Ontario elementary teachers may vote next week to push the government to drastically scale back standardized reading, writing and math tests for students. This would be the wrong answer to the question of testing.
Some elementary teachers are concerned that students spend too much time preparing for the Grade 3 and 6 tests, and claim the results are not a good measure of academic achievement.
Three public school unions – Toronto, Peel and Greater Essex County – have put forward motions about the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests for debate at the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario meeting, which begins Monday.
Instead of all students taking the test, the Toronto local wants randomized tests that do not identify students or even individual schools.
Perhaps for teachers this would remove some of the embarrassment of poor test results, but it would not help students. Parents would not get a measure of how their child is doing. Teachers would not know how their students compare to others. Boards would not be able to identify struggling schools, which may need extra resources, or schools that excel and could provide lessons for others.
We know from the EQAO tests that there are still many children who are not at the academic level they need to be. That is where teachers should be focusing their attention – not on restricting the standardized tests.
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