Ontario’s publicly funded education system is often cited as one of the best in the world, despite what we’ve been hearing in the news the past few months. Many politicians and citizens have weighed in on this topic.
My top priority is fixing our education system to make sure our kids have the skills to succeed in the new economy. Today over half of grade 6 students are failing basic math. We will not back down when it comes to fixing this broken system.https://t.co/I4N1Bjalk0
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) April 5, 2019
Fix Our Schools found data on student achievement from the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that shows Ontario students’ high performance in reading, math, and science was a significant contributing factor to Canada’s overall rankings of 7th in Science, 3rd in reading and 10th in mathematics, for an overall ranking of 7th in the world.
The OECD is an established organization, with 63 member countries, and has a goal of stimulating economic progress. Since education is tightly linked to economic progress, the OECD ranks the quality, equity, and efficiency of school systems worldwide every three years.
PISA is the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment. To compile the PISA data, the OECD tests over half a million students from over 70 countries in science, reading, and math. The most recent PISA rankings were published in 2016 and the next ones are due out in December 2019.
#OntEd Reminder that in latest pan-Canadian assessments, Ontario was #2 in math @CCMEC https://t.co/UMj9BXEbiS Yes, there’s always scope for improvement. Teachers & students require support in math teaching & learning but idea Ontario is failing is false @LisaThompsonMPP #OnPoli pic.twitter.com/Q3iufnsbyD
— Professor Carol Campbell (@CarolCampbell4) March 21, 2019
Another interesting gauge of Ontario’s publicly funded education system can be found in the Pan-Canadian Assessment (PCAP) program, conducted by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). According to page 23 of the most recent report, Ontario students are second in the country in reading achievement. As per the tweet above, and found on page 36 of the PCAP report, Ontario students are also second in the country in math.
Fix Our Schools continues to advocate for improved school conditions. We strongly urge Doug Ford’s government to institute a standard of good repairs for all publicly funded schools and to provide the adequate, stable funding required to quickly eliminate the $15.9-billion of disrepair that plagues Ontario’s schools. For the past five years, the Fix Our Schools campaign has also consistently messaged how many amazing things happen inside these broken schools every single day. The results we’ve outlined here in terms of Ontario student performance seem to confirm this messaging. Ontario’s students have been achieving despite often learning in poor school conditions.