Janet posted this at her blog site about the Burnaby trustees wanting to include parental income, and their education level in relation to poor scores on Foundation Skills Assessments. Here's the article from the Burnaby local paper.
A quote from the piece:
Helen is asking (that we) let the Ministry of Education know ... that there are other factors that are important," she said.
The FSA tests are meant to give the provincial government a snapshot of how kids are doing, but critics say they are a narrow measure of achievement, ignoring factors, like poverty, that affect students' performance.
For the record, being poor does not affect your ability to perform. Being poor does not affect your intelligence, neither does your parents education.
Logically speaking, students do mirror their parents on many fronts. Blue collar parents more often than not, have children who are blue collar workers. The same goes for white collar workers. In my opinion, it's not even a matter of parental expectation, rather it's what the child sees and has mentored before them.
But what these trustees are saying, and for that matter a lot of others (Clyde Hertzman et al), is that the correlation between income and parent education is what affects that child's learning. But if my supposition is correct and it's more mentoring, then how or why should that affect how a child performs in school? It doesn't. Not unless they're saying children of lower income parents are less intelligent. That is the implication.
This whole subject really angers me because of how elitist it really is. They'd tell us that no breakfast etc is what makes it harder to learn. Granted, but how many students are coming without breakfast? Not enough proportionately to make their FSA case.
Thus ends my diatribe on one of my biggest pet peeves regarding the whole FSA thing.
So, if you live in Burnaby, you'll want to check out the article to see who voted and how.
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SCIENTIA EST POTENTIA
Knowledge is power
The Schools We Need
