Liberal, NDP plans to end provincewide testing are a bad idea
Why would you object to spending $30 million to audit a $30-billion system? DAVID R. JOHNSON PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY
The Liberal and New Democratic parties have both made election pledges to end the standardized testing of students in mathematics and literacy by the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office.
This is a really bad idea, for two reasons.
First, these tests are the only reliable way for us to know how individual students, school boards and the Ontario education system as a whole are doing.
They offer the ability to give both the big picture and to drill down for information on individual students and where they might need special attention to fill gaps in their knowledge and skills.
This was precious data that was badly needed even before the pandemic began.
Now, as students emerge with their education seriously disrupted, it is even more essential.
Second, the standardized tests in Grades 3, 6 and 9, and the high school literacy test that students must pass to graduate, also function as a necessary audit of how Ontario’s education system is performing.
“Why would you object to spending $30 million to audit a $30-billion system?” said David R. Johnson, professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, and an internationally recognized scholar who has frequently written on student assessment.
“To say you want to cancel the only effective audit that we have (for public education in Ontario) ... I don’t think it’s responsible policy-making.”
There are strong arguments for keeping the standardized tests as they are formulated, and no convincing arguments for their removal, he said in a recent article.
And at this particular time “it just seems crazy to advocate that you would get rid of it,” he said.
Neither of the two parties give much detail in their election platforms on why they want to end the standardized assessment of students.
“Standardized testing is rigid, outdated and ineffective,” says the New Democratic Party platform, while providing no evidence.
“New Democrats believe teachers, not politicians, are best placed to assess individual student progress.
“We will end EQAO testing, and work collaboratively with educators to determine how random sampling could help spot early trends and determine where we should focus on improvement.”
Meanwhile, the Liberals say they would work with parents, teachers and education experts to develop a new assessment strategy to capture and address the pandemic’s impact on learning.
“We’ll end EQAO assessments so students and teachers can focus on making up for lost learning during the pandemic. Since we’ll need a way to measure how our kids are catching up in math and literacy, we’ll collaborate with parents, teachers and education experts to develop a new assessment strategy to capture and address the pandemic’s impact on learning,” says the Liberal platform. The problem with the New Democratic Party plan is that it misstates the issue.
Individual teacher assessments are a necessary part of understanding a student’s progress. Standardized testing is another necessary part. They measure different things. One shouldn’t replace the other.
The random sampling that the New Democrats want to instil would cost the same as what we have now, Johnson said, while removing the ability for individual families and teachers to learn about the education needs of the children in their care.
The problem with the Liberal plan is that it wastes time.
The assessments they want to end are also the quickest and most reliable way of finding out what students need to learn. To redesign the assessment system at this time seems like a needless waste of time, money and energy when there isn’t a single day to be lost.
It makes you wonder whether the real motivation of these parties is to get the support of the powerful Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, which has never made any secret of its opposition to the testing.
It’s a shame that neither of the education platforms of these parties talks about the real problem.
That, of course, is the steady decline in mathematics ability of younger students. The last time these tests were given, in 2018-19, only 48 per cent of Ontario’s Grade 6 students could meet the expected provincial standards. That’s down from 61 per cent in 2009.
As for Grade 3 students, 58 per cent met the standard in 201819. In the 2009-10 school year, at least 70 per cent achieved the standard.
To help address the problems, the Progressive Conservative government introduced an upgraded mathematics curriculum that stresses the fundamentals, along with coding and financial literacy.
Will it work? The only way we will find out is through welldesigned Ontario-wide standardized testing. Let’s hope no one dismantles the messenger before we get the information we so badly need.