On March 16, the Legislative Assembly debated Motion 503, which read, "Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the government to eliminate provincial achievement tests for grade 3 students and consider alternative assessments for learning." You can read the full transcript of the debate on Motion 503 (the debate starts on page 416, which is page 30 of the 44 page PDF file).

Minister Hancock spoke to the Motion during the debate, and his remarks are reproduced below.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to rise and speak to the motion brought forward by the hon. Member for Bonnyville-Cold Lake. I want to start by thanking the hon. member for raising what I believe to be an exceedingly important issue, not just the issue of the provincial achievement tests at grade 3 but the issue of education and its importance to our students and to our community as a whole.

As you'll know, Mr. Speaker, and all members of the House will know, we're engaged in a very strong discussion about education over the course of the next year, talking about where we need to be as we educate our students in this province so that they can be ready for a global economy and a global community and so that they can be ready to participate locally as citizens in their local community and in their local economies. As we talk about the 21st century learner, we talk about the knowledge, skills, and attributes that our learner needs to have to be successful. We also need to determine how we know when we've achieved those essential elements of learning.

I would start by agreeing and by putting forward the concept that teachers are in the best position to assess the learning and the progress of the students in their classrooms. Teachers are professionals. They're trained as teachers, and they are in the classroom with the students on a day-to-day basis, both promoting learning of concepts and assessing how that learning is going. Assessment for learning happens, I would submit, Mr. Speaker, on a daily basis in the classroom. It has to. Teachers have to know whether the concepts that they're putting forward and the methodology that they're using to instruct the students in their classrooms, who come from diverse backgrounds and who come with diverse abilities — whether they're grasping the concepts, whether they're learning, and whether they're moving forward.

There should be no argument at all, in my view, about whether assessment for learning is important — absolutely it is — and whether assessment for learning is best done in the hands of teachers, who are the professionals. Absolutely, it must be. There are also, though, two other assessment processes: assessment as learning and assessment of learning. I'll not speak about assessment as learning at the moment because that might just confuse the issue, and I have a short period of time, and you have a long list.

But assessment of learning is also important. In my view, it's not discrete from or distinct from assessment for learning. All assessment has to be used for learning in some manner or form. But assessment of learning so that we can report to the community that our school system is working, that the investment that we're making in our children is a valuable investment, and that we are moving forward as part of the larger community is very important.

At lot of the discussion around provincial achievement tests has been around the concept of high-stakes testing. I want to just speak for a moment about that because I think it's very important that we not allow provincial achievement tests to become high-stakes testing. They're not a measure of the teachers. The PAT 3s, PAT 6s, PAT 9s are not a way of determining whether our teachers are doing a good job. All you need to do is be in any classroom in any community in our province to know that each classroom is made up of a different group of students, that bring different talents and abilities, different abilities and disabilities, different backgrounds and perspectives, even different languages to the classroom. They bring their social problems both from home and from their community to the classroom. So it cannot be used as a measure of teachers, nor can it be used as a measure to rank schools, as some purport to try and do. That's not the purpose, and that's not a useful result for provincial achievement tests.

However, there is a value to achievement tests in terms of understanding across the spectrum of our learning system how well we are doing and to be able to report back to school jurisdictions for their use within their schools on trends within the teaching and learning that's happening and in other ways in which the curricular leaders in the schools, the principals and other curricular leaders, can work within their school community to determine if there are things that need to be changed within the system, if there are ways that we can do things better.

There's a role and function for provincial achievement tests. There's an appropriate way to use the results of those provincial achievement tests. I would argue that there are even ways to use them effectively for student learning. We have some 13 years of experience with PAT 3 tests, and one of the things which I've learned from looking at the results is that they're entirely predictive of outcomes for those students in later years. Mr. Speaker, what that tells me is that the tests are reliable, but it also tells me that we're not using them appropriately because if they are predictive of the result, we're not changing the result as a result of the tests.

That's sort of a convoluted way of saying it, but I would say this: should we be looking for improvement in our assessment processes? Absolutely. I've committed to work with the ATA and others in the education community to find better ways to do assessment. There's a new project being headed up by Dr. Barry McGaw of the University of Melbourne to look at how we assess 21st century skills to be able to assess them in an appropriate way. I think we should be engaged in that project because we need to move our assessment practices and we need to make sure that our assessment practices are useful practices for the student, for the school, for the system, and to be able to report back to our public.

Mr. Speaker, while I understand the sentiment behind the motion that the Member for Bonnyville-Cold Lake has brought forward and I understand the concerns that are being raised about people teaching to the test and about the stress of the grade 3 students, I think those are issues that can be overcome. I do think we need to make sure that we have ways of recognizing the testing standards and assessment standards and outcomes across the spectrum of our system.

We have to appreciate that our system is held up as being one of the best in the world because of its strong curriculum, because of its strong teaching standards, because of its strong teachers, and because of our Accountability Pillar in our assessment processes.

Before we change what we're doing, we ought to know what we're going to. That would be my comment to the hon. member. Should we look at the PAT 3 tests and, presumably, in the future the PAT 6 and PAT 9? Perhaps we should. But let's know and understand what assessment we need to make sure that we're effective not only for the students, which is most important, but for the system, know that we're doing the right thing and investing in our system across the province so that our students can be ready for the 21st century — we're into the 21st century now, so I'd better say for the latter half of the 21st century — so that they can participate in a knowledge economy, a global economy, and be good both global and local citizens.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.