Ontario’s education minister has delayed the release of EQAO results from the last school year, prompting one teachers’ union to repeat its call to end the standardized testing.
Results of the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests are usually released by the end of September. Earlier this week, Minister Paul Calandra said the results will be published “soon” and indicated that he is reviewing them, which is why they’ve been withheld.
In a statement on Friday, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) urged Calandra to take advantage of the delay “to eliminate the narrow and ineffective testing system that EQAO is.”
The union, which represents 84,000 teachers, early childhood educators and support personnel, called the test a “flawed tool” that does not accurately reflect students’ learning.
“This narrow approach oversimplifies learning, dismisses well-being, ignores classroom realities, and overlooks the diverse skills, growth, and accomplishments that occur daily in Ontario schools,” ETFO said.
“The most accurate and meaningful assessments come from teachers themselves. Classroom-based assessments capture the full breadth of student learning in ways that EQAO results never can.”
The union reiterated that the government needs to evaluate the value of the tests and adopt assessments “rooted in equity, guided by classroom teachers and reflective of real learning.”
EQAO tests are administered to Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9 and Grade 10 students to assess their literacy and mathematics skills.
Speaking to CTV News Toronto, Ontario NDP Shadow Minister of Education Chandra Pasma said it’s “absolutely ridiculous” that the results have not been released.
“The minister could release the information and then still analyze it. Nothing stops him from analyzing it once it’s made public,” Pasma said.
The delay, she said, shows that the Ford government has a troubling pattern of not being transparent with parents and educators.
“They don’t think they need to be accountable to us, and information sharing is something that is optional.”
She added that the test results are more useful to parents and educators than to Calandra.
“Like I said, nothing stops him from conducting any kind of analysis that he wants once the information is public, so the idea that he can only do it if he keeps it secret is ludicrous,” Pasma said.
The shadow minister echoes ETFO’s stance and believes there are better measures to assess student learning.
“We’re spending a lot of money and putting students through a lot of stress. I’ve got three kids, so I’ve seen particularly when they were eight and had to write it, the kind of stress that it created for kids, but also how teachers end up spending months teaching to the test beforehand,” Pasma said.
“In the meantime, this is what we’ve got and so we deserve to know what’s happening.”
John Fraser, the Ontario Liberal Party’s education critic, said the minister’s decision to delay the results is “wrong.”
“EQAO results are for educators and students so they know what help they may need to learn at the beginning of the school year. The school year is close to being half over, and the Minister has been holding onto the results so he can study them,” Fraser said in a statement.
“So much effort is directed to these tests in our schools. Families needed those results in September. The Minister should have shared them with the people who need them then.”
With files from CTV News Queen’s Park Bureau Chief Siobhan Morris
