By Chris Walker
It all started with the “Old Deluder Act” in 1647.
Protecting Massachusetts children from Satan- the deluder himself- was the Puritan colony’s main motivation in funding public schools. Above all, teachers made sure children could read the Bible.
To ensure it was read properly, lawmakers in 1680s Virginia appointed inspectors in every county. Teacher accountability was born.
For 300 years, even after religion left most classrooms, the internal inspection system was the basic framework to monitor teacher quality in North America.
Until recently, each school board in Ontario monitored its own teachers. Principals in Ottawa-Carleton, for example, reviewed performance at least once every three years and reported back to the board.
Now, with teacher testing, Ontario joins a worldwide shift toward more centralized professional development.
Renfrew resident Kay Derry, 95, taught in Ottawa from 1931 to 1970. For most of her career, inspection and independent development overlapped. Derry and her colleagues upgraded on their own. “I taught with very dedicated teachers,” she says.“We took courses for our own gratification and satisfaction….I don’t know what I think of writing tests. Inspectors seemed like a good way” of evaluating teachers.
The 1968 Hall-Dennis Report recognized that many teachers upgraded on their own. The report, commissioned to assess the aims and objectives of education in Ontario, called this “one of the most significant developments of the past decade in Ontario education.”
School boards approved professional development courses until 1997, when the Ontario College of Teachers was set up to regulate qualifications and approve ongoing programs.
According to a 1999 report of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, testing came “out of the blue,” and took the College “completely by surprise.”
Sharon Cook, professor of education at the University of Ottawa, says the move toward testing “has been building for some time.” Ontario’s program, she says, is a blend of models from around the world.
The Ontario Ministry of Education cites “ongoing professional development” in the United States, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan as inspiration for its testing initiative, which stems from the college’s recommendations.
Cook says “the American example is what [the College] is working against,” rather than toward. Cook says the “pencil and paper” approach in the United States features written tests every few years.
The Reagan administration’s 1983 report A Nation at Risk urged massive education reforms, including teacher testing. Teachers now write the tests in 44 states.
Storms of protest have greeted standardized tests in some cases, arousing widespread criticism in New York, Texas, and North Carolina and fueling a massive lawsuit in Alabama where test content was condemned by teachers as being racially discriminatory.
In Massachusetts, 59 per cent of teachers failed the state’s 1998 test. Bitter protests followed after Thomas Finneran, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives decried “the idiots who took that test and flunked so miserably– and, of course, the idiots who passed.””
Two-thirds of Massachusetts’ teachers now pass the state tests. While many American educators believe testing programs hold promise, outright endorsements are difficult to come by.
There are two standard written tests for new teachers in the Ontario program: the Qualifying Test for Initial Certification, and the Language Proficiency Test. All teachers are to be re-certified by completing 14 courses over five years. Courses must have an evaluation component but not necessarily a written exam.
Conservative governments in Nova Scotia and Alberta have introduced similar initiatives. In those provinces teachers must keep a “professional development portfolio,” and Nova Scotia requires 100 hours of course work every five years.
Ontario’s teacher testing will centralize and standardize certification, qualification and continuing education for teachers under provincial guidelines.
Will it avoid the pitfalls of similar initiatives or raise education standards province-wide?
Only the old deluder and his heavenly cohort know for sure.