Grade 9 math test scores for Burlington public high schools release: Robinson and Pearson don't rank all that well. Why?

By Staff

October 28, 2015

BURLINGTON, ON

Today the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) released results showing Halton District School Board students performing well in Grade 9 Academic and Applied Mathematics.

There is clearly some work to be done on the mathematics programs at some of the public school. M.M. Robinson students are not that much worse than students at the other high schools. Hopefully the board administration will be doing some accountability work. Parents might want to ask some leading questions as well.

For Grade 9 Math there are different assessments for students in the academic and applied courses. On the Grade 9 Academic Math assessment, 90% of students achieved the provincial standard, a decrease of one-percentage point over the previous year’s result. In total there were 3,256 students enrolled in Academic Math in 2014-2015.

For the 600 students in Applied Math, 54% attained the provincial standard in 2014-2015, a two-percentage point decrease from the previous year.

Labour action by Ontario teacher federations affected the administration of the Grade 3 and 6 assessments and the Grade 9 Math assessment last spring. Since not all schools participated in these assessments, EQAO will not provide a provincial-level result this year.

“We are pleased to see results released from the Education Quality and Accountability Office show our students continue to perform well in Academic and Applied Math,” said Stuart Miller, Director of Education for the Halton District School Board.

“We are completing the third year of a Math strategy designed to increase the confidence of students and teachers in their ability to go deeper into learning Mathematics. We have also hosted Math nights for parents and guardians of students to help them better understand Math instruction. The Halton District School Board will closely examine these latest EQAO results to ensure our students achieve success in Mathematics.”

Indeed the administration should ask some very direct questions to the heads of the math departments in several of the Burlington high schools.

It is interesting to note that Lester B. Pearson and M.M. Robinson are relatively close to each other.