CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS
Boards respond to math test scores
Something still doesn’t add up when it comes to the ability of Grade 6 students both here and across the province when it comes to achieving the math standards set out by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO). The latest results for the two largest local school boards were released Wednesday and show that only 47 per cent of Grade 6 students in the Greater Essex County District School Board met the provincial standard for math. Students in the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board squeezed past the halfway point with 54 per cent of Grade 6 students achieving the standard. Across the province, only 49 per cent of all Grade 6 students met the standard.
“We have lots of things to celebrate and some areas of continued opportunity ahead of us,” said Clara Howitt, the public board’s superintendent of education for program and professional learning. Howitt noted the “regression” in primary (Grade 3) and junior (Grade 6) math scores has slowed due to the district’s renewed math strategy which is now in its third school year.
“Research shows that for a real shift in performance you have to have three years of aggressive learning,” Howitt said.
“So I anticipate a rise in those primary and junior divisions next year.”
Emelda Byrne, the Catholic board’s executive superintendent of education, said the board will “revisit some strategies in areas where numbers declined.” The Catholic board’s success rate in Grade 6 math testing was down seven per cent over 2016-17. Byrne and other members of board administration discussed the EQAO results for 2017-18 in the library at St. John the Baptist elementary school in Belle River. A collaborative approach among teachers was one of several factors sighted by St. John principal Kevin Bellaire for the school positioning itself as one of the board’s top performers in EQAO testing. Gains in reading, writing and math at the school ranged from 10 to 37 per cent since 2013. In particular, 100 per cent of the school’s Grade 3 students achieved the provincial standard in reading. In Grade 3 math, 92 per cent of the students achieved the standard and 74 per cent achieved the standard in Grade 6 math, numbers all well above provincial average. Donna Turner, a Grade 6 teacher at St. John, said her students utilize “a variety of activities that come together in a math lesson.”
The goal is to strike a balanced, engaging approach to instructional delivery, fundamentals and problem solving.
“It’s not just a lot of teaching at the front of the classroom and then book work,” Turner said. “It’s very fluid and the students have to have a voice and be engaged.” Overall, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board continued a three-year trend of exceeding provincial averages across the nine categories of math and literacy assessed. WECDSB students exceeded the provincial average in reading, writing and math for Grade 3 and Grade 6 as well as applied and academic math for Grade 9 and for the Grade 10 literacy test.
In a year-to-year comparison, WECDSB scores in all categories dipped from levels achieved in the 2016-17 school year. Students in the Greater Essex District School Board made gains in five of the nine categories from the previous year but still failed to meet or exceed provincial averages in seven of those categories. The public board’s greatest gain was made in scores for Grade 9 applied math, where 57 per cent of students met the standard — a double-digit improvement over the provincial average of 45 per cent.
Vicki Houston, the board’s superintendent of student success and alternative learning, attributed the gain to the support of a lead math instructor who works with students in Grades 7, 8 and 9 and also assisted in remedial action for those who were not successful in the Grade 6 assessment.
The scores for Grade 9 math and Grade 10 literacy as well as primary and junior level reading and writing were solid across both local boards.
Byrne said she’s glad the EQAO assessment method is being reviewed by the Ministry of Education to ensure that the tools are in place to “keep the test viable.”
A complete list of results for area boards and individual schools is available ateqao.com/en/assessments/results/Pages/results.aspx.