There must have been thunderous applause in ETFO union meetings across the province.  Faced with a government and school boards that aren’t very interested in bargaining fairly, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario decided to take the next step and stage a Work to Rule campaign, or WRT for shorthand in the Twitter-verse.

Here’s the not so hidden secret: ETFO hate the standardized test.  Teachers claim it takes too much time away from creative teaching, as teaching to the test is way different than teaching in the abstract.  They have claimed that it creates stress for over-anxious kids because children are under tremendous pressure to perform well.  They claim that policy decisions that are made involving the tests are inaccurate pictures of what is going on in the classroom.  They fear that further policy decisions, like merit pay for example, are just around the corner, and who thinks paying teachers who perform better more money is a good idea?

So, no surprise, I suspect that given these feelings and more, ETFO members were thrilled that they didn’t have to administer that nuisance of a test.  Sam Hammond told the Globe, in the Globe’s words, that “skipping a year will not only cause no harm but prove the ETFO’s contention that the tests are not needed.”  That’s a provocative statement.  Staging a WRT to prove an anomalous point that if you want to find money in education, ditch the useless test that cost millions to administer and class room time dedicated to helping students succeed on it.  They are intent to prove this much.

Are EQAO tests useless? While real estate agents try and sell homes based on “good schools” and the Fraser Institute’s annual rankings provides much media interest, there are public policy benefits to standardized tests.  And while there will be variations from single classes year to year, particularly in smaller schools, EQAO test results do derive broader trends that are helpful.  For example, last year I released a Math Action Plan based on consistently declining math achievement.  Standardized test results from the EQAO matched declines in PISA and TIMMS and were triangulated with what universities and colleges were reporting in their first year math cohorts.  Everything pointed to a growing problem. This is juxtaposed with ETFO’s contention that these standardized tests provide no beneficial output.

Further, the broader point I made in an earlier point still remains.  The delineation between a teacher’s mandatory obligations and their voluntary duties remains a dubious one.  If the province passes legislation requiring standardized testing, does this meet the threshold of being a voluntary duty? In order for these tests to occur, legislation had to be passed to set up the EQAO office and to require school boards to administer them.  The Education Act, the legislation that historically defined everybody’s obligations in the education sector, had to be amended to set this up.

So one sharp mind might well ask: how is choosing not to administer standardized tests legal? That would be the question I would be asking the minister as soon as possible. The Ontario Labour Relations Board just might need to get a bit busier.