EQAO releases school and board achievement results and profiles 27 schools

TORONTO, Sept. 15 /CNW/ - Today the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) released the 2010 school- and board-level results from its elementary school assessments of reading, writing and mathematics, written in Grades 3 and 6, and its secondary school assessment of mathematics, written in Grade 9. In addition, EQAO has published two comprehensive provincial reports of this year's results: an elementary school report for the primary- and junior-division assessments and a secondary school report for the Grade 9 Assessment of Mathematics and the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test.

Today's reports also profile 27 schools—13 elementary and 14 secondary—from across the province that are using provincial assessment results to support their improvement planning. The profiled schools are at various stages of their journey of learning but are representative of the dedicated school communities that can be found right across Ontario. The schools are notable for their leadership, data-driven strategies and whole-school approaches to helping every child succeed. Each of these schools has adopted an action plan based on its unique circumstances to work toward improved student outcomes.

The provincial-level results released on August 30 indicated that elementary school students have made notable gains in reading and writing over the past five years and that secondary school students have made important gains in math over the same period (see Table 1 of the backgrounder). With today's results, schools and boards across Ontario will be able to compare their progress since last year and consider their performance relative to that of the province as a whole.

"School- and board-level results provide policy makers and educators at all levels with powerful information to assess student learning and plan for improved student achievement," said Dr. Brian Desbiens, Chair of EQAO's Board of Directors. "The systematic use of EQAO data alongside classroom-generated data to identify areas of success and areas for improvement has led to purposeful changes in instructional practices and translated into positive outcomes for thousands of students across the province."

Further, by providing detailed information on student achievement in schools and boards, EQAO data not only create strong, local accountability, but also encourage dialogue between teachers and parents. To facilitate this dialogue, EQAO has developed six questions to help parents interpret their child's school report. These questions are currently available on EQAO's Web site.

"Ontario's provincial testing program was created in part because parents called for an independent gauge of how their children were achieving in relation to a provincial standard," said Marguerite Jackson, EQAO's Chief Executive Officer. "We know that early identification, focused attention and support from the school and parents alike are critical to helping students master the skills they need to succeed."

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Backgrounder

Ontario Student Achievement over Time

EQAO Assessment Component or Version	Percentage at Levels 3 and 4
	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	Change over 5 years
Grade 3 Reading	62%	62%	61%	61%	62%	0%
Grade 6 Reading	64%	64%	66%	69%	72%	+8%
Grade 3 Writing	64%	64%	66%	68%	70%	+6%
Grade 6 Writing	61%	61%	67%	67%	70%	+9%
Grade 3 Mathematics	68%	69%	68%	70%	71%	+3%
Grade 6 Mathematics	61%	59%	61%	63%	61%	0%
Grade 9 Applied Mathematics	35%	35%	34%	38%	40%	+5%
Grade 9 Academic Mathematics	71%	71%	75%	77%	82%	+11%

About EQAO

The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) was established in 1996 based on a recommendation of Ontario's Royal Commission on Learning. The Commission consulted extensively with teachers, parents, students and taxpayers. It concluded that province-wide assessments would contribute to greater quality and accountability in the publicly funded school system. EQAO was created as an independent agency to conduct the assessments and gather objective information from our schools.

EQAO plays an important role in Ontario education by conducting province-wide tests at key points in every student's primary, junior and secondary education and by reporting the results. The tests are designed, administered and scored in partnership with Ontario's educators, and they measure student performance in reading, writing and mathematics based on the expectations set out in The Ontario Curriculum.

In a 2009 report, the Auditor General of Ontario confirmed that EQAO tests reflect the provincial curriculum expectations fairly and accurately, are consistent in difficulty from one year to the next and are administered and marked so as to ensure that their results are valid, consistent and reliable indicators of student achievement.

Results from EQAO testing are an important indicator of student learning and measure achievement in relation to a common provincial standard. The objective and reliable information gained through these assessments adds to the current knowledge about how Ontario students are doing and has become an important tool for improvement planning at the student, school, school board and provincial levels.

In the 2009-2010 school year, there were

• 127 789 Grade 3 students in 3375 schools;
• 134 294 Grade 6 students in 3194 schools;
• 101 268 Grade 9 students in academic mathematics in 686 schools and
• 47 566 Grade 9 students in applied mathematics in 714 schools.

The Provincial Standard

The four levels of achievement that EQAO uses to report student results are aligned with the four levels of achievement used by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education has established Level 3 as the provincial standard. Level 3 represents the range from B- to B+ for students in elementary school and the range from 70% to 79% for students in secondary school.

Meeting the standard means a student has a solid grasp of the required knowledge and skills, which is a good indication that he or she will be ready for work in the next grade. EQAO assessments are developed and scored in a way that ensures the standard is rigorously maintained from year to year and that the results can be compared appropriately from one year to the next.

Individual Student Results

Students who participated in the assessments last spring will receive an Individual Student Report (ISR) that shows the student's achievement in relation to the provincial standard. The ISR for students who wrote the junior-division assessment will also show their results on the primary-division assessment if they wrote it in 2007. In addition, it will provide parents with a summary of school, board and provincial results.

ISRs will be in schools the week of September 20 in order to be sent home with students.

Testing the Curriculum

The provincial tests given at the end of the primary division (Grade 3) and the junior division (Grade 6) assess students relative to the expectations in The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Language (revised 2006) and The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Mathematics (revised 2005), which outline the knowledge and skills students should have acquired by the corresponding stages of their schooling.

EQAO assessments measure how well students have met the provincial curriculum expectations. For example, Grade 3 and Grade 6 students are assessed in

• reading—using a variety of reading strategies and conventions, understanding concepts, making inferences and connecting ideas;
• writing—using writing strategies and language conventions, understanding assigned tasks, organizing ideas and communicating with the reader and
• mathematics—demonstrating knowledge and skills in the five strands of mathematics: number sense and numeration, geometry and spatial sense, measurement, patterning and algebra, and data management and probability.

The Grade 9 mathematics test is based on the expectations for student knowledge and performance by the end of Grade 9 in The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 and 10: Mathematics (revised 2005). The purpose of the Grade 9 Assessment of Mathematics is to assess the level at which students in the applied and academic mathematics courses are meeting Grade 9 curriculum expectations. Students enrolled in Grade 9 academic and applied mathematics must demonstrate knowledge and skills in the same three areas—number sense and algebra, linear relations, measurement and geometry—and for the academic course they must also do so in analytic geometry.

Samples of all EQAO assessments can be viewed at www.eqao.com.

For further information:

and to arrange interviews, please contact

Katia Collette
Communications Officer
416-212-7047
[email protected]