A test of the curriculum
The latest disappointing elementary school mathematics scores have renewed a longstanding debate about the best way to ensure kids in the province learn the skills they need to contribute and succeed in the modern economy.
For the second year in a row, the standardized tests conducted by the Education Quality and Accountability Office show that only half of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard. That’s an alarming decline from the 58 per cent who passed in 2012.
As the Star argued last year, that’s bad news for Ontario students. Fluency in math is a prerequisite for careers in the sciences, technology, engineering and many other fields. And research has shown that when students struggle with math in the lower grades, they often go on to fall farther behind in high school.
It’s also bad news for the province’s future ability to innovate and compete in a global economy.
But we needn’t panic — at least not yet. It’s too early to judge whether the Wynne government’s ongoing push to improve math education in the province is working.
Some critics contend that the problem is a curriculum that puts too much emphasis on what is known as discovery math — which involves problem-solving and investigation — and not enough on practising basic addition, subtraction and division, and such oldfashioned skills as memorizing multiplication tables.
Yet last year the province doubled down on its current approach, investing $60 million in beefing up its capacity to teach a curriculum it says seeks to strike a balance the basics and memorization and discovery and problem-solving.
Under the three-pronged program introduced last year, students receive at least 60 minutes of math a day, something that has been proven to work in Quebec, where math scores are higher.
The second prong requires every school to have at least one “math lead teacher” who is “deeply knowledgeable about teaching math” and who will receive up to five days of professional development a year. That’s a great resource.
The third prong is more math training for all teachers. That’s important because most elementary students now learn math from home room teachers who may not be comfortable with the subject. In fact, research has shown that many teachers have what educators call a “math phobia,” which is often then transferred to students.
It’s too soon to say whether the government’s welcome investment was well-placed, but some see the halting of test scores’ decline as encouraging. Cathy Bruce, the dean of education at Trent University, told The Canadian Press the fact the results are stabilizing, rather than continuing to drop, shows progress. “I wouldn’t have expected to see a big jump all of a sudden — that’s not how it works.”
Still, as Education Minister Mitzi Hunter said after learning of the results, it’s clear “there’s still more work to do.” One simple measure the province could pursue, for example, would be to make math proficiency tests mandatory, as they are currently for French and English. Clearly if educators don’t understand math themselves, they can’t teach it to their students.
The province’s big investment in math studies last year was designed in large part to solve that problem. It may yet work. But if next year’s test results are as dismal as this year’s, the province should start thinking about a bigger reimagining of how we teach math, lest we continue to hurt the prospects of our kids and our province.
If math scores don’t improve by next year, it will be time to rethink the curriculum