Standardized test scores in math and literacy will be released next week, with the education minister saying they’ve been delayed so he could do a “deep dive” into the results.
With critics accusing the government of trying to cover up poor scores, Education Minister Paul Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park on Monday that he’s been looking at board-by-board results and having “a lot of discussions with a lot of people with respect to how the test is working” and that he’s “not going to apologize” for taking the extra time.
“We want to do something with the data to make sure that (students) can do even better,” he said earlier in the legislature, as the opposition criticized the move, saying there’s no reason that the government can’t be looking at the data when teachers and parents are, too.
“You’ve had seven and a half years (in office), and you made quite a mess,” said Liberal MPP John Fraser (Ottawa South). “That’s why you’re withholding the EQAO results.”
The tests in reading, writing and math are created and administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office, also known as the EQAO, and are typically written in the spring in Grades 3 and 6.
There is also a Grade 9 math test, which can be used toward a student’s final grade in that class, as well as a literacy test in Grade 10 that students have to pass to graduate.
Overall provincial results and board-by-board scores are usually made public in September or early October.
Kathleen Woodcock, who heads the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, called the data “an important planning tool, but it is only one part of a much bigger picture” along with report card data and teacher assessments. She said she is pleased to hear the information will soon be made public.
“A timely release of EQAO results help school boards, principals and teachers direct resources to the right places, identify successful practices and plan professional learning.”
Math and literacy test scores have stalled or decreased in recent years, especially with the challenges post-COVID, given that students here were out of school and learning online longer than any others in the country.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said there is value in EQAO testing but accused the government of not releasing the results for political reasons.
“We haven’t seen the results because at the end of the day, all the tests are only going to tell us the same thing — when you take away supports from kids in classrooms, guess what? They struggle and they’re not going to do as well,” she said.
“If the province wants “to get scores up … maybe they should have tried actually investing in supports for our children.”
But Calandra said that given changes to literacy and math instruction and resources brought in by his predecessor, Stephen Lecce, “I want to see how those dollars that were spent, were they working in the fashion that we wanted them to work? And if they weren’t working in some boards, why were they not working?”
The minister said “I’m not going to apologize … I spent a lot of time looking at the results. The people of Ontario pay a lot of money for this standardized testing,” and he’s spoken to educators as well as those at the EQAO.
“There will be more to come but the results have to reflect what parents expect and when they don’t, then we have to make sure that we can do better at the same time as you analyze them.”
