The tradition of secrecy in education has been broken by the first secondary schools report card. Early reactions are predictable. Cheers or consternation over individual school scores are to be expected. So are the defensive reactions of those who prefer not to be measured and those who disagree with the measurement tools. But school performance profiles are a common feature of other education systems for one good reason: they lead to improvements in teaching and learning. There is a steep learning curve ahead for schools in British Columbia to adjust to this new reality.

The Fraser Institute's Secondary Schools Report Card for British Columbia is not about ranking schools. Its primary purpose is to create in every school a focus on continuous improvement. Gathering the performance data is only the first step in this process. Now we need to learn how to use the data to build success for schools and for kids. The report card will contribute to this by:

• Causing schools to reflect on the quality of their services. With an effectiveness trend over time to analyze, educators can now place their work and efforts in a broader context

• Giving school boards a tool for performance management. By using school quality profiles, districts can now set appropriate local achievement targets and document the most successful practices to share with struggling schools

• Providing government with clues about the success of current policies and what changes might improve system performance

Some fear that measuring schools is unfair to disadvantaged students. The evidence contradicts this. We have too long been comforted by our low expectations of students from certain backgrounds. Where concerted efforts have been made to measure achievement and raise the bar, all students, especially weak ones, have benefited. By changing teaching methods or the way we organize schools and how we use our resources, the achievement gap between low and high income students can be narrowed.

Yet this report card reveals that despite the best efforts of many caring and committed educators, some schools have consistently failed to ensure equal academic success for their students. Scrutiny of individual school results is the most direct tool for ensuring equity in education.

We need to ask: What accounts for the dramatic performance difference between two schools with similar student populations and identical funding? The school report card gives us a starting point for analysis in order to change outcomes for the better.

No one, including the authors of the report card, will suggest that these first five indicators provide us with sufficient information about school success. There are many other important measures we can add. For instance, we must capture forms of student learning that cannot be measured by exams. Parent and student satisfaction levels, attendance rates, school size and organization, number of instructors teaching in their area of specialty, quality of leadership and amount of parental involvement all provide additional valuable clues to school effectiveness. The key is to gather more valid information. The ultimate danger is not in doing poorly, but in not knowing when we are doing poorly.

Other systems have developed some effective follow-up strategies to use school report cards to improve performance. Here

are a few of those we might consider:

• District school profiles with contextual data around the performance scores. The North York School District provides its parents and public with a detailed annual directory of schools. Each school has four pages describing achievement scores, the population served, special programs and school improvement plans.

The first Secondary Schools Report Card for British Columbia will be widely debated, but its existence allows us to ask the thoughtful questions that can lead to improved teaching and learning. In prompting this discussion, the secondary school report card project deserves top marks.