EQAO funds would be better spent on education
Re In my experiences as a parent, teacher, teacher of teachers, university administrator, school trustee and executive director of an Ontario school board association, if there is anything I have learned it is that the socio-economic background of a school’s student population is the major determination of whether or not the school will achieve well in the EQAO tests.
This information is readily available in census data. The Ontario government does not need to spend large amounts of money researching the obvious and creating huge amounts of anxiety among our school children, especially those with educational disabilities. What needs to be done is for the government to invest additional funds in schools in lower socio-economic areas and for high-needs students. Where could the government get this additional money? It could cut out financing the useless EQAO testing and merge the public and Catholic school boards to free up huge amounts of money to actually improve education in Ontario. William Phillips, Re Abolishing standardized tests like the EQAO would not “allow individual employees … to decide if they are doing a good job.” Teachers are not employed by the government, they are employed by school boards. As school board employees, they are evaluated regularly by their supervisors to ensure that their competencies are up to date.
The fact is that teachers’ performance is scrutinized like no other, as their conduct and performance can, and often is, investigated by administration due to a report from a parent, other education workers or even a student.
Teachers do not object to EQAO out of fear of having their competencies judged. As front-line workers in the education system, they see them for what they are: A vast misallocation of scarce education dollars, and a massive waste of time and energy that could be better used to educate our youth. Max Williams, In the controversy around the education minister’s musings about EQAO testing, some pieces of context are in order.
First, we are heavily influenced by the American experience. Second, I would prefer we refer to the areas tested as “literacy” and “numeracy,” since they are both broader and more easily connected to real-world learning.
Finally, if the tests were done at the beginning of a school year, the data could return to the schools in time for teachers and students to work on weak areas to improve learning, not just audit it. John J.C. Myers,