SIMPLY SAID
Toronto board simplifies report cards
February 27, 2010
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Kristin Rushowy
EDUCATION REPORTER
Come next week, hundreds of parents will open their children's report cards, read them and be shocked.
Because this time, they'll actually make sense.
Toronto's public board has created new, simplified comments that will be used for students at 19 elementary schools in the next report – which goes out starting Monday – and the final one in June. The parent-friendly initiative will be introduced to all schools in the fall.
New simplified comments (PDF)
So, while last year a Grade 3 pupil would have "applied critical analysis to the communication of feelings, ideas and understanding in response to a variety of dance pieces and experiences," she now "shares ideas and feelings about dances that were viewed or created."
It took 60 teachers with subject-specific knowledge a day to rewrite more than 700 comments used for elementary report cards, said system superintendent Karen Grose, who oversaw the process.
"We asked them to put their parent hat on, and to think about when their own child's report card comes home – what does it mean?"
Principal Lyn Gaetz of John Ross Robertson elementary, one of the schools taking part in the test run, has just signed off on the reports her teachers created using the new comments. "For the most part, I think they are a big improvement," she said. "They are much easier for parents to understand."
For more than a decade, Ontario parents have struggled to make sense of their children's report cards, which are full of highly technical phrases taken directly from curriculum documents and give little indication of what exactly a child has learned.
Last fall, Toronto public board trustee Howard Goodman decided to investigate if, indeed, the Ministry of Education mandated that teachers use such language. As it turned out, that wasn't the case.
So last fall, trustees directed board staff to begin work on a computerized bank of replacement comments for teachers to use.
In the meantime, the education ministry also tweaked report cards, requesting teachers "use language that parents will understand," while also cutting the number of formal, graded assessments from three a year to two in elementary schools. Teachers had long complained that November was much too early in the year to be grading students. Next fall, what was once the first report card will be a detailed "progress report" instead.
"Finally, we are writing for the reader," said Goodman, who introduced the motion at the board last fall. He was inspired by retired teacher Tom Sullivan, who couldn't understand his grandson's Grade 4 report card despite having a master's degree in education.
"It will hopefully mean that parents are better able to assist their children and ... just be less confused about what's going on," Goodman said. They may also feel more comfortable approaching teachers and principals about their children's education, he said.
Twelve years ago, the provincial Conservative government created standardized report cards in tandem with a new curriculum. Most boards created their own computerized library of comments that merely parrot that curriculum.
Gaetz, who oversees 580 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 6, said her teachers are concerned comments "were not communicating quite as well as we wanted them to – the jargon got in the way."
Teachers at John Ross Robertson took on the pilot project and "at this point, their response is that they feel these comments are definitely a step in the right direction."
Most of the comments "are bang on," she added – although some are actually too simple.
In Grade 3 writing, for example, the old comment said students could "reflect on and identify their strength as writers, areas for improvement and the strategies they found most helpful at different stages in the writing process." Now, it says "sets goals as a writer."
"That's much easier, but it loses some richness in terms of (students) identifying their own strengths," Gaetz said.
Indeed, the new comment bank is a work in progress. Surveys will be sent to parents and staff to assess readability, and changes made before the June report, Grose said.
Martin Long, president of Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said the board did a good job of keeping everyone involved. "It's always our goal that parents know what's happening with students," he said.
Grose said the rewrite wasn't simple because teachers had to keep comments meaningful, "while at the same time ensuring report cards really described what children should know and describe what they can do by the end of each grade." Teachers are welcome to personalize the bank with their own comments, alone or in teams.
"The schools that have volunteered to do this are pioneering a very collaborative, innovative process," Grose said.
Toronto Star