SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

If you place the bar low enough, almost everyone will manage to clear it

The latest Pan-Canadian Assessment (PCAP) has been released, and it paints a very glowing picture of the educational attainment of Canadian grade 8 students (although the only available comparison over time - in reading - found that “overall, grade 8 students performed significantly lower in 2010 than in 2007”). My remarks will deal only with the mathematics strand, since that was the major emphasis of this cycle, and much less information is available for the reading and science strands.  In mathematics, 91% of tested students achieved “the expected level of achievement” - namely, Level 2 or better. This is surely cause for celebration! 

Before you get all excited, though, the sample questions (pp. 19-22) indicate that the PCAP is assessing the same sort of higher-order-thinking-skills-but-lower-order-computational-skills evaluated by the PISA - an explanation of which we provided in a previous posting. For your convenience, here is an analysis of what skills and knowledge are required to pass the four sample questions on the 2010 PCAP.

• Level 1:  As the use of calculators was allowed, all these grade 8 students had to do was plug the numbers in and press the + button.
• Level 2:  In order to pass this question, a student had to know what “diameter” meant and then use his calculator to add 45 + 45.
• Level 3:  As long as a student knew that the time slot of 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm contains two hours and that there are 60 minutes in an hour, all he or she had to do was use a calculator to add 60 + 60, subtract 10, and divide by 5.
• Level 4:  There was no calculation at all necessary in order to answer this question, but a student did need to understand how percentages are calculated. Only 5% of Ontario students achieved Level 4 - and this was a higher percentage than any other province!

I need hardly point out that a student was deemed to have reached the expected level of achievement if he or she was able to correctly total the column of numbers in the Level 1 question. Really, when you think about it, it’s kind of amazing that 9% of tested students couldn’t even manage this! They are, after all, in grade 8.