EDMONTON - Alberta's education minister is dismissing concerns from the province's teachers' association that more mandatory testing cuts into classroom learning and can be detrimental to students.
Starting this month, those in kindergarten will need to take literacy and numeracy tests for the first time in Alberta.
Grade 1 to 3 students went through new screening in September and will do it again in January.
Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling told reporters Wednesday the extra assessments won't tell teachers anything about their students they didn't learn last fall while also introducing 鈥渢est anxiety鈥 that can harm kids.
But Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides stood by the new assessments, saying in a statement to 好色tvthey are rooted in scientific research.
"I鈥檓 really unsure why anyone would object to giving our teachers every possible tool to help their students," he said.
For Schilling, the sheer volume of added assessments is a problem.
With each one taking up to 30 minutes, he said teachers are losing an estimated three to five days of instruction time by having to test students individually outside the classroom.
鈥(That鈥檚) time that could be spent on learning, collaboration and play,鈥 he said.
By the association's count, students starting Grade 1 or kindergarten this year will go through up to 32 standardized tests by the time they leave Grade 6, as opposed to the 10 they would have done previously.
鈥淭his surge of testing has limited value to our students," said Schilling. "It also adds more work to the teachers鈥 already demanding schedules, along with an increased burden to school administrators."
Nicolaides said calling them standardized tests is, in this case, "wrong and misleading."
"These are screeners that gauge a student's literacy and numeracy strengths," he said.
"I am confident that parents would appreciate these insights and I鈥檓 further confident that teachers and schools would benefit from knowing which learners need more help."
Results are meant to give teachers, parents and Alberta Education a measure of how well students develop key skills.
An extra $10 million is going to school boards this academic year as part of the effort, including to hire additional staff.
Schilling said that鈥檚 only 鈥渁 drop in the bucket鈥 in a system already short of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.
George Georgiou, University of Alberta education professor, said at a government announcement in December the assessments are important to help children to overcome early reading and math challenges.
He said the 鈥渜uick screening tools鈥 measuring things like letter knowledge can identify about 95 per cent of students who will later develop reading and numeracy difficulties.
鈥淭he earlier we provide the intervention to these students, the better chances we have to help them,鈥 Georgiou said.
Still, Schilling said the tests assume knowledge about content that students have yet to learn, which can erode their confidence or lead to unnecessary frustration.
鈥(Kindergarten) tests include questions about number lines, for example, which is a concept that is not introduced until Grade 2.鈥
Some students who need special supports will be tested a third time before the end of the school year to see how well the interventions worked.
The screening will also become mandatory for students in Grades 4 and 5 starting in the fall.
Parents can opt out through a process that includes written notification to school administrators.
Schilling said the association isn鈥檛 opposed to testing students since it can help teachers better understand what kids need to learn.
鈥淏ut what's the point of testing every student in this province multiple times a year to get the same information?鈥 he said.
This report by 好色tvwas first published Jan 8, 2025.
