By: Susan Adamson
Last week in Ontario brought leaked news reports that 29 percent of the province's Grade 10 students could not pass a literacy test. That "news" has created widespread concern about the quality of the province's education system.
Of course any such test result is cause for concern. Of equal or greater cause for concern, however, is the how the Harris government has milked this leak for maximum political points in its ongoing campaign of teacher- and education-bashing. Here are some facts to help sort fact from spin:
1. The Leak - The provincial test results, without the contextual data, were to be released on Thursday March 8 at a 10 am press conference to be held by the Education Quality Assessment Office (EQAO). The plan was to describe the test and set the context for the results. District School Boards received their test results without the contextual data early in the week but were requested to embargo them until after the Provincial release. EQAO asked District School Boards to release their results no later than April 9th but not before the intended Thursday March 8 EQAO press conference. This was intended to give them time to access the contextual data collected by EQAO (ie answers to questions about reading habits, gender, etc.) that would be available on a secure web site for the school boards on March 19th.
It appears the government leaked the results on Tuesday evening to garner headlines about 30% failure rates without any appropriate background on the test being available to the media and the public. This leak took EQAO and the district school boards by surprise. It is the first time the Ministry of Education has interfered so directly with EQAO - which is supposed to be an arms length agency.
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The government apparently leaked the results to garner headlines about 30% failure rates without any appropriate background |
2. Issues Around the Test - For OSSTF, the administration of the test was the lesser of two evils. We lobbied successfully with the help of many other educational stakeholders including the EQAO that the test not be a graduation requirement this year since it was the first time for it. It also involved the "guinea pig cohort" - the first Ontario high school students taking the province's new curriculum and set to graduate without the Grade 13 OAC option. Therefore it was potentially harmful for students.
Since it wasn't a graduation option, however, it was clear many students would lack motivation and not take it seriously. How seriously would any of us have taken a 5-hour test that didn't count when we were in Grade 10? Teachers reported that students resented missing their regular program to sit for 2½ hours each of two consecutive days to write the test. Further, there was no marking scheme available to teachers or students nor was the level of performance required to pass available to teachers or students prior to or during the test. How seriously would any students take a test that doesn't count and has no marking scheme or guidance on what constitutes a pass? Media reports suggest that the pass mark was 61% in writing and 62.5% in reading. As the test is secret and embargoed nobody knows what these numbers mean. See #4.
3. One test does not suit all - How can educators acknowledge that students in secondary schools study at different levels of difficulty, but then ask them all to pass the same test? Clearly, as Queen's University's noted educational researcher Alan King has suggested, the new curriculum does not provide a place or program for those students who previously studied at the basic level. What hope do they have in this test? Students who required accommodations such as due to disabilities or other problems were often at a disadvantage as it was difficult logistically to provide the extra time or equipment for these students.
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Testing should be diagnostic rather than about establishing credentials of schools or educators |
4. Setting the Bar - Students participated in the test without the knowledge as to what was an expected level of performance for a pass. Last summer the EQAO used an outside panel of nine educators and nine "citizens" to review student work from the field test to determine the criteria for successful completion. No information from this was shared with teachers, parents or students prior to the test. As teachers we would never give a test to a student without a marking scheme. EQAO was still fine-tuning the pass/fail standard after the test was completed in October.
5. School-bashing vs. Helping Kids - OSSTF has maintained the emphasis of province-wide testing should be diagnostic rather than establishing credentials of schools or educators. Testing should focus on remediating problems for students. The government disagreed and overruled us. Government provides no funding for remediation and has downloaded this responsibility on the District School Boards without providing resources.
Remedial programs are available but these consist of summer school programs for Grade 8s going into the new high school curriculum. Proposals for having remedial time during the regular school day counted as instructional time have been rejected by the government in its ongoing dispute with teachers about their workload.
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How seriously would any students take a test that doesn't count and has no marking scheme or guidance on what constitutes a pass? |
6. Many non-teachers were involved in the marking - According to the Toronto Star of November 10th, almost a quarter of the markers had no teacher training. If the test is to continue and be credible, it should be held at the end of the school year (preferably Grade 9) and marked by practising teachers in the summer, as are the Grade 3 and 6 tests.
7. It's dangerous to use standardized test results to rank schools - That's especially so in this case, where students had only been in secondary school one year when they wrote the test. It's worrisome to teachers that this year EQAO, as a result of many freedom-of-information media requests, will post all school and school board results on their web site in April. This means any member of the press or public can download results and rank as they choose, however meaningless or deceptive the results may be.
8. The test assumes knowledge of a new curriculum to which many students have not been exposed - Many students have missed major parts of the new curriculum, but the expectation is that they will have taken it. This is the result of the government rushing in curriculum in the middle of students' careers and before the system was prepared for it. Yet again these students are serving as the guinea pig cohort for the government's mismanaged implementation of secondary reform.
Standardized testing can be an effective diagnostic tool, but its promotion for political use is starting to backfire. On February 20, the government of California proposed delaying its high school graduation test for a year (reading, writing and math taken in senior year) due to concern about legal challenges. The lack of mechanism to determine a passing score and court rulings in other states saying students cannot be tested on things they have not actually been taught forced its postponement.
A February 28 report predicted the New York State drop-out rate will skyrocket now that students have to pass Regents examinations in order to graduate. So far the rate has gone from 15.6% in 1998 to 19.5% in 2000. Their recent report states: "Whenever standards are raised without the necessary academic and social supports, graduation rates tend to decline and drop out rates increase."
Will that be the fate of Ontario students who need help most and don't get it? Are the problems that will dog them all their lives worth whatever political harvest the government will reap? I don't think so.
Susan Adamson is Director of Educational Services with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF).
Posted: March 12, 2001
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