Tina Grandy teaches to the test — Ontario’s Grade 10 literacy test.
So do her colleagues at Mississauga’s T.L. Kennedy Secondary School, where the latest student scores, released yesterday, are almost 40 points higher than when the province launched the compulsory test, now over seven years ago.
They say the test is based on the Ontario curriculum, so teaching the test is simply teaching the curriculum.
“We teach the skills required on the test, which are also in the curriculum,” said Grandy, whose school saw 83 per cent of students pass this year, up from 44 per cent in 2002, despite being in a poor and highly transient immigrant neighbourhood.
Across the province, the pass rate this year was 85 per cent, with GTA school boards up typically two to three points, particularly in Halton and York regions, where nine out of 10 students passed the test.
In the Toronto District School Board, 82 per cent of students passed, up from 80 per cent last year.
Toronto’s Catholic board saw 84 per cent of students pass, up from 81 per cent the year before.
