Nova Scotia Education Minister Karen Casey has demonstrated achievement of some of the learning outcomes for this year. She recognizes that parents deserve to receive report cards that actually make sense. But she has not yet demonstrated the ability to significantly revise the onerous comment-writing guidelines and would benefit from using some common sense.
Think this is easy? The manual also reminds teachers not to refer to any behaviours such as study habits, homework completion, attendance, or attitude in their comments. The manual even provides a list of “useful” descriptors such as: “successfully interprets,” “has not yet demonstrated understanding,” and “needs more time to develop.”
So instead of telling parents that their kids would get better marks if they studied for tests, showed up for class and finished their homework, teachers are forced to write comments with useless verbiage. Not only that, every comment is expected to relate to a specific learning outcome.
Hence parents must decipher verbiage such as: “She could identify some cultural groups that have settled in, but struggled to explain their impact on, Canada. Student only occasionally used this learning to demonstrate an understanding of the interactions among people and places over time and the resulting effects on the environment. She needs to consider alternate points of view.”
Similarly, teachers must provide specific challenges and next steps for high-achieving students who need to keep doing what they are doing. However, in these situations, old-fashioned comments such as “More effort required” or “Excellent progress” would be a better way of getting the message across.
Forcing teachers to include strengths, challenges, and next steps in every comment without making reference to behaviour has more to do with enforcing a particular assessment ideology than improving student achievement. In the end, no one benefits — except consultants who get paid to try to solve the problems they themselves have created.
In this case, the next step for the education minister is obvious. She needs to reject her department’s rigid assessment ideology and empower teachers to use their own judgment on report cards. Article originally published in March 18 Chronicle Herald
