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Statement by Education Minister on EQAO Results

Today, Education Minister, the Honourable Lisa Thompson, issued the following statement on the provincial EQAO results:

“The EQAO assessment results released today prove once again that we must do better with respect to students’ math performance in Ontario.

For the last five years, we have seen an overall decline in EQAO math scores. Half of Ontario’s Grade 6 students have failed to meet the provincial standard for math. And by the time our students get to Grade 9, more than half of them taking the applied math courses are failing to make the grade.

This is unacceptable. The previous government used our children’s classrooms to test a failed experimental curriculum called “Discovery Math”. As promised, our government has already made changes to bring back proven methods of teaching that work.

Yesterday, we released a new teacher’s guide and parent fact sheet that will help both teachers and parents focus student learning on traditional formulas and memorization techniques.

We’ve also announced that we are refocusing $55 million in existing math investments to district school boards. This funding will support math facilitators and leads at the school board and school levels, as well as provide release-time for our teachers to participate in training and learning focused on the fundamentals of math.

Although our government has already started to take the necessary steps to improve our children’s understanding of fundamental math, we look forward to hearing from parents and educators this September as we engage in unprecedented provincewide public consultations. These consultations will cover a variety of topics that will help inform changes to the mathematics curriculum. We look forward to sharing more detailed information on the consultation process in the coming weeks.

Our government believes that by getting back to the basics we’re ensuring our students are leaders in math education once again. We are committed to ensuring students have the skills they need to be successful in their future.”

 

SOURCE – Ministry of Education

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