Ontario is in the middle of an election campaign. This means that political party leaders are making all sorts of promises to attract voters.
Unsurprisingly, the Liberals and NDP are promising to scrap the standardized tests from the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) and replace them with a different assessment strategy. The current EQAO tests are administered in grades three, six, and nine and are used to assess basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Opponents of the EQAO tests have long claimed that these tests are too stressful for students. They argue that since teachers regularly conduct in-class assessments for their students, there is no need for the data provided by the EQAO tests. In other words, they believe that the EQAO tests are unnecessary.
Not only do they dismiss the EQAO tests as a waste of time, but these critics also argue that the tests are too expensive. They suggest it makes far more sense to hire new teachers, build new schools, and provide additional supports for students.
While these arguments might sound plausible in the heat of an election campaign, they fail to stand up to scrutiny.
For example, the total budget of the EQAO (which includes the entire design, implementation, and marking of these tests) is only about $32 million—barely 0.1 percent of the approximately $31 billion that is spent on education in Ontario every year.
Simply put, scrapping the EQAO tests will provide minuscule cost savings at best. It makes about as much sense as removing all diagnostic equipment from hospitals in order to hire a few extra nurses.
In addition, concerns about test stress are overblown. There are times when a moderate amount of stress is helpful. Stress can serve as a useful reminder of the importance of regular practice and careful preparation. Schools are supposed to prepare students for the real world, not shield them from all forms of stress.
The reality is that the EQAO tests provide educators with valuable information about student achievement. Without these tests, it would be difficult to compare the performances of students in one school to another since teacher-created assessments are far more subjective than standardized tests.
In fact, both teacher-created tests and standardized tests are essential for a balanced approach to student assessment. Teacher-created tests ensure teachers take individual student needs into account when designing and evaluating assignments and tests.
Standardized testing, on the other hand, introduces systematic balance with an objective measurement tool that makes it possible to determine whether the provincial curriculum standards have been met.
This doesn’t mean that the EQAO tests are perfect, or that there isn’t room for improvement.
One of the weaknesses of these tests is that they evaluate only reading, writing, and math skills. While these basic skills are obviously important, measuring only these skills implies that they can be taught independently. As a result, it becomes tempting in the weeks leading up to the EQAO tests for teachers to cancel regular science and social studies classes and use the extra time to prepare the students for the tests.
However, this is both shortsighted and counterproductive. The reality is that there is a strong correlation between reading comprehension and subject-specific content knowledge. Simply put, the more you already know about a particular topic, the easier it is for you to read and understand an article about that topic.
Thus, as tempting as it might be, it’s important that teachers not reduce the amount of content being taught prior to the EQAO tests. Providing students with a content-rich education is the best way to prepare them for these tests.
What this means is that instead of scrapping the EQAO tests, these tests should expand to include content-specific questions related to the curriculum. In other words, the EQAO tests should also evaluate the social studies and science knowledge of students. This would provide an important incentive for teachers to ensure that they cover the entire curriculum before their students write the standardized tests.
Obviously, expanding the EQAO tests to include specific content knowledge isn’t as catchy a promise as scrapping the EQAO tests entirely. If we want to improve our schools, let’s focus on the things that actually matter to student achievement. Properly designed standardized tests are an important component of a well-functioning education system.
