Medicine Hat gets a failing grade on exam prep, writing

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on October 25, 2017.

School is about preparing young people to be successful in their adult lives. So part of school is definitely about teaching kids social roles and responsibilities, and the general socialization of kids so they can learn how to get along and work well with others. But part of school is also about achieving good marks, teaching good study habits, enhancing core skills like reading, mathematics and effective writing so local students can go on to be successful in their post-secondary education and/or career training, and eventually be employable in society. It’s an important balance to get right and an important discussion to have as a society.

In this regard, the story published in the Medicine Hat News entitled “Hat students rank low in provincial PATs” drew considerable debate on the News Facebook page which fell broadly into two camps: Our education system is so flawed we are somehow producing defective kids, as shown by these PAT results; or our education system is educating children in a much more nuanced way, which cannot be ranked by something as unequivocal as a PAT test score.

These kind of tit for tat discussions, while invigourating for the highly-biased sides involved, do not get down to the marrow of the issue: Medicine Hat schools perform poorly when it comes to objective evaluation of students’ abilities, which does not mean we aren’t producing smart kids or nurturing students’ talents. A good percentage of our high school kids do graduate, and do go on to have successful university and college careers.

But the problem with that underperformance when it comes to objective measures like the PATs is it leaves the whole question open to debate. Obviously, not enough time and effort has been spent in Medicine Hat schools to help prepare students mentally and emotionally to be successful on these types of exams, exams of the type they will face, in one way or another, for the rest of their lives as they seek to further their careers and training.

All one has to do is click on the Fraser Institute’s reports on other schools in the area like Senator Gershaw in Bow Island or Vauxhall High, whose students perform far better on PATs than do Medicine Hat students, to see an example of a locally successful school coming from a similar background and resources to city schools which has found ways to help its students do extremely well on objective measure exams like the PATs.

Perhaps local school districts should be investing more time in speaking with schools like Senator Gershaw to figure out how they are doing it, rather than denying we have a problem in the first place.

As SD76 chair Rick Massini said in the article — the time for excuses has passed. While our schools have a wonderfully nurturing atmosphere for students which help them feel safe, cared for and inspired, when it comes to preparing for and writing exams Medicine Hat really needs to pull up its socks.