Parents need to know that EQAO testing is flavoring absolutely everything that goes
on in this school from Grade 1 to Grade 8.
It wasn't really something that was really meaningful in terms of her learning or what
she is getting out of her learning experience.
The teachers can't use it to help a child progress - it robs the teachers of times
to work with your children on something that might actually be of use to them as individuals.
The communication and the marking system that I have in my classroom is absolutely more
powerful than EQAO can ever be.
The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario held a meeting of its teacher activists in
February 2010. The keynote speaker was Professor Joel Westheimer, a prominent authority on
standardized testing in North America.
I sometimes call uh, when I speak on topics similar to this I title it "no child left
thinking" after the "no child left behind" legislation in the US and I do that because
I think what is going is not just uh, an attack on things like the arts or, you know, other
subjects that we all know get pushed to the side by policies like "no child left behind"
or EQAO testing um, but it's actually an attack on the reason that a lot of us got into education
in the first place which is helping kids to think for themselves and make meaning of the
world.
What is EQAO testing?
Provincial standardized tests written by all Ontario students in Grades 3, 6 and 9. Only
numeracy and literacy are tested. The test results are used by others, including real
estate agents to rank and compare schools.
No one's really asking the most important question which is what are the tests for,
right? Um, there's all different reasons to test, right. You can test to help to improve
learning. Clearly EQAO testing is not about that because kids don't know what answers
they got wrong, they don't learn anything about the process so it's not to improve learning
for that child.
The test results are released 5 months after they're written. Students see only the scores,
no review is conducted.
It doesn't affect their grades whatsoever and uh, it is very difficult to explain to
them why it's important for this school and yet why it's not important to them personally.
EQAO testing is a snapshot of how they do at the end of three or four years of school.
It's not the beginning and it's not the end of that student. They're not a level... they're
much more than that.
It's not really information that I find useful or helpful and really understanding or knowing
where my child is at.
When it's in the EQAO test year, I think that entire years' worth of learning and teaching
is based around the EQAO.
This journey has been side lined: social studies, also science, uh the arts, um, recess, uh,
in a recent study, 70% of districts uh, in North America scaled back time for teaching
in any subject other than math and literacy, um, for the test prep subjects to make room
for those subjects. So in some areas uh, there are whole groups of students, especially the
ones who don't do well on the tests, who are forbidden from taking any of these subjects
until their test scores go up. Well you can imagine this is a wonderful approach to teaching,
right. We have a child who's all from like, age 6, has already learned they can't do school,
right, so let's take them out of the one or two things that they actually can do, um,
sports, cartooning, whatever it might be, theatre, and make sure that they are only
engaged in activities that they already know that they are a failure at, right, um, and
let's see how their test scores improve.
There's a lot of prep work involved with EQAO testing and a lot of teachers feel pressured
to teach to the test.
The curriculum is jam packed as it is, full of, um, strands of which teachers are desperately
trying to get into their programming, and this is just, takes more time away from doing
that already, so it is a real big stress for teachers.
It's taking away all of those teachable moments, it's taking away the ability to suddenly say,
"Hey you know what, let's stop this because really this is connected to this and let's
go learn about this for the next two hours." Every moment they have now is pre-programmed
all in the name of raising scores which are of little value to anybody.
What we're continually hearing from teachers in the classroom is that the amount of stress
this puts on them as well as the students is enormous. The amount of paperwork that,
um we're seeing that EQAO and other data collection sorts of activities are now putting on them
is beginning to become overwhelming.
Grade 6 Mathematics is a really big deal. It's a difficult year for children and in
order to get the math program done by May when we do our testing you have to smash math
in every day, double and triple the time you normally would.
Kids are, especially Grade 3s, are very very anxious and worried that they might not do
very well on the test.
I had to calm the nerves of the class because kids were anxious this year again so we're
trying to support but at the same time we know it's causing a lot of anxiety within
the parent body as well as the students.
Outside groups are using test scores to rank schools. Property values and enrolment are
being affected.
To buy a house in a subdivision based on a rank of a test that is only three half days
is quite foolish. I think it's, the school is much much more than a rank, a ranking score.
It's the teachers, it's the feeling, it's the parent population, it's everything that
we are that EQAO is not.
There are alternatives to this standardized testing in use now. Ontario Elementary Teacher's
believe that ongoing daily assessments by teachers are better than EQAO testing for
evaluating and improving student performance.
Um, let me just ask you, ok, raise your hand please if you're a member of the educators
against - teachers against students knowing how to read or write or add numbers. There's
no takers, right? So you might be surprised to hear that I'm not against even provincial
or national testing in some ways. You want some kinds of bench marks. But the degree,
the extent to which it is done, it is so out of hand, that is has restricted teachers'
ability to be professionals in deciding what children need, what individual children need,
at individual times in their individual classrooms.
Alternatives include eliminate EQAO or declare a moratorium and have parents, teachers and
government and review the current model, or do random testing instead of testing all students.
If it's to establish a benchmark just to sort of like, quality assurance, then random sample
testing is perfectly adequate and very legitimate. Again, only for the narrow range of skills
and abilities that EQAO testing tests, which is literacy and mathematics.
The best communication I receive about my child's growth is definitely the conversations
I have with their teacher. That might be a phone call, it might be a note in the agenda,
it might be a parent-teacher interview, both formally or informally, but it's really just
that communication with the teacher themselves.
When a child's parents come and ask what, what the child is doing and how they're doing
in school, I let them know how they're doing socially, emotionally and academically, because
we look at the child's needs as a whole child.
My child's school has such a warm environment and the teachers are so welcoming and they
care about those kids. So those scores are not in the top 50 or even in the top 100 or
whatever. It gets away from what's important which is the learner, the child.
If you're concerned about EQAO, please contact your Member of Provincial Parliament. And
visit our website www.ETFO.ca.