BC Secondary Schools Report Card, 2000:
Notes to the text
1 Department for Education and Employment, www.dfee.gov.uk/perform.htm (January 17, 2000).
2Pat Clark, So Where Are the Boys? digital document: www.bctf.bc.ca/ezine/archive/1997-01/support/Clarke.html (January 19, 2000), British Columbia Teachers' Federation.
3Peter Cowley and Stephen Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades: Academic Gender Balance in British Columbia's Secondary Schools, Public Policy Sources 22 (Vancouver, BC: The Fraser Institute, 1999): page 23.
4The Notley High School and Essex Inspection and Advisory Service, Raising Boys' Achievement 1996-1998, digital document: notley-high.essex.sch.uk/rba/rba.html (January 17, 2000).
5A further discussion of this controversy can be found in Peter Cowley, What Good is School . . . if Students Don't Show Up for Class? Fraser Forum (January 2000): pages 5-6.
6The data from which these indicators are derived is contained in publicly accessible databases maintained by the Ministry for two purposes. School-level statistics describing student enrollment, programs offered, and certain characteristics of the school district provide the basis for determining the annual per-student operating grant each district will receive. Analysis of this same material aids Ministry staff in the assessment and planning of proposed capital projects as well as general policy planning. This data is collected by the Data Management and Student Certification Branch and much of it is available to the public on the Branch's web site (www.bced.gov.bc.ca/k12datareports/standardreports/frames/main.htm). The nature and extent of the data is indicated by the School Level Data Collection Manuals also available on site. Statistics on individual student performance are captured so that the Ministry is able to produce a transcript of marks for each student upon graduation from grade 12. This transcript lists all the grade 11 and grade 12 courses that the student attempted and the results achieved. These results include the school mark for all such courses as well as the provincial examination mark for any provincially examinable grade 12 courses. Summary data files (at the school, district, and provincial levels) are available for public perusal on the Branch's web site (www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/standrep.htm). Values for the relevant statistics, for all public and independent secondary schools, for each of the seven school years between September 1992 to August 1999 are provided by the Ministry.
7The following provincially examinable courses were offered for at least some of the years between 1992-93 and 1998-99: Applications of Mathematics 12, Applications of Physics 12, Biology 12, Chemistry 12, Communications 12, English 12, English Literature 12, French 12, Français Langue 12, Geography 12, Geology 12, German 12, History 12, Japanese 12, Latin 12 (discontinued in 1997-98), Mandarin 12, Mathematics 12, Physics 12, Punjabi 12, Spanish 12 and Technical and Professional Communications 12.
8A student's final mark for a provincially examinable course is derived from both the mark received on the course's uniform provincial examination and a mark provided by the school. The final mark is the weighted average of the examination mark that accounts for 40 percent and the school mark that accounts for the remaining 60 percent.
9Results of the multiple regression analysis used to derive this socio-economic indicator can be found in Appendix 2.
10Cowley and Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades.
11Cowley and Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades: page 7
12Cowley and Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades: page 17
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