Provincial testing to begin in P.E.I.

P.E.I. will soon join the rest of Canada in putting all of its students through some form of province-wide testing, adopting one of the recommendations of the Task Force on Student Achievement.

Premier Pat Binns said there needs to be what he calls some form of common "assessment" of students across the province. The task force suggests that assessment should happen in Grades 3, 6 and 9, and for some high school subjects as well.

• OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Task Force on Student Acheivement

Binns appointed the committee last year in response to a poor showing by Island students in international standardized tests. They placed well below the national average in math, reading, science and problem solving.

Island teachers maintain it is wrong to teach a curriculum based on the material in any test. Its union was so upset with the committee's direction that it quit the group before the final report was completed.

At Wednesday's news conference to make the task force report public everyone chose their words on the testing idea carefully. "I would prefer not to argue about whether this is or is not standardized testing," said Binns.

The committee said the testing would be used to see if there were ways to tweak the curriculum, not as a measure of individual school performance.

However, it said the Binns government needs to abandon its pledge to keep every school in the province open. The committee said smaller schools with fewer resources are not performing as well as some of the larger ones.

"This does go against my personal philosophy and the policy of my government which has not changed. However, I believe we owe it to the task force and to Islanders to consider this recommendation."

It also takes aim at the Island's kindergarten program saying the quality of the programs are not consist ant. One way to ensure a level playing field, it says, is to make kindergarten part of the school system.

Another of the recommendations calls for a time limit on the extra curricular activities students are involved in when they should be in class.

The Binns government had the report for a few weeks before releasing it to the public. In a news release, the province said it would make sure that all Island students are reading at a Grade 3 level before they move into Grade 4.

It also said there would also be changes made to the course load. "We will do this by increasing the time students spend learning math and language arts and by providing more opportunities for students to graduate with academic math," the news release said.

Binns said there'll also be an extra effort to keep boys from dropping out of school.

The government is also lifted the funding freeze on teaching positions.