Sam Hammond discusses the School Information Finder website

I'm Sam Hammond, president of ETFO.

While the Liberal government has brought forward a number of positive changes to education in Ontario, ETFO continues to be concerned about provincial grade 3 and 6 testing and how the results are being used.

As you may be aware, last spring the government created a new website called the School Information Finder.

Through this website, the government provides testing data along with demographic information about household income and parental education levels.

It also reports on the number of special needs students and students whose first language is neither English nor French.

The website encourages users to compare schools based on the information provided.

Along with all the major education organizations in the province, including school boards and parent groups, ETFO believes this is a misuse of testing data and leads to certain schools being stigmatized because of their test results. 

We are also concerned about schools being singled out based on their demographic profiles.

As president, I have worked with other education organizations to convince the government to dismantle the website.  So far, the government has refused to do so.

If you share my concerns about the School Information finder, please take a minute to use the campaign tool on this website to send a letter to your MPP and request that the website be taken down.

Thank you for your support.