A teacher should be able to understand the grade distribution on tests and throughout the year to identify if their assessments are too easy or too difficult, and if they may be racially biased. The argument that the tests unfairly bias certain groups is only known because the people administering the test understand math.

You don't need to know anything about geometry for that. And even teachers who know math won't use statistical methods too if their test for 22 students ended up badly this year.

It’s just interesting that we are using statistical methods to argue that teachers don’t need to understand basic math. Ontario doesn’t have dedicated math teachers until high school, many of these teachers will need to teach math in grades 3-8.

> Ontario doesn’t have dedicated math teachers until high school

Then that should be fixed, at least wrt. junior high. There's no reason to expect an English or French teacher to be proficient in Math, or vise versa.

I am not using statistic methods?

But I also think that there should be specialized teachers for math long before high school. Teaching math (or whatever) is not just about knowing it, it is also about know how to teach it at this or that age. And I don't think general purpose teacher can be good in knowing how to teach all subjects.

I am perfectly fine with teachers who cant pass this test teaching subjects that are not math or physics (or chemistry I guess).

I am absolutely not fine with math teacher who passed this test and that is extend of it. Specifically, math teacher should know a lot more.

>> and if they may be racially biased

How would moderate math skills possibly help with that? You think every public school teacher should be run statistical sampling on a continual basis AND dynamically addressing them?

Okay, but surely that could be tested as part of basic teaching competency, not math per se. You might as well say people need to know math to be able to look at the clock and figure out how to be at work on time, or to figure out if they’re driving above or below the speed limit.

When I was a student I had to be decent in every subject. Why would teachers have less strict requirements? Surely they were once students.

I want math and science teachers using proper spelling and grammar even if that's not the subject they teach.

As the document clearly lays out, any teacher can be required to teach math, only for higher levels it is behind additional certifications.

And many classes have overlaps, e.g. at least around here language classes are also where a good chunk of media literacy happens, for which a basic understanding of math is sort-of needed.

Then they should get rid of that requirement, since it's unfairly disadvantaging racialized teachers. But if you're going to teach math you should absolutely be competent in the actual subject you're teaching.