BC Secondary Schools Report Card, 2000:
Other indicators of school performance

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

Since the inception of the Report Card, we have added other indicators that--while they are not used to derive the Overall rating out of 10--add more information on the school's effectiveness.

Is the school improving academically?
The Progress indicator

On all but the indicator of specific course results (see below), The Report Card provides seven years of data. Unlike a simple snapshot of one year's results, this historical record provides evidence of change (or lack thereof) over time. However, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether a school's performance is improving or deteriorating simply by scanning several years of data.

In order to detect trends in the performance indicators more easily, we developed a progress indicator. It uses regression analysis to identify those dimensions of school performance where there has been real change rather than a fluctuation in results caused by random occurrences outside the control of the school. Because trend calculation is very uncertain when only a small number of data points is available, trends are calculated only in those circumstances where at least four years of data are available and where they are determined to be statistically significant. In this context, the term "statistically significant" means that, nine times out of 10, the trend that is noted is real, that is, it would not have happened just by chance.

Are there any academic strengths or weaknesses at the school?
Course Results for specific courses

While the basic academic indicators and the Overall rating described above provide an overview of the effectiveness of the school's academic programs, they do not tell us anything about the relative effectiveness of the specific academic departments within the school.

For example, at Springvalley Secondary in Kelowna, the average examination mark for the 1998-99 school year was 68.5 percent, about one percentage point above the provincial average. However, the school's average mark on the Mathematics 12 examination was 76.4 percent; nearly 10 percentage points above the provincial average. On the other hand, the school's average mark on the French 12 examination was 60.9 percent, more than 14 percentage points below the provincial average.

The Third Annual Report Card on British Columbia's Secondary Schools introduces a snapshot of the school's results in the most popular provincially examinable courses so that comparisons between different departments at the same school can be made. The indicator reports the average examination mark as a measure of the department's teaching effectiveness. The participation rate (shown in parentheses) indicates the extent to which the students have been encouraged to involve themselves in the subject area. (The participation rate is the ratio, for a school, between the number of students writing the provincial examination in a particular subject and the number of students enrolled in grade 12). This information along with course-specific data from the province as a whole (table 2) and other schools can help parents, teachers, and administrators select specific subject areas where student achievement or participation rates might be improved.

How well does the school take into account differences among students?

1 The socio-economic indicator

Educators can and should take into account the abilities, interests, and backgrounds of their students when they design their lesson plans and deliver the curricu­lum. By doing so, they can overcome disadvantages that their students may have. The socio-economic indicator enables us to identify schools that are successful in spite of adverse conditions faced by their students at home. Similarly, it iden­tifies schools where students with a relatively positive home situation appear not to be reaching their presumed potential.

The socio-economic indicator was derived as follows. First, using Ministry of Education enrollment data sorted by postal code and census data provided by Statistics Canada, we estab­lished a profile of the student body's home char­acteristics for each of the schools in the Report Card. We then used multiple regression analysis to determine which of the home characteristics were associat­ed with variations in school perform­ance as measured by the Overall rating out of 10. Taking into account all of the socio-economic variables simultaneously, we identified one characteristic that was significantly associated with the Overall rating: the average number of years of education of the most educated parent in a two-parent family (or of the lone parent in a single-parent family). When a school had more highly educated parents, the Overall rating at the school was likely to be higher. We have adopted this statistic--noted in the tables as Parents' average education (yrs.)--as the socio-economic indicator for this edition of the Report Card.

As a measure of the success with which each school took into account the socio-economic characteristics of the student body, we used the formula derived from the regression analysis to predict the Overall rating for each school.⁹ We then reported the difference between the actual Overall rating and this predicted value in each school's results table.

For example, during the 1998-99 school year, David Thompson Secondary in Vancouver achieved an Overall rating of 7.2 and yet, when the family characteristics of the student body are taken into account, the school was expected to achieve a rating of only about 4.9. At Charles Bloom Secondary in Vernon, on the other hand, while its actual Overall rating was just 2.6, its predicted rating was 6.5. This measurement suggests that David Thompson is more successful than Charles Bloom in enabling all of its students to reach their potential.

This measure of the effect of the socio-economic background of a school's student body is presented with two important notes of caution. First, only about one-third of the variation between schools in the overall rating is associated with socio-economic factors. Clearly, many other factors--including good teaching, counselling, and school administration--contribute to the effectiveness of schools. Second, the statistical measures used describe past relationships between a socio-economic characteristic and a measure of school effectiveness. It should not be inferred that these relationships will or should remain static. The more effectively the school enables all of its students to succeed, the weaker will be the relationship between the home characteristics of its students and their academic success. Thus, this socio-economic indicator should not be used as an excuse or rationale for poor school performance. Rather, it should be used simply as an estimate of the extent to which the school has reduced the influence of family characteristics on student success. The effective school will produce good results, regardless of the family background of its students.

2 The Gender Gap indicator

Recent research¹⁰ has noted systematic sex-based differences in academic results in British Columbia's secondary schools. These differences are particularly apparent where assessments are made by the local school rather than the Ministry of Education. However, the same research found that "there appears to be no compelling evidence that girls and boys should, given effective teaching and counselling, experience differential rates of success."¹¹ Further, "[t]he differences described by each indicator vary from school to school over a considerable range of values."¹²

The Gender Gap indicator measures the difference, if any, between the average school marks for male students and female students in the two most popular provincially examinable courses--Mathematics 12 and English 12. It reports the size of the difference and the more successful sex.

Like the socio-economic indicator, the Gender Gap indicator provides a measure of the effectiveness of the school in enabling all of its students to succeed. Schools with a low gender gap are more successful than others in enabling students of both sexes to reach their potential.

[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

info@fraserinstitute.ca
4th Floor, 1770 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6J 3G7
Tel: (604) 688-0221 Fax: (604) 688-8539 Book Orders: 1-800-665-3558 ext. 580

You can contact us at the above email address for any comments or information requests. Please report any dead links or technical problems.