ASSESSMENT must be separated from EVALUATION. Assessment is the ongoing data that we continually gather about ourselves and others. Parent's assess the prior understanding of the child every time they talk to them. Whether they say, " Dada."or "Your father will be home from work when he finishes his 4:00 pm meeting." they must assess the current understanding of the child to decide how to relate tohim/her. As teachers we assess to see where students are in their learning so that we are able to design instruction for them and think about how effective our past teaching has been. Evaluation is the decision we make regarding the assessment we have done. Evaluation is usually done to compare students to others. It is a normative process.

WHY DO WE ASSESS?

• to monitor a student's learning
• institutional gatekeeping

STANDARDIZED TESTING

PROVINCIAL TESTING

INTERNATIONAL TESTING

What can be useful to think about is why we assess. There are two reasons that we assess students. We, as teachers, assess for the same reasons that parents assess. We do not know how to approach a learner unless we are aware of the prior knowledge of the learner. We can not begin to teach calculus to a students that does not have a grasp of the principles of elementary algebra and trigonometry.and so we must assess where the student is at the moment of the teaching.

The second reason that we assess is to for institutional gatekeeping. This type of assessment is done at many levels and it is done to preform the function of reporting to another level. In the classroom, we find that we must report to the students, parents and about their learning. There may also be testing that is carried out at a board or provincial level(link to the provincial assessment in BC). In recent years we have seen testing that is even done at an international level.

In tests , such as the provincial testing that was done recently in BRITISH COLUMBIA the marks are used as pass fail criteria. The final mark is made up of 60% in school evaluation and 40% from the provincial examination. There are many precautions that should be made when looking at this type of evaluation procedure. Many are included in the cautionary notes given at this site. There are so many factors which can affect this type of assessment that they are too myriad to mention.

When we assess to determine prior learning then we are assessing a student against their past knowledge. When we participate in the institutional gatekeeping we are seeing how students measure up against other students. Frank Smith in his book "Joining the Literacy Club"feels that not only is this type of student evaluation which measures one child against another harmful it is downright detrimental. "To a large extent, grades and marks are the root of the problem. Grades and marks are the root of the problem. Grades are the sole reason that most school activities are undertaken, requiring or enticing students to engage in tasks they would never otherwise go near. And grades degrade undertakings that could otherwise be worthwhile on their own. Numerical and alphabetic indicators of relative standing do not guarantee good quality work, but working with other people does."(Smith,1988)

It leads us to the question of why this type of institutional "gatekeeping" is done. TOBIAS looks at how university science courses are affected by the method of grading which puts students on a bell curve. One's student's success can, in effect, ensure another's failure. This system of evaluating does not lead to collaborative effort. Knowledge and understanding is closely guarded and protected from others , not shared.

International testing can be used to justify systemic change to the education system. Maud Barlow in her book Class Warfare shows how unfair the testing which compares us to Japan can be. Barlow tells us that in Japan students with math ability are streamed early and sent to specialized math schools. By senior high only 25% of Japanese students take math. Therefore when their results are compared to the Canadian results it is like comparing apples to oranges. Yet this kind of international testing information has been used to build the myth that our schools are failing and our children are illiterate when actually library use in Canada has increased by 20% in the last ten years.