{"id":323138,"date":"2025-12-03T17:55:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323138\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T17:55:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T17:55:12","slug":"ontario-panel-to-review-learning-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/323138\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario panel to review learning, testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Education Minister Paul Calandra discusses findings of EQAO testing after the province delayed sharing the test results. <\/p>\n

Education Minister Paul Calandra says he is appointing an expert advisory body to lead a \u201cthorough review\u201d of how Ontario supports student learning following disappointing standardized test results for students and to also examine the province\u2019s standardized testing. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe results show that despite improvements, as we continue to implement a back-to-basics approach, there have been inadequate progress in reading, writing and especially math,\u201d Calandra said. \u201cHalf of Grade Six students and 42 per cent of Grade Nine students are not meeting the provincial standard in math.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO)<\/a> released the latest student test results Wednesday after Calandra delayed the results, which were expected to be released earlier in the fall. <\/p>\n

Calandra said he held back the results because he wanted to do a \u201cdeep dive\u201d into the results. <\/p>\n

The education minister said he doesn\u2019t think scrapping the EQAO tests is the best option but \u201cthere is room for improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a form of testing, standardized testing, is important,\u201d he said, but added that the results should come \u201csooner and more often.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the appointees who will lead the review will be announced in the new year. <\/p>\n

Asked why the government needs to turn to an external panel instead of making use of ministry staff, Calandra said \u201cif we were doing it right, then we wouldn\u2019t have 50 per cent of our students not meeting provincial benchmarks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the review will be \u201cas much a review of how the ministry is preparing our teachers, the resources that we\u2019re giving our teachers, the resources that we\u2019re giving parents.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go outside of my ministry, because asking the people who have been in charge for the last 50 or 60 years to review themselves doesn\u2019t necessarily come up with the best answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calandra tied the disappointing results with \u201cdysfunctional trustee performance\u201d but said potential legislation to modify the role of trustees will not be coming before the government breaks for the holidays. <\/p>\n

Liberal MPP John Fraser slammed the government for holding back the results Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no good reason to hold this information back. If we are going to put students, parents, and educators through EQAO, the least they deserve is timely results,\u201d Fraser said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies lost two months they could have spent getting their children the help they needed. If a Grade 9 student struggled in math in June, their parents and their school should have known in the fall, not halfway through the school year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fraser called the review panel a \u201cdelay tactic\u201d and said the $1,500 a day the government plans to pay each of the two advisers would be better spent on students. <\/p>\n

In a statement, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) renewed their call for the EQAO tests to be scrapped. <\/p>\n

\u201cEducators are struggling with large class sizes, increasing workloads, and rising violence in schools, yet the Ford government remains incomprehensibly fixated on meaningless EQAO results,\u201d ETFO President David Mastin said in the statement. <\/p>\n

The results released by EQAO Wednesday reflect tests conducted during the 2024-25 school year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Education Minister Paul Calandra discusses findings of EQAO testing after the province delayed sharing the test results. Education…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-323138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}