Benchmark 5: Professional Assessments
Professional assessments should not be required for interventions and accommodations, and all students waiting to be assessed should receive effective support. Yet, in practice, professional assessments help secure these supports. Because of long wait times for board assessments, parents who can afford to pay get private assessments. This creates a “two-tiered system” in a public education system that should be equitable for all students.
The OHRC found that, most often, students had already been struggling for years by the time they received a professional assessment. Moreover, they found instances where professional assessments were used as gatekeeping measures to restrict access to interventions and accommodations.
Boards did not have appropriate objective criteria to determine which students would receive professional assessments. The OHRC warned that “bias can play a role when referrals are not based on transparent and objective guidelines.” (cite quote)
Further, the OHRC raised concerns about PPM 8, the provincial policy memorandum that outlines the definition of learning disability. It noted that this policy is out of step with the latest research and principles for diagnosing word-reading disabilities outlined in the DSM-5. The OHRC found that assessments for suspected reading disabilities do not always need a battery of intelligence and cognitive processing tests. Instead, assessments for a learning disability/dyslexia should include a thorough assessment of reading and spelling skills, a review of the interventions provided and progress monitoring data to measure the student's response to interventions.
Universal early screening will identify students who need early intervention. When a student is not responding to evidence-based intervention, a referral for a professional assessment may be appropriate. Referrals can happen following intensive intervention provided in Grade 1 or Grade 2. While awaiting an assessment, schools should intensify intervention for the student.
Recommendations
Update provincial policies: The OHRC recommends that the Ministry immediately update its definition of learning disability to be consistent with the criteria in the current DSM-5 and address any potential bias.
Improve equity in access to assessments: The OHRC recommends school boards develop clear, transparent, written criteria and processes for referring students with suspected reading disabilities for psychoeducational assessment based on their response to intervention and not a minimum age/grade. The criteria should ensure that multilingual students, culturally diverse students, racialized students, students who identify as First Nations, Métis or Inuit, and students learning in French Immersion have equal access to assessments.
Stop gatekeeping: A psychoeducational assessment must never be required for accessing interventions or accommodations.
Provide assessments when they are needed: The OHRC recommends that boards manage wait times and track professional assessments to ensure that they are being completed in an equitable and timely way. Any student who needs an assessment should have access, and any limits or barriers to assessment should be removed. The OHRC recommends that the Ministry provide sufficient, stable, enveloped, yearly funding to ensure that the board can implement the recommendations related to the assessment.
Professional Assessments: Little to No Progress
Ontario has yet to officially recognize dyslexia or update the official definitions of learning disabilities outlined in PPM 8. While there has been some progress in removing requirements for an assessment to access accommodations, there is no written policy standardizing this across the province.
Starting in 2024-25, the Ministry will be providing yearly and stable funding to school boards for professional assessments.
Next Steps
The Province should update PPM 8 to align the definition of learning disabilities with the DSM-5 and the recommendations of the Inquiry. This or other new policies should formalize the Response to Intervention model of assessment for learning disabilities, outline when professional assessments should happen, and how assessments should be used.
Systemic Issues
The inquiry identified the need for more standardization, data collection, effective communication, and transparency as critical systemic issues in Ontario and found that these issues and barriers require a systemic response.
Recommendations
Set standards: The OHRC recommends that the Ministry and boards set standards and ensure consistency, monitoring, and accountability in the education system generally and for students with disabilities and other Code-protected identities.
Data collection: The OHRC recommends that the Ministry and boards continue to improve data collection, analysis and reporting, and use data to increase equity, improve student achievement and outcomes, and improve decision-taking.
Transparency and communication: The OHRC recommends improving transparency and communication when a student faces difficulties in reading. This includes informing parents and guardians about screening, intervention, accommodation, and professional assessment support available to the student. Additionally, parents and guardians should be kept informed about the student's progress and the options available for conflict resolution.
Addressing Systemic Issues: In Progress
Ontario’s highly decentralized approach to education, including special education, leaves decision-taking on critical components of the Right to Read to the discretion of 72 different school boards and school authorities with little centralized guidance and few standards.
In June 2023, Ontario passed the Better School and Student Outcomes Act (BSSOA). The OHRC appeared before the Standing Committee on Social Policy to support the Minister of Education’s goal of laying the groundwork for a unified education system focused on improving student outcomes in the important life-long skill of reading. The BSSOA amends the Education Act to create a durable foundation for education partners to meet human rights obligations.
The BSSOA responds to the Inquiry by creating the groundwork for standardized approaches to ensure students receive the same level and quality of services for early reading. It allows the Minister of Education to set provincial priorities to focus boards in fundamental areas of student achievement, such as reading. School boards must report on progress towards these priorities. This enables the Ministry to assist struggling boards by deploying personnel to support them when needed. These provisions and recent Ministry investments to boost literacy directly respond to some recommendations of the OHRC Inquiry Report.
Further, the BSSOA directs school boards to increase engagement and reporting to parents. It requires school boards to publicly post a multi-year Board Improvement Plan that reflects the Minister’s priorities for student achievement and to update parents on their progress twice a year.
The BSSOA firmly establishes reading as a provincial priority and holds the potential of providing equal opportunities for all students to have equal access to evidence-based approaches.
“We have a lot of students who enter school at risk, yet with a Structured Literacy approach, we were able to reach more learners than even the schools with the most affluent populations in the district.”
- K. Lockhart, Rideau PS, Limestone District School Board
Ontario students deserve consistent, standardized approaches and universal access to the same level and quality of services and supports regardless of the school or school board they attend, and whether the language of instruction is English or French.
“We have come together as a board to learn about the foundational literacy skills, broken down the steps for quality assessment practices, and were given the resources needed to begin our shift in instruction right away. Now, classroom to classroom, school to school, all students are able to receive similar explicit instruction…”
- L. Nelan, Monck PS, Trillium Lakelands District School Board
The BSSOA has the potential to improve the education system. When it comes to meeting students’ right to read, Ontario needs consistency and stability. This means clear, mandatory standards related to curriculum and instruction, early screening, reading interventions, accommodations, and professional assessments. It requires central ongoing monitoring and better accountability within the education system. And, importantly, it needs stable, enveloped, yearly funding.