Help BC teachers protect student data by writing to your MLA

The FSA is a province-wide standardized test administered to all Grade 4 and 7 students across BC. It is not a required part of the BC curriculum.

What teachers believe

The FSA is not a reliable method of measuring an individual child’s progress and was not designed for this purpose.
The misuse of FSA testing results by the Fraser Institute and other corporate entities creates misleading school rankings that harm school communities.
Data collected from the test is not protected from being used to rank schools.
Better models of provincial assessment with protections to ensure the ethical use of students’ data are possible.

What you can do

Parents can ask school principals to withdraw their children from the FSA tests, according to Ministry of Education and Child Care guidelines concerning exemptions. There is a withdrawal letter and form available at bctf.ca/fsa.
Talk to teachers about the assessments they use to support learning.
Contact your MLA and share this campaign.

Click the green "Contact your MLA" button below to have the following message emailed directly to your local MLA.

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Dear [recipient name will go here],

It’s high time we protect students and school communities from the misuse and abuse of data from the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) test. 

I am concerned about how the results of this test are used by private corporations to entrench already existing inequalities in our school system. The Royal Bank of Canada’s OJO Home website uses the Fraser Institute’s flawed and harmful scoring system to try and bolster real estate prices. Over the years, we’ve seen many media reports deriding schools low on the bogus rankings and even identifying “the worst school in BC.” 

Teachers, parents, and students see these rankings, and I believe this is demoralizing and harmful to school communities. Furthermore, there is no demonstrable increase in support or funding for students, their classrooms, or their schools as a result of this test. The FSA was never meant to be used this way and successive governments have failed to address this significant problem. 

If the BC Government requires the data that this test provides, I believe the data collected should be sheltered so as not to be misused by the Fraser Institute, real estate companies, and others. Until I can be assured that children’s standardized test scores are not exploited by private corporations and right-wing idealogues like the Fraser Institute, I oppose the implementation of this test. 

I ask that the BC Government consider a legislative or policy changes to protect the data collected through this test. 

Sincerely,
[your name will go here]

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