The following is excerpted from Alberta Hansard on the afternoon of March 10. Information on achievement testing in Grades 3, 6 and 9 is available from Alberta Education.

Mr. Chase: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Fraser Institute recently released their rankings of Alberta schools based on the province's achievement test scores. Commenting on the ranking, the Minister of Education stated, and I quote: "In my view, it is a totally inappropriate way to measure whether you have a good school or good teaching." To the Minister of Education: if the minister is opposed to ranking schools based on their test scores, why does the minister release the results for publication each year under the pretense of accountability?

Mr. Hancock: Every year, as I understand it, we receive a FOIP request, a freedom of information and protection of privacy request, under the act. Under the act, unless we meet one of the exemptions to withhold information, we're required to make information available to the public.

Mr. Chase: This government uses FOIP very much to their advantage. Usually it's a cloak. Given that the minister himself questions the validity of using the test scores to rank schools and teaching, in what way does publishing the scores hold schools and teachers accountable or improve student results?

Mr. Hancock: First of all, it should be clear that we neither rank the schools, nor do we publish those results. We provide the results to the school boards for their use in doing assessments and for improvement of their system's approach to the delivery of education in the province. They're part of our Accountability Pillar. We do not publish the results, but we follow the law, and the law requires that information that does not impinge on a contractual obligation or release personal information is made public. That's the law of the province of Alberta. I have to admit that I've asked whether we can amend that law so that these results not be released, but that's the law as it stands, and we comply.

Mr. Chase: Interestingly, First Nations children's test results aren't revealed because they already know what the results will be. These are tests of economy as opposed to education. The minister seems to acknowledge that there are other, more effective ways to hold schools accountable than provincial achievement tests. Does the minister also acknowledge that the $5 million spent on questionable testing at the grade 3 level alone is not good value for that money?

Mr. Hancock: Mr. Speaker, with respect to FNMI results I would make this clear: one of the things we don't have to do under the freedom of information and protection of privacy rule is release any information which could be harmful or detrimental to an identifiable group of people. Because there are minimal results or much fewer results in the FNMI population, we can use that exemption, and we do creatively use that exemption to not release information where we don't think it should be released and where we can stop the release. So that would be the answer to the preamble.

With respect to the costs the hon. member has them wrong. It's about $540,000, if I remember correctly, for the administration of the PAT 3 tests. The $5 million is more like the budget for the administration of all of the provincial achievement tests.