This blog is not about letting schools operate without standards. It is about the wasteful, disruptive and expensive EQAO process that tests every child using an unscientific instrument.
Schools need to be accountable to students, parents and the boards that run them. That can be done by making the principal and his/her boss, the superintendent responsible. They are in the school daily seeing the atmosphere in the halls and classrooms, talking to students and checking the evaluations that teachers use daily. Random standardizing testing of students, schools and classes in a system could be one effective tool but children should not be coached daily on the test.
Teachers must evaluate students. Evaluation is a process that tells them how to adapt the program so that all students learn what they need to succeed. Testing is only one method that teacher use. Good evaluation has to be flexible. It is not an objective process and standardize testing is too limited and inflexible a process to be useful.
