Ontario investing $200M on math curriculum in wake of low scores
Posted August 28, 2019 10:52 am.
Last Updated August 28, 2019 11:57 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced Wednesday $200 million over four years — $55 million for the upcoming school year — on improving the math curriculum in Ontario schools.
Lecce’s announcement came as the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) released its results of standardized tests from the last school year.
According to the results, the number of elementary students who are meeting the provincial standard in math is declining.
For Grade 3 students, 58 per cent met the standard, which is five percentage points lower than three years ago.
Fewer than half of Grade 6 students — 48 per cent — met the standard, which is two percentage points lower than three years ago.
The EQAO said research has shown that for students in those grades, their basic math skills are stronger than their ability to apply those skills to a problem.
The agency also said that the Grade 9 results are relatively consistent, but there is a persistent gap between students in the applied and academic courses — 44 per cent and 84 per cent of them met the standard, respectively.
Literacy results were also fairly consistent with the past several years, except for a decline in the number of Grade 3 students who met the provincial writing standard.
