The Politics of Standardized Testing in Ontario: Critically Assessing the Impact on Learners, Teachers, and Administrators

This study examines the historical origins and educational and political objectives of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). It argues that ultimately, standardized tests, such as the OSSLT, advance neoliberal agendas reflecting the interests of the Canadian state and capital, rather than those of diverse learners, teachers, and society at large. The study traces the ways in which Ontario and state educational policies have infused neoliberal values of individuality, self discipline, accounting, and work preparedness into public education through standardized testing, in order to foster students who can find placement in the local and global economies as workers and consumers. The study also illuminates how the OSSLT has functioned as a hegemonic tool for measuring teacher and learner ‘success’. The study uses a qualitative methodology, including personal interviews with teachers and school administrators in the Greater Toronto Area, and an examination of primary and secondary sources that include educational policy documents. The interpretation of the data utilizes a critical discourse analysis approach and a constellation of theories pertaining to educational policy, neoliberalism, racial and cultural difference, and theories related to modes of governmentality and educational systems that shape the rationale, design, and implementation of standardized testing tools in public education. The major findings of this study note the elimination of community, segregating stakeholders where school administrators and teachers view the test and its purpose in very distinct ways. The OSSLT has shifted the purpose of education from sorting students for human capital as a priority over educating them as democratic citizens. The role of administrators has altered from leaders to managers of data, and teachers’ loss of power changed their role to that of facilitators. Finally, a myriad of negative emotional effects were noted for all stakeholders especially students who are racialized and marginalized. The study moves from critique to resolutions by offering three possible ways to re-imagine and re-shape the test: altering the rules of the test; incorporating multiple aspects of learning and knowing by using an inclusive design model of holistic assessment; and resisting the test, thus undermining its credibility and function altogether.Ed.D