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Their bags are packed with calculators, protractors and new pencils, but the curriculum Ontario kids will learn in math class this fall might be what’s dragging down their math scores.

For the first time since 2000, half of Ontario grade 6 students failed to meet the provincial standards in math on last year’s standardized test from the Education Quality and Assessment Office (EQAO).

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Ontario's math scores started declining as kids took the new curriculum, according to EQAO data Back to video

Student performance has been steadily declining since the 2009-2010 school year — four years after a new and still controversial math curriculum took effect. It’s also the same year the first batch of kindergarteners to be taught entirely in the new curriculum would have taken the standardized test.

From 2009 onwards, grade 6 students have been faring worse each year, and more troubling is the number who meet the standard in grade 3 but fail in grade 6 has increased each year, hitting 21 per cent last year.

Any good math teacher will tell you correlation doesn’t equal causation, but the fact scores have fallen as the “discovery math” curriculum spread adds numeric weight to the longstanding criticism of the pedagogy.