Cameron Montgomery reflected on the triumphs and challenges of his time with the agency in an exclusive interview with Village Media's The Trillium
EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
She ignited some controversy by appointing Montgomery — who'd unsuccessfully run as a PC candidate for Ottawa—Orléans in the 2018 election — to a new, full-time position with a $140,000 salary. Previous part-time chairs earned around $5,000, according to a report in the Globe and Mail at the time. At the time, 49 per cent of Grade 6 students had met or exceeded the provincial standard for math, which is equivalent to a B grade or higher, according to the EQAO'S 2017–18 standardized test scores. Five years later, in 2022–23, this percentage was 50.
Her platform said she would "partner with parents, teachers and education experts to develop a reporting strategy that measures students’ success and identify potential areas of growth." The National Assessment of Educational Progress in the United States does this well, said Montgomery. Getting there, however, will require a combined effort from various parties and tackling privacy issues.
"In my opinion, there is no other jurisdiction in North America that was able to pivot that well, that quickly toward a digital assessment that's not only adaptive, is linear," he said. "You can say, yes it's multiple choice ... but you can also achieve higher-order cognitive thinking through multiple choice, EQAO was able to achieve that through a very sophisticated form of AI.