About half of Ontario students are not meeting the provincial math standards of a B grade, according to the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO).
Why it matters: This is not a local trend. Students across Canada and the world are still trying to recover from the devastating effects the pandemic has on learning. As schools shut down and re-opened for years, the most vulnerable students faced the biggest setbacks.
- In the US, math scores have fallen in nearly every state.
Catch up: The comparison between the 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 school year, or what’s now known as “pre” and “post” that ol’ global COVID pandemic, standardized tests show:
- Only 52% of grade 9 students met the provincial standard (down from 75%), 47% of grade 6 students (down from 50%), and 59% of grade 3 students (down from 60%).
- Despite some concerns over the rollout of a new digital test format without enough planning, students’ literacy scores (in English or French) barely fluctuated.
Yes, but: Standardized math scores have been on the decline for years (a pre-pandemic success rate of 50% isn’t exactly something to cheer about), which led to Onatrio rolling out a new curriculum in 2020 that was framed as basic math that would apply to future work.
Zoom out: As provinces ramp up standardized testing after a pandemic hiatus, they’ll likely see trends similar to those in Ontario—the province is giving parents up to $250 to help fill learning gaps, but it will likely take more to make up for so much lost time.