Indicators of effective teaching
There are three indicators of effective teaching included in the index.
For each school, this indicator provides the rate of failure (as a percentage) in the provincially examinable courses. It was derived by dividing the sum, for each school, of all provincial examinations that received a failing grade by the total number of provincial final examinations written by the students of that school.
Rationale for inclusion
Effective teaching can be measured, in part, by the ability of the students to pass any standardized examination that is a requirement for successful completion of a course. During the period studied, there are 17 provincially examinable grade 12 courses in British Columbia (Ref. 6) and the schools have the responsibility of preparing their students to pass these final examinations. Since the Ministry has no other provincially examinable courses, it is virtually impossible to assess or compare the effectiveness of teaching in different schools in the junior grades.
There is a compelling reason to have confidence in this indicator as a measure of effective teaching: with a single exception, the courses for which a provincial examination must be written are not required for graduation. A student who is doing poorly at school can graduate without writing any of these examinations; such a student's course of study may not include the prerequisites for post-secondary study but it will be sufficient for graduation from secondary school. Thus, students enroll in the provincially examinable courses because they want to take them. Further, these courses usually require a prescribed minimum grade in a prerequisite lower-level course. Students entering these courses have been judged by a teacher to be ready to undertake the study involved.
In addition, the Rate of Failure reflects how well students have been prepared in the lower grades. Of the nineteen provincially examinable courses, all but three—Geology, Geography, and History—have prerequisite courses in the same subject. Success at the senior level will, thus, reflect effective preparation in the prerequisite program and the Rate of Failure is, for this reason, a particularly important indicator.
Since, therefore, the decision to take examinable courses is voluntary and requires demonstrated success in previous courses, it seems reasonable to use the Rate of Failure in these courses to judge the effectiveness of the teaching in secondary schools. Whatever their socio-economic status, students enter these senior courses with ambitions and qualifications that should make their gaining a passing grade a reasonable expectation.
Average mark on provincial examinations
This indicator is the average mark (a percentage) achieved by a school's students on the provincial final examinations in all of the provincially examinable grade 12 courses. Since all students are expected to have access to the same curriculum and, with one exception, students take provincially examinable subjects voluntarily, this average mark reflects how well they were prepared for the provincial examinations. The degree to which they are prepared is both their responsibility and that of their teachers and, more generally, the school. Since there is little reason to believe that the distribution of inate ability and desire amongst students is anything but random, we attribute variation in average mark to the school.
For each school, the indicator is the average of the average scores achieved by the school's students in all sittings during the year of each of the provincial examinations, weighted by the relative number of writers of each of the examinations. Ref. 7
Rationale for inclusion
Whereas it can be forcefully argued that all students taking the provincially examinable courses should, through adequate preparation in the lower-level courses, careful selection of their grade 12 courses, and effective instruction, pass the examinations, it cannot so easily be argued that they should all get a mark of 100 percent. Examinations are designed to achieve a distribution of results reflecting the inevitable differences in students' mastery of the course work. Individual differences in the interest, ability, motivation, and work habits of students will inevitably have some impact upon the final results. Further, the Ministry is at liberty to adjust examination results in order to achieve a desired distribution of marks.
It is also true, however, that there are recognizable differences from school to school within a district in the average results on the provincial examinations. Despite a similar population, there is variation from school to school in the results obtained in different subject areas and outstanding results in one subject is most likely a sign of effective teaching of that subject in the school. Clearly, there are differences in outcomes that cannot be explained solely by the characteristics of the student body. It seems reasonable, therefore, to include the average examination mark for each school as an indicator of effective teaching.
Difference between provincial examination mark and school mark
This indicator gives the average, for each school, of the absolute value of the difference between the average mark obtained on the provincial examinations and the final “school” marks—i.e., the average of all the results from tests, essays, quizzes and so on given in class—for all the provincially examinable grade 12 courses.
Rationale for inclusion
Frequent and regular assessment of students' progress throughout the school year is a fundamental part of effective teaching. It is an integral component of teaching to test students' knowledge and provide clear feedback so that they may be aware of their progress.
For assessment to be useful, it must accurately reflect the student's understanding of the course material. While awarding marks that do not reflect actual understanding may encourage a student to try harder on a particular assignment, as a systematic policy over a term, such inflating of grades will be counterproductive. Students who believe they are already successful when they are not will be less likely to invest the extra effort needed to master the course material. In the end, they will be poorer for not having achieved the level of understanding which they could have achieved through additional study.
Inaccurate assessment also affects students' academic credentials. The marks given by the school for courses are used in the lower grades as a gauge of whether or not the students are ready for further study and, at the senior level, as a gauge of whether students are to graduate. In the examinable grade 12 courses, the mark granted by the school accounts for 60 percent of the combined final mark in a course. It weakens the credibility of the provincial graduation certificate and the transcript of final marks if the marks upon which they are based reflect erroneous assessments of students' understanding and abilities.
There does exist, however, a measure by which teachers can monitor the accuracy of their assessments. The provincial final examination is administered by the same authority that designed the course and we must assume, therefore, that this examination will effectively test whether students have gained the knowledge that it was anticipated they would gain from a course. If the marks assigned by the school are an accurate reflection of students' understanding, they should be roughly the same as the mark gained on the provincial examination. Thus, if a school has accurately assessed a student as consistently working at a C+ level, the student's examination result will be at a similar level. If, however, a school is consistently granting marks higher than those achieved by its students on the final examinations, then, given the importance of accuracy in student assessments, both to the student and to others relying on those assessments, the school should re-evaluate its policy of assessment to make the marks it grants reflect actual student achievement.
Indicators of practical, well-informed counselling
There are two indicators of counselling.
Will these 13- or 14-year-old students make good decisions? While it is no doubt true that high-school students are primarily responsible for the decisions they make about their education, it is unrealistic to presume that they can or should make them without advice. What practical, well-informed counselling can they call upon? While parents, in the main, are willing to help, many lack the information they need to be able to provide good advice. It falls, therefore, to the schools to shoulder some responsibility for advising students about their educational choices.
Indicators of well-informed counselling assess the counsel given by the schools by measuring the quality of the decisions taken by the students about their education. Of course, wise students will seek guidance not only from the counsellors designated by the schools, but also from those professionals—teachers, counsellors, and administrators—with whom they come in contact, and from parents, siblings, relatives, and others who can offer a point of view. It is, therefore, true that where students have strong support from family and community, the school's responsibility for counselling may be lighter; where students do not have strong support at home and from the community, the school's role may be more challenging. These indicators measure the school's success in using the tools at its disposal to help students make good decisions about their education.
The primary decisions that students must make are:
Graduation rate
This indicator measures the percentage of grade 12 students in a position to graduate who actually graduate by the end of August of the current school year. The Ministry of Education provides an estimate of the number of grade 12 students in each school who, by virtue of their successful completion of lower-level courses and their enrollment in a sufficient number of courses to enable them to graduate, can, provided that they pass the appropriate courses during the current year, graduate with their class. It then measures the number of those who actually graduate. Ref. 8
Rationale for inclusion
The Graduation Rate measures the percentage of students in their last year of high-school who decide to do the work necessary to complete the year. These students have successfully completed courses at the junior level and have enrolled in courses that, if successfully completed, will enable them to meet or exceed the minimum requirements for graduation.
Graduation from secondary school retains considerable value as it substantially increases options for post-secondary education. Further, graduates from secondary school who decide to enter the work-force immediately will find more job opportunities than those who have not graduated. It is reasonable, then, to conclude that the right choice is for a student to complete the last year of secondary school.
The decision to graduate is very much the student's. By completing the 11 years of schooling in preparation for the final year of secondary school and graduation, students demonstrate a reasonable ability to handle the basic courses offered by the school. Moreover, the requirements for graduation are not onerous. Thus, the chance that students will not graduate solely because of poor academic performance is very small.
Nevertheless, the graduation rate varies quite widely from school to school throughout the province. While there are factors not related to education—emigration from the province, sickness, death, and the like—that can affect the data, there is no reason to expect these factors to influence particular schools systematically. Accordingly, we take variations in the graduation rate to be an indicator of the extent to which children are being well “coached” in their educational choices.
Number of examinable courses taken
This indicator measures the average number of provincially examinable courses taken by the students at a school. It is derived by first summing the number of students at each school who wrote the provincial examination in each examinable course and then dividing that sum by the grade 12 enrollment in that school on September 30th.
Rationale for inclusion
In their senior years, students—especially in the public schools—have freedom to choose from a considerable variety of courses. Their choices will have considerable impact upon their literacy, numeracy, and analytical skills upon graduation; it will also affect the variety of options open to them for post-secondary study.
Provincially examinable courses offer study at the senior level in a variety of core disciplines: English language arts, the sciences, Mathematics, History, and other languages. Far from being courses for the university-bound elite, these courses teach skills and knowledge that will benefit students no matter what they plan to do after graduation. Further, it is the marks obtained in these courses that are commonly used by post-secondary institutions—institutes and community colleges as well as universities—to assess the applicant's readiness for further study and for admission to programs with limited enrollment. Thus, a decision to take advantage of these courses is a good one for most students and a school that is successful in encouraging students to take these courses shows that it offers practical, well-informed counselling.
Fraser Institute rating and 1997 overall rating
To facilitate the comparison of a school's current performance with that of previous years—as well as comparisons between schools—two derivative ratings have been developed.
First, the results for all the years were converted into a grade out of ten. This was accomplished using the following procedure. The base-year (1992/93) results were sorted from highest to lowest. They were then divided into 10 ranges and each range was assigned a grade between 10 and 1. The range that included the highest scores was given a 10; the next range, a 9; and so on. The results from all years where then assigned the number grade corresponding to the range of values into which each fell. The resulting Fraser Institute (FI) indices track school performance versus a constant (base-year) value.
The five FI indices were then averaged to produce the annual overall rating for each school. This overall school performance index answers the question, “Overall, how is the school doing, academically?”
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