The Chilliwack
Progress Thursday
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Historic play echoes issues of today.
Surge of flu cases, norovirus hits B.C.
Division rivals make first visit.
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Cancer survivors ‘scrambling’ after EI cuts: O’Mahony Robert Freeman The Progress
A woman enjoys a brisk walk along Main Beach at Cultus Lake. The recent heavy rain is expected to change to clearer but colder weather in the days ahead. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Skills tests could change next year Tom Fletcher Black Press
All students in Grade 4 and 7 who are able to are expected to write tests of literacy and math skills this month, but changes will be considered for future years, B.C. Education Minister Don McRae says. Long opposed by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, the Foundation Skills Assessment tests are being administered in public schools across B.C. The issue is sure to be debated in this spring’s provincial election, as the NDP campaigns to scrap univer-
sal testing and look for a new way to evaluate student performance. McRae said Wednesday there will be no change to the program this school year, with students only excused due to family emergency, illness or other circumstances beyond the control of the student. But he said he is open to discussing the program with the BCTF, school administrators and parents for years ahead. “Any time we have a form of assessment, I think it’s really important that after you give it, if you’re going to give it again, you continually look at it to see if it can be done better or more
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efficiently, and meet the needs of the students, the parents and the educational system,” McRae said. NDP education critic Robin Austin said work is underway with education experts to refine the party’s position on skills testing. If the NDP forms a government in May’s election, the plan is to replace province-wide tests with a random sample of students, and develop a new program later. Austin said one of the problems with FSA testing is the annual controversy over the Fraser Institute school rankings based on test scores. The rankings are
intended to help parents track their local school performance over time, but media attention typically focuses on comparing schools in rich neighbourhoods and poor ones. The BCTF continues to urge parents to bend the rules and pull their children out of the testing program. A letter to parents on the BCTF website argues that FSA tests are expensive, time consuming and “results are misused to rank schools and promote privatization.” McRae said FSA test results for all students have played a role Continued: TESTS/ p11
A Chilliwack woman fighting breast cancer has been cut off unemployment insurance benefits before her medical treatment is over. But Bev MacGregor’s plight is not an isolated case, said ChilliwackHope MLA Gwen O’Mahony, who has gone to bat for the Chilliwack resident, even though EI coverage is a federal matter. “At present the maximum length of the EI sickness benefit is 15 weeks,” O’Mahony said in a Jan. 9 letter to MP Diane Finley, the federal minister of human resources and skills development. “But the average length of breast cancer treatment is 38 weeks and can last much longer,” she said, leaving many in financial straits after they’ve fought and survived the disease. O’Mahony urged the minister to take “immediate steps to improve EI coverage ... so more Canadians are not left scrambling to cover basic expenses while they undergo lifesaving treatment.” MacGregor said she was “absolutely ecstatic” to learn about O’Mahony’s letter of support. “This is shameful that in Canada this is how we treat our sick people,” she said, pointing out that EI coverage is not free, but something every Canadian worker pays into. MacGregor, a government employee until her job was cut, was told that her EI benefits would end Nov. 17, and that she had “forfeited” her eligibility for more because her treatment went beyond 15 weeks. “My cancer wasn’t magically cured by Nov. 17,” she said. “I have no benefits.” Continued: EI/ p4
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