Paul W. Bennett: Standardized testing is vital to the education system

Provincial student assessment is approaching a moment of reckoning. Canada’s flagship agency, the Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), is now under review. Thirty years after its creation, Education Minister Paul Calandra announced a fresh review of the independent student testing agency earlier this month, triggered by another round of disappointing provincial test results. It’s time to bolster EQAO and encourage other provinces to build upon the lessons.

The swift reaction from vocal education professors and teachers’ unions was predictable — usually some variant of “the tests don’t measure what matters.” In reality, Calandra was responding to something far more consequential: evidence that too many Ontario students are falling behind in mathematics, reading and writing. And once again, it is EQAO data that has forced the issue into the public spotlight.

Independent, transparent, arm’s-length provincial assessments are the litmus tests of education. They reveal quality and expose problems that would otherwise remain hidden. Without EQAO, Ontario parents would have no reliable way of knowing how their children were performing compared to provincial standards — and governments would most likely be inclined to gloss over or bury unfavourable student results.

Calandra’s announcement underscores not only the relevance of EQAO but the urgent need to strengthen its independence and modernize its reporting. It also highlights a national challenge: Canada needs more — not fewer — provincial assessment agencies like EQAO.

When Ontario created EQAO in 1996, it did so because parents demanded clarity and accountability. The province’s opaque patchwork of internal ministry reporting simply wasn’t credible. By establishing EQAO as a Crown agency, independent of the Ministry of Education, Ontario created a mechanism capable of delivering objective, comparable information on student achievement. Research by Saskatchewan assessment expert Derek Copp went on to confirm in 2019 what practitioners already knew: EQAO was the gold standard for public disclosure of school performance data in Canada.

Despite ongoing criticism from segments of the education establishment, public trust in EQAO has remained remarkably stable. The 2018 OISE Educational Issues Survey showed that roughly half of parents and a majority of the public continue to support every-student testing. Over half agree that EQAO results are reliable indicators of whether a school is performing well.

When Grade 3 testing was threatened back in April 2018, even The Toronto Star rallied to the cause. The memorable editorial said it all: “Standardized testing needs to stay,” because without it, parents would have no way of knowing whether students were mastering essential skills.

That argument is even more compelling today. The latest EQAO results signal persistent weaknesses in mathematics and numeracy — and widening disparities across boards and socioeconomic groups. These are not abstract concerns; they translate directly into long-term academic struggles, diminished life chances, and enormous economic costs. Calandra’s announcement of a review is an explicit acknowledgment that the status quo is not delivering for Ontario’s students.

Critics often point to cultural bias, test anxiety, or curriculum narrowing as reasons to scale back provincial assessments. These concerns deserve thoughtful responses, but they do not justify dismantling independent testing. Research by cognitive scientists such as Aron Benjamin and Hal Pashler shows that well-designed, low-stakes assessments actually reinforce learning, reduce anxiety through familiarity, and help students consolidate knowledge. The fashionable narrative that testing harms student well-being is simply not supported by the evidence.

Equally important, EQAO is already evolving. Every student test is now online, and adaptive testing is accessible for students with identified learning difficulties. This creates enormous potential for more responsive assessment and richer diagnostic data.

Ontario’s independent testing agency model should serve as a catalyst for a broader national reform. Most provinces still rely on internal ministry assessment branches, which are inherently more vulnerable to political interference and less transparent in their reporting. Establishing independent provincial assessment agencies — built on the EQAO model but adapted to provincial contexts — would create a consistent framework for monitoring student achievement across Canada and ensure that parents receive credible, publicly accessible information.

The case for such agencies is stronger than ever. In the wake of COVID-19–related learning disruptions and mounting evidence of declining achievement, Canada needs transparent, reliable data to diagnose learning gaps and track progress. Independent assessments provide exactly that. They depoliticize school performance reporting, empower parents, equip teachers with actionable diagnostic information and hold governments accountable for results — good or bad.

Calandra’s education review should not be seen as a retreat from EQAO, but as an opportunity to reinforce its independence, modernize its operations, and expand its research mandate. If Ontario seizes the moment, EQAO could once again lead the country in defining what high-quality, transparent, modern assessment looks like.

The lesson for other provinces is equally clear: independent, arm’s-length assessment is critical to creating a higher-functioning, more transparent public education system. Without it, mark inflation goes undetected, problems are concealed, learning gaps widen and accountability evaporates. Strengthening EQAO and establishing similar agencies across Canada is not only prudent public policy — it is an essential investment in the improvement of teaching, learning and curriculum.

We live in an education era of declining achievement and rising uncertainty, where evidence must trump ideology in charting the way forward. Canada’s students deserve clearer standards and honest reporting. The path forward begins with bolstering EQAO — and ensuring every province has an independent assessment agency capable of providing the data we need to improve student learning for the sake of the current generation.

National Post

Paul W. Bennett, Ed.D., is the director of the Schoolhouse Institute, a senior fellow of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, author of The State of the System: A Reality Check on Canada’s Schools (2020), and the founder of researchED Canada.