Student math scores don't add up

Remember when former premier Dalton McGuinty said he’d be happy to be known as the “education premier”?

Apparently, that didn’t include math.

For the fifth year in a row, testing by Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) shows that while reading, writing and literacy scores are improving for most students — with one notable exception — math scores are on the decline among elementary students in Grade 3 and 6.

In Grade 3, 67% of students met the provincial standard (an A or B) in math in 2014, a four-percentage-point drop from 71% in 2010.

In Grade 6, 54% of students met the provincial standard in math in 2014, a seven-percentage-point drop from 61% in 2010.