Missing EQAO data hurts students

RE: EQAO testing results

Why is EQAO testing important? The provincial EQAO tests administered to all publicly funded students in grades 3, 6, 9 and 10 provide much more than information about individual students. The EQAO data is used to inform each school’s instructional plans and also to make board decisions about the allocation of resources. The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board’s annual report on student achievement uses EQAO data to provide measures for how much progress is being made across the whole district.

The 2015 report has no elementary EQAO data as no tests were administered because of labour unrest. There are no objective data to measure the success of literacy, numeracy and other interventions such as all-day kindergarten. There is no way to confirm past trends; that the number of students meeting provincial standards in writing and reading is increasing in Grade 6.; that ESL students’ results continue above the provincial average; and that the results of students with special needs have been improving. It is also impossible to monitor the gap in results between the highest and lowest achieving schools to see if it is narrowing. Moreover, Hamilton’s students’ achievement cannot be compared to provincial standards, and objective data about the progress of HWDSB’s most vulnerable students is missing.

A year without EQAO data is as significant a loss for policy making and accountability as was the cancellation of the Mandatory Long Form Census.

Judith Bishop, Hamilton, former school trustee