http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/679848

EDUCATION
Teachers slam standardized tests
August 12, 2009
Kristin Rushowy

EDUCATION REPORTER
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Ontario’s elementary teachers want the province to drastically scale back standardized testing, saying it is a “political tool” that wastes too much time and doesn’t reflect student achievement.

In several motions to be debated at next week’s annual meeting of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, several locals are asking the union to lobby for major changes to the tests, which are developed and administered by the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office – known as EQAO – and given to elementary students in Grades 3 and 6, testing reading, writing and math.

It costs $32 million a year to test students in Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10.

“EQAO drains much-needed time and resources away from teaching and learning,” says one motion, from the Toronto local, arguing such assessments are American-style and widely discredited even there.

“This standardized test is unfair, does not help students learn, and is not an accurate measure of student progress. It does not account for socio-economic conditions and does not measure other important aspects of education.”

Peel teachers want to make the public aware of the “negative effects” of testing and, like the Toronto teachers, are asking that testing instead be done on a random sample of schools, with neither students nor schools identified.

Teachers in Greater Essex County want to boycott the tests next year unless such changes are made.

“EQAO tests are a political tool and have no pedagogical value,” their motion states.

However, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said yesterday the tests are a good “diagnostic tool” and both the province and school boards need them “to gather the data they need to make improvements.” The province uses the results to target resources, she added, which couldn’t be done with a random sample.

“When the NDP brought in the notion (of testing), they certainly thought of it as a curriculum-based tool to help improve student achievement,” Wynne also said. “That’s how we have seen it and used it.”

David Clegg, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said test scores “have become the obsession driving far too much of what happens in Ontario schools” and that $32 million could be better spent.

He argues they were brought in to make sure students were absorbing the curriculum, something that could easily be measured by a random sample.

“Schools are more than their test scores,” he said, adding that the tests only provide a snapshot, not a true picture of what’s going on in a school or even for an individual student.

Teachers are already using other, much less expensive, diagnostic tools to help students, he added.

He also worries that school and board performance are increasingly being judged on EQAO scores, which, in general, are higher in more affluent areas.

Toronto Star