子的特点进行教学。 突出‘个性化学习’的理念，并给学生和老师更多的空间去探索各自不同的能力。

法斯宾德说：“我们赞同周勇博士的想法。但不可能一下子全转过来，而要循序渐进。我们也不会自上而下地强推，而是鼓励学生去探索什么是自己想要的”。

省教育部还发布了一个更新教育的规划纲要，它更好地阐述个性化学习的概念，并就如何评估学生的学习效果提出了进一步的方法。教育部准备成立一个工作小组，与各个学区、参与的学校、有关团体如C教师联合会保持联系。

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来源： http://donaldgutstein.com/eight-distortions-and-other-problems-in-the-fraser-institutes-report-card/

Eight Distortions and Other Problems in the Fraser Institute’s Report Card

The Fraser Institute says its report card is based on the Foundation Skills Assessment tests written by children in Grades 4 and 7 across the province. But is it really?

1. The actual FSA results account for less than half of a school’s ranking. The rest is based on the institute’s manipulations of the numbers.

Grades 4 and 7 reading, numeracy and writing tests account for 7.5 percent each, for a total of 45 percent. With so much of the ranking not based on actual test scores, distortions are created in the results a school obtains. Consider the case of Torquay Elementary in Victoria, which the Fraser ranked as 131st in its 2009 report. University of Victoria education professor Helen Raptis notes that the percentage of Torquay‘s Grade 4 students that met or exceeded expectations on the FSAs was 97 percent (for reading), 85 percent (writing), and 87 percent (numeracy). These figures, Raptis observes, are significantly higher than those for Pacific Christian School, also in Victoria, which scored 83 percent (reading), 69 percent (writing), and 76 percent (numeracy). Yet Pacific Christian ranked 108th.

Scored higher on Ministry of Education-administered tests, but lower on Fraser Institute rankings. Why? Let’s look at the other variables.

2. Twenty percent of a school’s ranking comes from differences between the results achieved by boys and girls. This artificially depresses the scores of schools with students of lower socio-economic status where, typically, gender differences are more pronounced.

Worse, and inexplicably, the Fraser gives more weight to gender differences than to the actual results. Gender differences in Grade 7 numeracy and reading tests (what happened to writing?) account for 10 percent each. The actual test results account for only 7.5 percent each.

3. Twenty-five percent of a school’s ranking comes from the percentage of tests “not meeting expectations.” This result penalizes low-performing schools by accounting for their low scores twice.

4. Ten percent of a school’s ranking comes from the percentage of tests not written in a school. This indicator was added in 2007 “to encourage schools to ensure a high level of participation in the FSA testing program.” It is a not-so-veiled attack on the BC Teachers Federation and parents who don’t want their children to write the tests.

That punishing the BCTF is the purpose of this component of the rankings can be seen by comparing the Fraser Institute’s BC and Alberta elementary schools rankings. This component does not exist in the Alberta report card where the union is not as activist in opposing mandatory testing.

5. Obviously, the elite boys and girls private schools—the ones that top the rankings—do not have gender differences. In this case the institute assigns an additional 10 percent to tests not written and 10 percent to tests not meeting expectation, with no rationale for the choices.

6. Nearly a third of BC schools do not enrol Grade 7 students. Students in these schools move on to middle schools, usually after Grade 5. However, the Fraser assigns the Grade 7 FSA results to the schools the children attended in Grade 4. This is not credible because it assumes that the middle school, where the student has studied for nearly two years, doesn’t contribute to student achievement.

7. The method of statistical standardization used throughout the ranking exercise makes small differences look large. Converting the results into a scale from zero to ten makes the differences appear even greater.

8. The worst problem with the rankings is that they take little account of individual and family differences among schools, which include socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, gender, disability, ESL and school location.

Numerous studies done in the U.S. have found consistently that these factors account fully for school differences. In fact, poor public schools may even do better than wealthy private schools, when these factors are fully accounted for.

In Canada, a 2006 Statistics Canada study found that “higher income is almost always associated with better outcomes for children.”

Ignoring such key factors can lead to some bizarre results. On the 2011 report card for BC elementary schools, for instance, Roosevelt Park in Prince Rupert was ranked 874th out of 875 schools in the province. David Johnson, an economist with the C.D. Howe Institute, also ranks BC schools and he does take some—but not all—socio-economic factors into account. Based on his rankings, Roosevelt Park, with 90 percent Aboriginal and 32 percent special needs students, rates as one of the top 17 schools in the province!

How is such an enormous discrepancy possible? And why does the institute manipulate the numbers so drastically?

As an ideologically driven organization, it can’t allow student achievement results to be related to income and other individual and family characteristics.

The purpose of the report card is to demonstrate—and repeat over, and over, and over again—that the school—its teaching, counselling and administration—is responsible for student achievement.

Its mission is transform an effective, well-functioning public education system into a jungle of schools competing for students, funding, teachers and yes! investors.

The report card is based on the doctrine espoused by the Fraser’s long-time friend and associate, Milton Friedman. In a 1955 essay, “The role of government in education,” Friedman first called for “the denationalization of education.”

In 1995, Friedman renewed his call to privatize public education in a major article in the Washington Post. (“Public schools: Make them private,” 19 Feb 1995, C7). Public schools were not really public at all, he declared, “but simply private fiefs primarily of the administrators and the union officials.” Government schools—his term for public schools—needed competition from the private sector, which could transform education, just like UPS and Federal Express had transformed package and message delivery.

Two years later the institute started ranking schools. The report card wraps the Friedman doctrine in “research” and delivers the results to the public thanks to the participation of a compliant commercial media.

And gradually the climate of ideas about the centrality of public education in a democracy changes.

- See more at: http://donaldgutstein.com/eight-distortions-and-other-problems-in-the-fraser-institutes-report-card/#sthash.atZZmWFj.dpuf

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来源：世界新闻网 2015-02-13

卑诗低收入家庭比率全国居首 且继续增长

根据2014年的官方统计资料显示，卑诗省的低收入家庭比率全国各省最高，几乎有五分之一的孩童属于低收入家庭，也就是有20%的孩童及青少年来自低收入家庭，贫困比例为全加拿大最高。

统计资料显示，卑省低收入家庭于2010年占全省比率为14.3%，至2013年的比率增至18.6%，可说是不断上涨，此比率已超出全国平均值的5％。

会造成此现象的原因，分析员表示，可能与卑诗省的单亲妈妈家庭比例较高有关，这个数值从21.5%呈双倍成长到50%。

卑诗省府在致力减少低收入家庭的报告上，列出16项改革措施，包括提高最低工资、改善联邦儿童税优惠、让房屋和教育支出更容易负担等方案，希望低收入家庭能获得更多的补助。