FSA Results Don't Tell the Whole Story

At the Catholic Educator’s Conference earlier this month Father Tony Ricard from the Archdiocese of New Orleans spoke in the keynote address.  His message was loud and clear for teachers in Catholic Schools: If you don’t see yourself first and foremost as a Religion teacher, get out!  He went on to say there are lots of jobs for people who just want to teach Math, Science or English.  There are public and private schools that do that stuff.  The reason we have Catholic Schools is so that we can form students in Christ.  No matter what grade or subject you are teaching you must help form the students in their Catholic worldview.

Recently the Fraser Institute released it’s annual rankings of schools based on the annual Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) test.  This test is deployed by the government each year to look for trends in education and academic achievement.  I am actually in favor of standardized tests when used for the right reasons.  I believe the government has every right, and the duty, to find ways to make sure the billions of dollars spent on education each year are well used.  The problem with the FSA test is that it is only a very small sample of one aspect of schooling.  It is certainly not meant to “rank” school from best to worst.  For one thing, the results as published by the Fraser Institute do not compensate fairly for ESL or special needs students.  They don’t take into account the socio-economic status of a population.  Yes, that information is in there if you dig, but the message the average reader gets looking at the results is that #1 is the best school and #900 is the worst.  This is simply not true.

There is so much more to school than just a single test score.  Being here everyday and seeing all the creative thinking, artistic development, athletic competition, and personal formation reminds me of just how much we do above and beyond academics.  Most importantly, as a Catholic School, our most important mission is formation of the whole student in Christ.  I am proud of the work our staff do with students each day in every aspect of school life.  Don’t get me wrong, we do just fine on the FSA test, but I never have and I never will use it as the number one reason for families to choose our school.

Thanks for reading!