School Rankings Given a Failing Grade
Prince George, B.C. – Negative reaction to the Fraser Institute’s annual rankings of elementary and secondary schools.
The annual report card on academic performance of schools throughout the Province ranks schools out of a mark of 10, based on province wide test results in reading, writing, and math written by students in grades 4 and 7 (Foundation Skills Assessment, or FSA’s).
This year’s rankings had Immaculate Conception tops among elementary schools in Prince George with a score of 8.5, while Cedars Christian had the highest score (6.5) among secondary schools (for more details on how schools fared click here).
Whatever the rankings though, Prince George School Board chair Tony Cable says they are not a good reflection of the “good schools we have in our district.”
“It’s really a frustrating ranking of schools because they use such narrow criteria and variables and they base it on few tests,” he says. “And basically we can almost predict what happens every year, its the schools in high socio-economic areas, schools that don’t have a high proportion of special needs students.”
Cable continues: “And as you see from the rankings, the top schools in the province are always the private schools that are located in West Vancouver and in a smattering on the (Vancouver) Island.”
Richard Giroday, president of the Prince George District and Teachers Association, agrees and even goes a step further in calling the rankings “a blatant misuse of the FSA test” and therefore meaningless.
“Those people whose schools are ranked at the top, administrators from those top ranked schools, have even been quoted in the Globe and Mail as saying they don’t put much stock into them.”
Even parents are opposed. Prince George District Parents Advisory Council chairperson Sarah Holland noting the rankings are “not a terribly accurate, useful, or helpful report.”
“The scores only account for about 45% of a ranking. As an example, for the grade 7 numeracy and reading tests, the actual test results count for 7.5% of the overall ranking,” she says.
“Gender differences account for 10% – higher than the actual score! Likewise, 10% of the ranking comes from the percentage of tests not written in a school.
“Basically, these rankings do well at identifying schools who have kids of lower socio-economic status – poorer kids. What they don’t show – in any way, shape or form – is the quality of the school, or the quality of the teaching at that school.”
Comments
Well there’s a surprise.
As a parent, I am very interested on how my child’s school is measuring up against a standard set of objectives. Most parents realize there are other reasons besides school board effectiveness in the score results. However, The scores can provide a bench mark to focus program priorities and to measure improvement going forward. Our kids deserve the best education possible and rather than ignore any type of critical anayalis of the educational outcomes, the school board should see these marks as an opportunity to do better by our children.
Well written, but I think you missed a major point of the article. The scores do not accurately reflect the good schools we have in our district.
My child goes to a school which consitently ranks low, yet I have nothing but amazing things to say about the teachers and programming within the school. While many other parents in the neighbourhood have chosen to place their children in schools outside of our catchment, my child continues to thrive and excel within this “low grade” school.
I understand what you’re saying and sympathize with your position in terms of wanting to find the best school for your child. However, when a variable such as the sex of the child accounts for greater predictive value than the outcome of the tests, the overall results are rendered rather meaningless. Assuming that girls perform better than boys (I have no idea, it could be the reverse), you could send your daughter to an all-girls school and believe she’ll get a better education. Too bad if you have sons.
I have a background in research and statistics and can tell you that it’s far too complicated to reliably determine the quality of a school’s ability to offer first class education from a few tests. The Fraser Institute is preaching to the choir of those who already send their children to private schools, assuring them they’re doing the right thing. Christy Clark will be rubbing her hands with glee knowing that little Seamus is well schooled.
I wonder if the school board would be so quick to criticize the test criteria if the ranking of the PG schools were in the top 10%.
I love how the comments are closed for the Native School article, but not for the ‘white schools’. Could 250news lean anymore to the Liberal agenda? Are you afraid something nice, or too honest, will be pointed out about the Aboriginal Choice school and social community?
I’m pretty sure she is not worried about something nice or too honest being posted. Probably the exact opposite in reality.
You referring to public and private schools as ‘white schools’ is exactly the kind of comment I think she is concerned about. Not that I necessarily agree with her selective commenting policy.
Less than 5% of the population. More than 95% of the pandering.
Sarah Holland noted that “….what they don’t show – in any way, shape or form – is the quality of the school, or the quality of the teaching at that school.”
Of course not. It is the students who wrote the test. They are being assessed. If one wanted to asses the quality of teaching and curriculum, one would have to use another type of assessment.
The results show what the students have learned.
Too many assume there is only a relationship between the teaching and learning without including the total environment of the student, including that outside of the school.
That last line of yours is why the Fossil Institute’s school ranking is useless because it only accounts for test scores and nothing else, such as class composition.
Who provides the test scores aggregated by school? Does the “fossil institute do that? Or does the Ministry responsible for primary and secondary education do that?
Whoever does it, I would blame them for making it available in this form without providing a proper explanation.
Anyone who thinks it is a valid assessment of the quality of teaching should imagine that one could take a group of teachers from a low performing school group and exchange them with those in a high performing school group for a year or two and expect to see a significant change in the testing of the two school groups.
So the common theme is kids from low socioeconomic areas don’t do as well as compared to their peers in private schools, and public schools located in middle to high socioeconomic areas. Quelle surprise.
Chances are the kids come from a single parent home, Mom, is probably the lady who pours your coffee at Timmies, or cleans a hotel room, and when she isn’t fighting their father for child support, she’s putting her aching feet up on a stool, has zero energy, and is expected to do some after school tutoring. Does she love her kids less, I doubt it. She just has less to work with.
Now, there are also those homes where the parents are deadbeat drunks, drug addicts, and really do love their kids less.
But for me, the reason is irrelevant because they are KIDS. So, we as a society bear a collective burden to do what we can for them. So how about we stop the one size fits all policy to funding. How about instead of 10,000 per kid, no matter where they come from, we jig it to more per kid in low income area, less to high income area. Then, those schools may not ever be able to fully compensate for a tired, or could care less parent, but they might gather enough resources to help these kids graduate and go on to becoming a contributor to society.
Again, they are KIDS, it’s not their fault the family they were born into. It is our responsibility to do what we can to reasonably mitigate that situation. All these results show is we are failing as a society by leaving these children behind.
I wish I could give this more thumbs up,
As ihl below says, “I wish I could give this more thumbs up”.
Not often you see truly socially conscious, socialist sentiments expressed on this website, so good on you, SKI51. Now, we just have to find a way to do the means testing to be able to make the system more equitable in the manner you suggest. Let’s hope our provincial politicians are listening, eh? Naw, that’s not going to happen with Clark and Co.
Time to rate the Fraser Institute. I will start off by giving them 0%.
The Fraser Institute is a joke.
These are the same fossils that voted Christy as the bestest premier in canada because geeziz loves oil and gas too . Why msm gives this propaganda machine oxygen is beyond wonder . The only thing they are expert at is massaging numbers to reflect their twisted ideology.
Other than a couple of “race baiting” comments, I am seriously impressed with level of intelligent and informed debate and discussion about our public schools on this news story thread.
This is one of those times the comment section adds to a news story in a positive way… other times it doesn’t.
The Fraser Institute is just compiling data. You do with it what you will. Advocating this be stopped is pure censorship.
I like how this information is crapped on yet “climate change” data is taken as gospel. I am always peeved when Canada is singled out as having very high per capita GHG emissions. This does not take into account our size, latitude, lack of high speed trains, low population and one of the largest oil reserves on the planet. Comparing Canada to France is misguided yet it happens all the time to further the green cause. Do the anti Fraser Institute crowd point that out?
Data is data. Users of said data should add in applicable variables to make it useful.
The moment they develop a rating system, they are clearly doing more than compiling data, they are interpreting it and arriving at a conclusion based on their particular criteria.
Whether their ratings and conclusions are useful, is really up to the user of the information.
I think the primary difference between climate change data and this, is that the former is being interpreted and evaluated by climate change scientists and other people who are experts in their field. This data, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have that same level of professional scrutiny. If anything, t’s actually the opposite where people who are knowledgeable of the education system seem to be refuting it as unreliable.
Well OK then, someone who gets it. Nailed it, actually.
It is telling that the 2 highest ranked schools in the Prince George area are both private Catholic Schools. Their student body is made up of kids from the full spectrum of families, from well off to relatively poor, from able bodied to special needs, single and multiple parent families etc etc, yet their teaching staff seems to be able to overcome whatever issues the kids have, and teach them the basics that they need to learn.
In the public school system here in Prince George, there really are only 2 schools where the argument could be made that the student population is skewed more heavily towards kids from poorer, less educated and supportive homes, the rest would fit pretty well into a more average demographic.
The reason the BCTF hates to see these school rankings is that they are looked upon as grading the teachers / schools more so than the students themselves, and god knows if there is anything that the BCTF is deathly afraid of it is anything that would make teachers more accountable for their student’s outcomes!
The first part of your comment is your opinion, but I will have to call you out on the last part of your comment as just another opportunity to target and bash teachers (the BCTF). Your tunnel vision anti-union ideology may be kicking in without consideration of the “whole” picture. Ask yourself why it is that nearly every association and group, involved in the delivery of public education in our province is against the Fraser Institute using a simple test score to rank schools?
Why are the teachers’ EMPLOYER (School Board Trustees), against the Fraser Institute ranking of schools based on FSA test results?
ht tp://kootenays.myezrock.com/Local-News/2016/04/05/bcsta-speaking-out-on-fraser-institute-ranking-of-schools
Why are you ignoring School District Superintendents across the province who put NO weight or value in the Fraser Institutes’ ranking of schools? “The Fraser Institute has released its report on the top primary and secondary schools in the province, and according to Karl deBrujin, superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson School District, it is a predictable list of no added value to him or schools in his district.” Mr. deBrujin goes on to state; “(The rankings) are patently unfair, and not intended to be fair,”… adding they contribute no scientific value and are derived from a contrived formula.”
ht tp://infotel.ca/newsitem/fraser-institute-report-offers-no-value-for-kamloops-students/it19191
Why are you selectively targeting teachers (the BCTF) as being against the FSA test results being used by the Fraser Institute, yet ignore all these other education professionals and employers who are against it as well?
Nyte, well said.
I took a look at a couple of the lower ranking schools and one thing stuck out to me. Why is the percentage of ESL students so high in some of these schools? Glenview has 7.8%, Harwin has 35.5%, Heather Park has 13.9, Pineview has 20%. Do we really have that many ESL students in Prince George? Not to pick on the ESL people, English is not my first language either, but it seems awfully high to me.
If it were not for immigration we would be in an even more negative population growth . My hat is off for all the people still having kids . The more of them you have the harder it gets . Mulroney was one of the first to hammer the girls by taking the family allowance away . For some of them it was the only money to come in the door with their names on the check . Tory time are hungry times .
That’s nice but my question was, do we really have this many ESL students in PG? How do they define an ESL student?
I’m just guessing, but I suspect ESL students would be those who live in a household where English is not the primary language spoken at home. I’m not sure it would necessarily mean that the students are not able to communicate in English when they start school. They may actually be functional in two languages at that point.
Yes axman there really are that many immigrant children . But to define many is to compare them to the children being born here by our young people . When our kids are not having kids the immigrants kids can skew the percentage in a dramatic way .
It is more of a reflection of parenting and the parents expectations of their children in regards to academic success. The kids that attend the highest ranking schools face heavy pressures at home, although it is racially profiling, its also empirical and a cultural difference. When they reach university age, they will feel like a failure (to their parents) if a high level of professional designation is not achieved.
Simply, they are blowing these standardized tests away. They are obviously well prepared and unchallenged with the question bank. Less due to the ‘quality’ of teachers and allocation of tax payer funding, it is more of the academic expectations at home.
Reading, Writing, and Math are pretty basic. So if students are not doing well in those three areas, can we conclude that they probably are not doing well in other areas??
Why would anyone be opposed to students having a test in reading, writing, and math. ???
I’m not opposed to the test. My kids are homeschooled but they will still take the standardized tests. What I am opposed to is how the Fraser Institute interprets the results.
Bingo! lhl… and Pal knows this is the issue.
Again, agree completely. As I mentioned above, my own expertise in testing and assessment has shown me that standardized testing is not the be and end all that some assume. Take the most common test of IQ, the Weschler: until rather recently, it was standardized for use with Canadians on American standards, but it was then discovered that Canadians test 10 IQ points higher on average than Americans do on their own IQ test. Subsequently, Canadian standards were established. The point of this is that even the best tests in the world, if used improperly, will give you questionable results.
What the Fraser Institute is doing doesn’t come anywhere near proper testing and assessment protocols.
NMG 2+2=4 2+3=5 Am I interpreting 4 and 5? They are merely the product of data. This study is based on test scores. Not subjective criteria. If I score 10 goals and you score 9, I rank higher in goal scoring. The number of goals doesn’t take into account you were going through a divorce, just that I got 10 and you got 9. There is no interpretation.
My climate change comments were specific to per capita GHG emissions. Not GHG data in general. Using per capita doesn’t take into account issues specific to Canada. Not unlike how the Fraser data doesn’t take into account Northern BC issues.
2 + 2 does not always = 4. One has to define the type of measurement scale one is using – nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. In the case of the last two 2 + 2 = 4.
In the same way, one cannot rank schools and infer quality of teaching using test scores of individual students from the school. Any social scientist should know that there are many other factors at play beyond teaching quality.
Here is a relatively simple explanation of why schools assembled by city/town can vary widely from each other.
Housing in cities tends to be stratified around closely similar socio-economic characteristics of its inhabitants. Elementary schools are traditionally built central to neighbourhoods composed of residents of similar socio-economic backgrounds.
If one looks at elementary schools which have an ideal size of 400 or so students, one is more likely to find a fairly homogenous socio-economic grouping to populate such a school. Given a community such as Surrey it is easy to find several such elementary schools composed of similar cohorts (in this case, groups of people who share a common characteristic).
Thus, in large cities, the tendency is that the measurements taken of the people associated with an elementary school are very closely related. The variability within a school from low individual score to high individual score will tend to be very low. The deviation of individuals from the average and median scores within such a school will be very low.
On the other hand, the smaller the population of a city, the more difficult it will be to find a school made up of a school with a low deviation of individuals from the median or average scores. Schools will cross socio-economic boundaries and will be more heterogeneous.
What I am describing is known in social science as cohort effect. In fact, it should be relatively well known by educators that cohort effects are critical issues in school enrollment. Thus, quality researchers should conduct a cohort study to determine whether a cohort effect is present.
I have not seen such a cohort study from the Fraser Institute.
The question which needs to be asked is why it has not been published if it was conducted or why it was not conducted. Without such a study, the time and effort that the Fraser Institute has expended on this would not meet any peer review by social science researchers.
Here are some cities in BC sorted by average and median rating of all schools in the community
West Vancouver : 9.26 : 9.40
Richmond : 7.16 : 6.90
Vancouver : 6.87 : 6.85
Burnaby : 6.87 : 6.80
Abbotsford : 6.77 : 6.90
North Vancouver : 6.59 : 6.50
New Westminster : 6.58 : 6.60
Chilliwack : 6.31 : 6.20
Victoria : 6.29 : 6.05
Fort St John : 6.22 : 6.40
Surrey : 6.13 : 5.90
Kamloops : 6.08 : 5.70
Penticton : 5.85 : 6.00
Kelowna : 5.59 : 5.50
Dawson Creek : 5.26 : 5.30
Prince George : 5.08 : 5.15
Kitimat : 4.93 : 4.20
Vanderhoof : 4.43 : 4.50
Nanaimo : 4.43 : 4.80
Reach your own conclusion as to impact of teaching quality, size of community, remoteness of community, socio-economic profile based on statsCanada data collected by the census, etc.
Which criteria, if any, and which other criteria not mentioned might influence the average and mean test scores.
Had to bring the good feeling back after all those years of teachers getting the bad end of the stick. The bad feelings and poor communications with the school board to the teachers managed to drain bad vibes to support workers and students down the line. Hopeful in time this will get fixed.
Blame Christy Clark for not investing into our future in BC.
Being she sends her kids to a private school.
The Fraser Institute looked at 4 provinces.
I looked at their view of the data for Ontario. I noticed that Islamic schools were ranked reasonably high. So I screened for the Islamic schools and got 11 hits.
The average score was 8.85 with the high being 10, the low 5.2 and the median being 9.5
There is one elementary Islamic elementary school listed in BC. It is located in Surrey and is rated as 10.0
By contrast, there are 3 Islamic elementary schools in Alberta with ratings of 7.2, 6.5, and 6.3, one in each of Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray, in that order of rating.
There are no Islamic schools listed for Quebec.
Based on that data, I believe that it SUGGESTS a correlation between culture and academic performance by children brought up in that culture as well as the socio-economic class within that culture.
ask a deer, a monkey , a penguin and an elephant to climb a tree, all perfect at doing what they do but only one will do well on a standardized test…. do you get it now?
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