Kindergarteners don’t read novellas or solve algebraic equations, but they form their understanding of early reading and math. In the classroom, the foundational building blocks—absorbing knowledge, memorizing facts, mastering skills—are laid to inform their critical thinking when they later turn to more advanced concepts.
Progressive curriculum trends have similarly gripped reading instruction in many Canadian classrooms, with traditional phonics (essentially, learning to decode words by sounding them out) replaced with derivations of so-called “whole word reading.”
What has been the result?
For example, in math, students in grades 3, 6, and 9 all experienced a drop in average math scores on Ontario’s EQAO standardized tests, with Grade 9 average scores dropping from 75 percent in 2018/19 (pre-COVID) to 52 percent in 2021-22. Around the same time, there were changes to the math curriculum, and Grade 9 academic and applied math were merged—but the downward trend across all grades mirrors the worrying PISA trajectory.
For many parents in Ontario, the Ford government’s recent reforms can’t come soon enough. Premier Ford promised to reform the K-12 math curriculum back in 2018 and countless parents are frustrated that their kids are struggling.
Still, most Ontario students attend government public schools. And because Ontario does not empower middle- and lower-income families to send their children to independent schools by allowing a portion of their tax dollars to follow their children to schools of their choice, as is the case in Quebec and every province west of Ontario, many families have no other affordable option.
If the Ontario government must mandate a provincial curriculum, rather than enforcing standards while allowing schools to experiment, then it should stick to evidence-based learning methods. So in that sense, the recent reforms are good news. Progressive inquiry-based learning might sound more exciting, but there’s nothing exciting about a child who despises school and encounters lifelong struggle because he was never properly taught to read.
Tumbling math and reading scores in Ontario show something isn’t working. It’s good the government is attempting to bring foundational skills back into classrooms.