Students are edging closer to average

Latest test results show local schools are making gains

WATERLOO REGION — About 12,000 local elementary students are inching back to average.

Test results in reading, writing and math show that students in Grades 3 and 6 have slightly narrowed an achievement gap, after they fell behind other Ontario students over a dozen years.

“These results are encouraging, but we still have work to do as we continue to close the gap between our results and the province,” said John Bryant, education director of the Waterloo Region District School Board.

Local elementary students have not matched Ontario test results since 2006. By 2014 they were testing four percentage points behind the Ontario average, across all tests.

This gap has narrowed to two percentage points, based on standardized tests written by 11,717 elementary students last spring. Results were made public Wednesday.

Benchmarked across all tests, 68 per cent of local students now meet provincial standards. This means they achieve Level 3 or better, equal to a B grade or a score of 70 or better.

By comparison, 70 per cent of Ontario students meet provincial standards.

These elementary results count all students attending public and Catholic schools. Here are some highlights:

• Math remains a headache despite efforts by local schools and the Ministry of Education. Just 49 per cent of local Grade 6 students achieve the provincial math standard, unchanged over two years and down 14 percentage points since 2009.

• Local students are progressing in reading and writing, particularly in Grade 3, but remain behind their Ontario peers.

• High school literacy is falling here and elsewhere, puzzling educators.

Ontario is two years into a $60-million math strategy that’s failed to stem the decline despite greater efforts to train teachers, improve teaching methods, set aside an hour a day for math, and engage parents.

Premier Doug Ford intends to seek public input on math, after pledging to get back to basics rather than continue to ask kids to engage in problem-solving to find math solutions.

Local public schools have targeted higher math scores. Results are two-thirds short of goals after two years, but are heading in the right direction.

“It takes three to five years for real change to take root and be sustainable,” said Lila Read, a superintendent with the public school board.

“We believe that we have, in fact, reversed what was a downward trend in our board, and we’re trending in a positive direction ... We fully admit that we still have work to do.”

Steps by public schools to improve math scores include holding more family math nights, adding math goals to school improvement plans, hiring more teachers who are qualified in math, and adding math-friendly classroom technology, including web-based tools to help teachers with math instruction.

Just 72 per cent of Grade 10 students meet the provincial literacy standard today, down from 81 per cent in 2009.

Educators can’t explain the plunge but schools plan to dig into results to figure out what’s going wrong.

“We are understandably very, very curious,” Read said.

Catholic students continue to outperform public students across all elementary tests while also outperforming Ontario students across most tests.

This partly reflects advantages of restricted admission. The Waterloo Catholic District School Board has fewer children with special needs, fewer children learning English, and fewer children with a mother tongue that’s not English, board profiles show.

Catholic education director Loretta Notten said the board is “proud of our students and our staff who continue to experience strong success.”

Go to therecord.com to see how students are catching up after falling behind.

It takes three to five years for real change to take root and be sustainable. LILA READ School superintendent