well that certainly clears things up quite a bit.

However, even the 70% pass rate of a test designed at a Gr. 7 level (is that still true by the way?), in Gr. 10 isn’t encouraging.

Re: a downward trend. How is that arrived at specifically?

Hello Ms. Dare,

I do appreciate the olive branch, but I must continue to dispute your claim.  In fact, not just you, but all of us have been wrong (myself included) and it’s so obvious that I don’t know why I didn’t notice it sooner – perhaps I am too cocooned in my math world to know enough about the literacy test.  However, if you bear with me, you’ll see where we went wrong.

1)  Your article this morning got me started thinking immediately – I did mention to you that Grade 9 students are 14 and 15 years old.  In fact, I currently have two grade 9 math classes.  At this late stage in the school year, fully 59% of them are already 15 years old – but they will not be eligible to write the literacy exam until March 2012.  Therefore, knowing the number of 15 year olds is meaningless, you wasted your $3, sorry.  The number mixes apples and oranges (Grade 9’s and 10’s).

2)  Then I started thinking about the literacy requirements.  Although they may have not written the exam this year or failed it, they can always write it next year, or the year after that, or most students who are really struggling can opt for a literacy course – 110 hours of literacy help (ironic that we offer it to them in Grade 12 when it is way too late).  We have no way of forecasting how students will fare in the future, however, the EQAO does provide figures for past years.  Right under their results for this year, they post the following:  54,243 students from previous years were eligible to write this year.  Of those: 14,607 took the exam this year and passed, which means that 27% of those that were deferred, absent or failed the exam in previous years were successful this year.  Furthermore, 11,918 students opted to take the literacy course this past year and were successful – therefore, a further 22% met the literacy requirements.  Since the numbers have remained steady for the past few years, let’s assume these percentages are fairly constant as well.  We have already established that 83% of 93% is 77%, therefore 23% did not write the exam this year or failed, therefore 35,336 of 153635.  From above, 27% will write in the future and be successful – that makes 9540 of the 35,336.  Furthermore, 22%, or 7773 will successfully complete the literacy course.  Therefore, in the next four years we should see 118,961 + 9540 + 7773 = 136,274 / 153,635 x 100 = 88.7% successful in meeting their literacy requirements.  Now you’re going to say “Hold it Wayne, the numbers are going up, how’s that possible?”  Read below, and it will all become clear.  ALL the estimates – 60%, 70%, 77%, 83% are meaningless.

3)  I suddenly realized that the whole problem with this exercise is that the literacy test is a GRADUATION requirement.  Students do not graduate if they don’t meet it.  Therefore, the ONLY yardstick that matters is the graduation rate.  We do not have a graduation rate of 60%, 70% or 77% or 88%.  Our graduation rate was 81% in 2009/10 – we obviously don’t have numbers yet for this year. (cf: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2011/03/08/ontario-graduation-rates.html).  So, in the end, if you want to go back to your original estimate of 60% - go ahead if it helps you sleep better.  It’s a moot point anyway.

Oh, sorry.  Forgot to mention the trend which you claim is going down and getting worse.  Read the CBC article - the graduation rate has been rising steadily from 68% six years ago to 81%.

So my figure of 168661 worked out using EQAO numbers, comes very closed to Malkin’s estimated number, The only way to determined the downward trend is to break it down year to year. More than likely in the early years, more took the test as opposed to not taking it. Another trend, that should be of interest, if there is increasing numbers not taking the test for any reasons,

However Crux of the Matter, has a post on EQAO results, and her take on it. I happen to agree with it, because it was those things that I concentrated to improve my child’s writing first, leaving the grammar and spelling improvement as a secondary emphasis. It worked, but I still think there has to be massive improvement in how the public education system approaches writing.

http://cruxofthematternews.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/83-of-ontarios-grade-10-students-passed-eqao-literacy-test/