CSDM favours report reforms

Moving away from competency-based evaluations

THE GAZETTE  Karen Seidman

The Education Department’s proposed changes to Quebec’s report cards got the blessing of the province’s largest school board yesterday, but it came amid continued grumbling and concern among other educators in the province who are reeling from the plan to steer away from competency-based evaluation.

While the Commission scolaire de Montréal is supporting the changes to report cards, board officials would like to see some modifications to the ministry’s plan and chairperson Diane De Courcy said she couldn’t see implementing the changes before January.

It was no surprise that the CSDM was in favour of the changes because the board – and its teachers – have been lobbying for a “clearer” form of evaluation.

But the board seems to be at loggerheads with others in the education field who are questioning the changes and the speed with which they may be introduced, which could be this September.

After 11 years of working to adapt to competencies, they are finding them being dismissed.

And private schools are worried that the integrity of their evaluations will be compromised by a universal report card that might not be as detailed as they would like.

Katherine Funamoto, head of the elementary school at Selwyn House, said it’s not known yet if the school will be able to issue the kind of detailed reports it has in the past.

Martin Bailly, headmaster of West Island College, said his school generally issues one report with marks and one with comments and competencies. He said he no longer knows if that is viable.

“I think about 60 per cent of French private schools issue three report cards a year, but the new reform calls for four,” he said.

Under the reform proposed in June, competencies would only be evaluated for such core subjects as math, English, French and, to some degree, science. Education Minister Michelle Courchesne said evaluating essential knowledge would better reflect the progress of students.

One of the key changes proposed by the CSDM is to ensure that the weight of each term – that is, what proportion of the overall mark is reflected in any one term – will be universal throughout the province and will include greater weighting in the final semester so teachers can use their judgment to evaluate students based on their progress through the year.

De Courcy said it was normal, after 10 years, for the reform to need some tweaking and said the changes to the report card weren’t an admission that the curriculum reform had failed, but rather “an opportunity to clarify things.”

But David Birnbaum, executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association, said that any teacher will tell you that what you teach is always influenced by how you measure students’ achievement.