[Rodney Clifton]'s peculiar disdain of his profession notwithstanding, standards tests are very expensive ways of taking a snapshot of a student's performance. Performances are not the best indicators of learning. Some people who perform very well don't learn much. Recent studies confirm that most students with averages of 78 per cent or better in high school don't perform as well and tend to tank in first year university. Do we care about students really learning -- having knowledge and critical abilities? Or do we merely want to see meritorious numbers attached to a transcript?

Even if the curriculum and the standards tests were well designed (which they are not), standards tests are not administered in high school in a meaningful context -- the results of the present standards tests in Manitoba are completely ignored by universities, and are administered too late to offer information to improve a student's facility in language or mathematics. Moreover, in language arts, the standards test has no relationship to the classroom content, suggesting that the books read, the plays viewed, the news analyzed in a particular class, is irrelevant. By contrast, teacher assessment is generally designed to give the teacher insight into a student's challenges in order to provide opportunity for improvement and success. If we value knowledge and critical acumen above merit, maybe we should encourage teachers rather than ineffective tests.

I had the afternoon off work on Thursday, so I thought that I would help with the sandbagging efforts. I called 311, but to my surprise they told me they had all the volunteers they needed, I could sit back and relax. This didn't jive with the recently declared state of emergency, so I did some more calling around. It turned out that the Rural Municipality of Richot was badly in need of volunteers, so my wife and I went there and we made ourselves useful well into the evening. My question is, why didn't the 311 operators direct me to the surrounding RMs if the city had all the help it needed? How many other potential volunteers were turned away when our neighbours outside city limits were scrambling to find the help they needed? I think it's awesome that Winnipeggers are coming together and helping each other, but let's not forget our neighbours outside the city.