Provincial tests are only useful as a political tool

By Letter to the Editor on December 9, 2019.

It is interesting that Bill 22 passed the Legislature so quickly even though, with the exception of the premier and the UCP, the Albertans it directly affects don’t want to have anything to do with it. I am referring to the people who are having their pensions taken over by the government. The UCP maintain that the motivation for Bill 22 is to save money – $40 million in the case of the pension theft and $1 million over four years in the firing of the election commissioner.

Let’s save more money! In 2017-18 Alberta Education spent $10.8 million developing, administering, and marking diploma exams, $4.6 million on PATs, and $800 000 on SLAs, according to the ministry’s annual report. Most surprising is that the UCP is planning to expand the testing program! UCP spokesperson Matt Solberg says “He did not know how much new tests might cost,” according to the Edmonton Journal on April 4, 2019.

In this era of sustainability and austerity, where we justify cuts to education, health care, transparency etc. by “we can save $1 million over four years,” there is a strong argument that we need to cut the provincial testing program. It is especially necessary because these tests have no educational benefit. In essence, they are useless to the educational advancement of our students. The tests are also redundant as highly trained, professional teachers are being paid to test the students. They are only useful as a political tool for the government to track school and teacher performance while they ignore all other factors that impact student performance and, in the philosophy or the UCP, be a platform to allocate education funding.

Drew Barnes, MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat, insists parents want these tests. I say to Drew: Prove it. And even if they did (which I doubt), since it doesn’t matter what several hundred thousand Albertans think when it comes to pension “reform,” the UCP must cut the testing program to save $64.8-plus million over the next four years.

Jim Schmid

Medicine Hat