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Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA)
The provincial government has been administering the Foundation Skills Assessment tests to all students in Grades 4 and 7 since 2000. This test does not help students learn or teachers teach. It takes valuable time and much needed resources away from
the classroom learning and undermines the ability to provide meaningful learning experiences for all students.
The FSA results are misused by a private organization to rank schools based on a very narrow measure. The FSA tests do not result in any additional funding or support for students.
Education deans and BC trustees support
BCTF position on ethical use of FSA data
In 2013–14, BC’s public education
system’s partner groups worked collaboratively in the Advisory Group on
Provincial Assessment (AGPA). Teachers, school administrators, district
management, school trustees, and university education departments discussed the
purposes of assessment and arrived at an agreed-upon set of principles to
inform a new provincial assessment program.
A central concern of all member groups
was the lack of protection of school and student data in the Foundations Skills
Assessment. Both the BC School Trustees’ Association and the deans of SFU and
UBC education faculties (co-chairs of AGPA) have joined the BCTF in once again
expressing to the Ministry of Education AGPA’s clear statement that the
government must act to prevent the unethical or unfair use of the FSA data.
Here are their letters of October 2017: