Alberta's teachers' union doesn't like accountability. But Alberta’s Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides does. And he's on the right track.

Recently, Nicolaides sent out a memo about increasing the frequency of Alberta’s standardised exams. The Alberta Teachers’ Association however, promptly posted an attack on the province’s standardized testing regime, arguing “students need more supports, not more tests.” 

This isn’t the first time that the ATA has attacked standardized tests.

In the past, they objected that the tests are designed by “people or organizations outside the classroom.” They’re not alone either: the powerful Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation complains that the tests shouldn’t exist because they result in people “disparaging educators” when scores decline.

The mighty American National Education Association wants standardized tests replaced with “Performance Based Assessments” that are completely under the control of the teachers. 

And that, of course, is where the conflict really is. 

In Canada, universities don’t use standardized test scores to decide who enters. This is partly because they traditionally don’t have to: diplomas are provincially administered, and some form of standardized testing is usually baked in.

In Alberta, as in most provinces, the ultimate standardized exam is the Diploma exam, which for a long time has been a large portion of the final grade for matriculation subjects.  This has varied from year to year, being as high as half and as low as the current 30%. For students afraid of being downgraded because they do not subscribe to a teachers’ politics or religion, it is an important balance.When the unions complain about standardized exams, this is the one that they are really complaining about.

And when a teachers’ union demands that standardized tests be eliminated, they are really demanding in effect that they — who control the teachers — will decide who goes to university. 

It isn’t just university entrance, of course. Provinces have long used standardised tests to monitor progress all the way along. While some provinces have recently reduced their reliance on standardized tests, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. The Fraser Institute noted that provinces that get rid of those standardized exams tend to do worse on international exams which we don’t teach to, such as the PISA. (Program for International Student Assessment.)

Apparently, standardized exams really do encourage accountability.

A more systematic concern raised about standardized tests concerns the idea of “social justice.” Minorities, the claim goes, have a harder time with standardized exams. Consequently, they argue, eliminating such exams will allow more people from minorities to enter prestigious career paths. 

The number and type of standardized exams that have been dropped for this reason are staggering. Several US States no longer have Bar exams for lawyers. Ivy League universities have eliminated them. There are even public demands to do away with medical school admissions tests.

How do we choose who gets access to prestigious universities? Who becomes a doctor or a lawyer?  Even the civil service famously has an entrance exam.  And that, as we have argued elsewhere, provides us with a historical perspective.

Civil service exams, you see, are old.  Over two thousand years ago, Imperial China started using them to make sure that young men from any class or background would have a shot at entering the Imperial bureaucracy. And they worked hard to make sure it was fair. Someone would copy out your answers to make sure you weren’t undone by bad calligraphy. The Emperor himself would supervise the top-level exams, to prevent bureaucrats from favouring their own relatives.

When the Mongols captured China, their Yuan Dynasty did away with the exams for a time.  After that, the Han majority were allowed only 25% of the exam spaces. The Yuan wanted to make sure that only those who had a connection to the overlords were promoted. 

Such race-based policies were revived recently: American Ivy League universities adopted them until the US Supreme Court struck them down.  And it’s no accident that the Ivy League decided to abandon standardized tests after the court struck down race-based admissions.

Anybody who’s applied for a scholarship, or even for entry to an elite university, knows about the importance of reference letters. For the professions, a good letter is what gets you a prize residency or articling opportunity. Reference letters reinforce pedigree — the worst letter from an elite prep school is still a letter from an elite prep school, and elite schools do write better reference letters. They send a message: it’s about who you know.

Now, standardized exams aren’t easy. And if you don’t have the money to pay for assistance to study for them, you’re at a disadvantage. That’s as true now as it was in the Qin dynasty. 

But the point is that money and connection are not the only qualifiers.  Diligent effort or raw ability can break through those barriers. Without them, you have the nightmare that imperial China avoided: admission to the professional class really is about who you know — and little else besides.

The problem for Alberta is that the teachers’ unions are not disinterested groups, concerned only with the common good. They represent a significant power block, routinely intervening in elections to serve themselves. Regardless of pretensions to be all about protecting minorities, the teachers’ unions are the very embodiment of privilege. So, when a teachers’ union demands to decide who goes to university, we have to ask ourselves some pretty serious questions about their potential motives.

The only way to do this fairly — without accidentally creating a true oligarchy — is to have standardized exams. 

And that means those exams have to be run independently: regardless of the ATA’s feelings on the matter, they must be designed — and possibly administered — by “people outside the classroom.”

And so far, that looks like what Minister Nicolaides has in mind. 

More power to him.

John Hilton-O’Brien is the Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education, www.parentchoice.ca

This article originally appeared in the Western Standard on July 31st, 2024. A printable pdf is available.