Assessing student progress is an essential part of the education system. However, for testing to have real value it needs to reflect what we know about the way children learn. Testing also needs to be followed up with targeted resources and institutional action in order to effectively serve its purpose. Unfortunately, despite what the Liberal government would like parents to believe, that’s simply not happening right now.

The world has changed considerably since the foundation skills assessment (FSA) tests were first introduced. Now, more than ever, problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity are the skills that are necessary for success. While the basics of reading, writing and math are still critically important, we must reach beyond these basics and ensure our children are equipped to deal with a future that will only be more fast-paced and ever-changing than the world we know today. We can’t afford to continue to apply 20th century methods to 21st century education; we can do better, and we must do better.

FSA tests were originally introduced to provide a snapshot of student achievement that could be used to identify students, schools and vulnerable children across the province. However, they are no longer able to effectively fill this purpose, not just because they fail to measure all the right things, but because they have been undermined by the ongoing controversy of using the results to rank schools.

FSA tests were never designed to be used as a tool for ranking schools, and using them to do so is highly misleading. Unfortunately, this practice has been allowed to flourish under the B.C. Liberal government, and as a result many parents are refusing to let their children write these tests. If children aren’t writing the tests, it’s impossible to use them to identify students who need help and schools that need additional resources.

It’s important to understand that these so-called school rankings don’t tell the whole story of what is going on in schools. They don’t tell the story of the child refugee who is just learning English; they don’t tell the story of the child who was tired when they wrote the test because they slept on a couch and didn’t have breakfast; and they don’t tell the story of the student with learning disabilities who has overcome incredible challenges and vastly improved their reading skills.

The rankings also don’t tell the stories of exceptional students working with exceptional teachers to do exceptional things. You can’t look at the rankings and learn that students from Gladstone secondary school in Vancouver beat more than 400 teams from around the world to take home both first and second place in the 2012 VEX Robotics World Championship. Not only were these students the first Canadians to ever win this championship, two teams from Gladstone school were competing for the top spot.

New Democrats want to work with parents, teachers, school districts, administrators and other educational experts to design new assessment tools that better reflect the goals of 21st-century learning, identify the needs of our children, and help us target resources in our school system.

In the short term, while new tests are being developed, a New Democrat government would move to randomized testing using the existing FSA test. This will ensure we still get information about the unique challenges facing individual districts and schools without the controversy and chaos created by school rankings.

Given the importance of this issue, we believe it’s necessary to act quickly to end the practice of misusing FSA tests for school ranking so we can have a productive discussion about how best to improve the way we identify students with learning challenges and schools that need additional resources.

The B.C. Liberal government is not up to the challenges facing British Columbia today. They’ve lost focus and don’t have a clear plan. Adrian Dix and B.C.’s New Democrats will take practical steps to bring positive change that restores trust in government and makes life better for B.C. families. That includes improving the way our school system identifies the educational needs of our children and acts to address them.