Literacy assessment of students from poor and diverse communities: Changing the programs, changing the outcomes

This article reports on a study carried out with teachers working in disadvantaged schools who are grappling with the issues of assessment and equity. The authors conclude that changing literacy outcomes for students from diverse and poor communities is less about finding technically efficient assessment tools and more about changing classroom literacy programs. Introduction This article reports on the concerns and issues about literacy assessment that a small group of selected teachers who work in disadvantaged primary schools are grappling with in the everyday world of their classrooms. One of the fundamental issues which confronts them is that cohorts of students from poor and disadvantaged communities perform less well on school literacy tasks than do students from more affluent families (Freebody & Ludwig, 1995; WRAP, 1992; Connell, 1992; Williams, 1987). A major function of schools, it is often argued, is to sort and classify students, to discriminate among them, and to determine what kinds of socio-economic opportunities will be open to them. Assessment is one way in which schools do this. Because it acts as a gatekeeping mechanism, assessment is therefore heavily implicated in the production and maintenance of socio-cultural privilege (Connell, 1992: p. 20). This constructs a dilemma for teachers in disadvantaged schools who are mediating between the diverse values and literacy practices of the groups of students they teach and the particular values and literacy practices which are privileged by mainstream curricula and assessment. About the research project This project focussed on the questions and concerns that the teachers in the research schools raised about the interrelationship of school literacy programs and assessment outcomes for students from poor and diverse communities. It was felt that these questions and concerns could provide insight for other practitioners in disadvantaged schools. Thus our aim as literacy educators was to explore and document the ways this group of teachers conceptualised their role in promoting students' literacy performance and achieving more equitable literacy outcomes. The documentation was part of a larger literacy research project conducted in a number of disadvantaged schools across metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. These schools are designated as disadvantaged because they have large numbers of students whose families are receiving government assistance. The research team had won a grant from the Committee for the Advancement of University Teaching (CAUT) to produce three videos and accompanying written materials which explored the relationship between literacy, poverty and schooling. It was our belief that the teacher development materials could be used to trigger conversations between other practitioners as they in turn explored this relationship in their own schools and classrooms. Thus we assumed that these materials would generate more genuine dialogue and have greater credibility for teachers and student teachers if they were grounded the actual practices and concerns of other practitioners. The research for the video which dealt specifically with literacy assessment was carried out with teachers working in classes from Reception (Kindergarten) to Year 7, the final year of primary schooling in South Australia. Early in the project the teachers simply wanted to know what we wished to see in their classrooms and what we would film. We explained the kinds of ideas we had and some of the issues that concerned us. As we worked with the teachers we observed and heard the interesting and challenging assessment practices that they talked about and that they were putting into practice. But rather than provide exemplars of `good assessment practice' we wanted the materials to foreground what was problematic from the viewpoint of teachers and other educators with a commitment to achieving more equitable literacy outcomes for students in disadvantaged schools. …