Re: Focus on achievement is destroying education, June 26

Focus on achievement is destroying education, June 26

My colleagues and I, co-founders of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network (CAfLN), agree with Mr. Kunin that the focus of schools should be on learning and that focusing on achievement data can detract from a focus on learning, but he displays a disappointing lack of understanding of how grading and assessment practices play into this.

He decries “fuzzier directives that would have students marked on their most “recent and consistent performance” in place of “strict percentages,” when in fact it is strict percentages that have historically distorted achievement, while using more recent and consistent performance makes school about learning. Emphasizing more recent performances acknowledges that students’ learning typically improves during a semester, while strict percentages, penalize students for early mistakes.

He also complains about the possibility that teachers’ marks may be challenged by parents or administrators, but this is what should happen. Teachers have to be able to make professional judgments and defend them without being defensive if they want to be seen as professionals.

Kunin is also wrong when he says the Ministry of Education did away with hard deadlines and prohibited deductions for late assignments. “Growing Success” strongly emphasizes the importance of students handing in assignments on time; when this doesn’t happen, the ministry provides a list of seventeen strategies that teachers may use. Number 17 on the list does allow deductions for late assignments but its position on the list indicates that it should be the last option that is used.

We agree that mark inflation, credit integrity and practices identified by Kunin are issues of concern. However, since he wants schools to be about learning, he needs to understand that final grades should be based on the teacher’s professional judgment of the more recent and consistent evidence of student learning.

Lorna Earl, Damian Cooper and Ken O’Connor

Assessment consultants, authors and founding members of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network, Scarborough