65 © The Author(s) 2019 A. Eizadirad, Decolonizing Educational Assessment, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27462-7_5 CHAPTER 5 Symbiotic Relationship Between Curriculum, Tyler Rationale, and EQAO Standardized Testing The relationship between subject-specifc curriculum content and imple- mentation of standardized testing to assess mastery of learning content is facilitated by the Tyler Rationale, referring to the central questions Ralph Tyler identifed as signifcant for effective curriculum development and its philosophical underpinnings. The theorization of this relationship is explored and described as symbiotic (Ydesen, 2014), referring to the notion that all three components need each other to survive, thrive, and legitimize one another; the curriculum and the Tyler Rationale facilitate the justifcation and need for one another and create the socio-cultural and political niche to legitimize use of Education and Quality Accountability Of fce (EQAO) standardized testing as a tool for accountability purposes. Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, and Taubman (1995) in their foundational book titled Understanding Curriculum: An Introduction to the Study of Historical and Contemporary Curriculum Discourses provide a holistic interdisciplinary analysis of how over time the meaning of the word curriculum has changed and reconceptualized based on different schools of thought and societal expectations. Their timeline of curricu- lum examination begins with an early historical focus on curriculum development as a feld and transitions to explore more modern use of curriculum in dominant discourses in the twentieth century (Pinar et al., 1995). Pinar et al. (1995) argue that “curriculum reconceptual- ization” (p. 17) has occurred in more recent years where curriculum is deconstructed from specifc theoretical vantage points and disciplines ardavan.eizadirad@ryerson.ca