Hamilton’s public school board is petitioning the province to cancel EQAO for the current school year

Hamilton's public school board is echoing calls to cancel Ontario's provincewide standardized testing this spring.

Hamilton-Wentworth District School board trustees have agreed to pen a letter asking the province to hit pause on Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) testing for students in Grade 3, 6, 9 and 10 for another year.

Some trustees argued that it's unfair to ask students to write - and staff administer - the test in the wake of a two-year period of pandemic-induced disruption.

I think it's the wrong time and I don't think it's going to provide us with data that will be helpful going forward," chair Dawn Danko said at a board meeting Monday. It will just add stress to an already stressed system."

Danko said she feels the board should instead focus its energy where we can best support student well-being and recovery."

Trustees Maria Felix Miller and Penny Deathe echoed this sentiment.

The annual standardized test, designed to assess Ontario public-school students' reading, writing and math skills, was cancelled the last two years amid the pandemic.

The board's letter comes at a request for support from York Region District School Board, which penned a similar letter earlier this month raising concerns about added strain on students and the system, and saying that the test would amplify inequities exacerbated by the pandemic.

Interim director John Bryant said on Monday the board is required to participate unless otherwise directed.

In an email, spokesperson Shawn McKillop said the board is currently engaged in preparation" for EQAO, which is expected to begin in May for students in Grade 3 and 6 and June for those in Grade 9.

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School board said it would support ministry plans and continue with upcoming elementary testing. At the Catholic board, Grade 9 math assessment and Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), taken in Grade 10, have already taken place.

Superintendent of education Morris Hucal said EQAO provides a snapshot" of student performance, which board staff use to inform planning and improve learning.

It's a look to see how our students fared compared to the province," he said. We are able to continue to see what trends we're seeing with respect to how students are doing."

This year, students will write a new digitized version of the test, which will establish new baselines for EQAO achievement data and results," according to EQAO. That, combined with a new Grade 9 math curriculum, makes comparing year-over-year results a challenge.

It will be comparing apples to oranges," Hucal said.

There's no real data'

Some experts say imperfect data may be better than nothing at all.

Ontario has dropped the ball" on student assessment during the pandemic, said Wilfrid Laurier University's Kelly Gallagher-Mackay.

First cancelled, then reinstated in a new format, there's an argument that EQAO results won't give us all of the information we want.

We won't be able to find out from EQAO how students are doing now relative to how we would have expected them to do pre-pandemic," said Gallagher-Mackay, who studies educational inequality.

But, she said, it should offer something.

It would be a common measure across the properties of how kids are doing right now ... relative to curriculum expectations," she said.

The information could also spur government action.

If we have a problem, as some of us have been worried for a long time that we do, then it would probably put more pressure on the government to develop ways of addressing that," Gallagher-Mackay said. It would certainly heighten public concern about how kids are doing academically."

EQAO criticism isn't new. For years, opponents have argued the controversial measure of learning is stressful for students, consumes valuable time and has been used unfairly by outside organizations to rank schools.

The test is useful, but should not be an exclusive indicator of how kids are prepared for the future," Gallagher-Mackay said. Data, such as aggregated diagnostic assessments, credit accumulation in early high school, graduation rates and early reading levels, would provide a more complete picture.

Former Hamilton public board trustee Judith Bishop said she understands why the test has been met with fierce opposition after the most disrupted education period" in memory.

But we're in a situation where there's no real data ... about how well these kids have been doing," she said. We don't know."

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com