Streaming of students in Grade 9 subjects will end in school year 2022 in Ontario

BY PAUL JUNOR

There has been a call from advocates and activists for an end to this discriminatory practice, which has curtailed the academic potential of marginalized, racialized and low-socioeconomic backgrounds. The partition of students into the lower applied level pathway and the higher academic pathway has been a troubling feature of the Ontario high school system.

Stephen Leece, Ontario Education Minister made the announcement in a memo sent to school board directors on Tuesday, November 9^th, 2021. In the memo, Nancy Naylor, Deputy Minister of Education writes, “Beginning in September 2022, all Grade 9 students will be offered in one stream.” Initially, when Minister Leece announced the phase out of streaming, it only involved Grade 9 mathematics.

With this recent announcement, streaming will take effect for: Science, Geography, English, and French as a second language courses. Details of what the de-streamed Grade 9 courses will look like have not been released as yet. With respect to Grade 9 Science, it will cover materials in: Biology, Chemistry, Physics as well as Earth and Space Sciences. In addition, there will be focus on STEM which the Ministry has emphasized in the revised elementary math curriculum which was introduced in June 2019.

The Ministry of Education has indicated there will be extra materials that will be offered in the school year 2022 – 2023 to help students transition from Grade 9 math to Grade 10 math. One of the organizations that has been fighting to end streaming is the Coalition for Alternative to Streaming in Education (CASE). They believe that streaming results in students with lower expectations, more limited opportunities to learn and fewer postsecondary options.

They present five recommendations with respect to: class size, support for full inclusion, professional development, community engagement and a task force. With respect to class size, CASE believes that the government should invest in reducing class sizes especially for Grade 9 de-streamed courses to maximize the impact of differentiated instruction. With respect to support for full inclusion and for learning support, it is vital that students coming in from Grade 8 with pronounced learning gaps are able to access academic and tutorial support.

CASE believes that a task force is necessary because “Ending streaming is a complex task that will require a multi-year plan. The ministry should have a representative multi-stakeholder task force to inform and monitor its implementation including measurable, transparent action.” In a report, Minister Leece stated, “We will continue to take action to lift up all students, with an ambitious better pathway to the skilled trades, post -secondary and good-paying jobs.”