Report Card on British Columbia's Secondary Schools: 2001 Edition
Other indicators of school performance
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.
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 enrolment 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.10
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. We then reported the difference between the actual Overall rating and this predicted value in each school's results table.
For example, during the 1999/2000 school year, Fraser Valley Christian High School in Surrey 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 5.9. On the other hand, at Guildford Park Secondary, also in Surrey, while its actual Overall rating was just 4.7, its predicted rating was 5.3. This measurement suggests that Fraser Valley Christian is more successful than Guildford Park 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 among 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. Indeed, the extent to which students' family characteristics are associated with student results varies from province to province. In Alberta, for instance, similar analysis showed that parental education accounted for only about eleven percent of the between school variation in the Overall rating.11 While further analysis is required, this difference indicates that, on average, schools in Alberta may be more effective in ensuring that all students succeed regardless of their family background. Thus, this socio-economic indicator should not be used as an excuse or rationale for poor school performance. The effective school will produce good results, regardless of the family background of its students.
Is the school improving academically?
The Trends indicator
For all the indicators, the Report Card provides eight years of data. Unlike a simple snapshot of one year's results, this historical record provides evidence of change (or lack of change) 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 the Trends indicator. It uses statistical analysis to identify those dimensions of school performance in which there has been real change rather than a fluctuation in results caused by random occurrences. In addition, this year, the standardized scores rather than raw data are used to determine the trends. Since standardizing makes historical data more comparable, this change may make the Trends indicator more reliable. Because calculation of trends is uncertain when only a small number of data points is available, a trend is indicated only in those circumstances where at least six years of data are available and where it is 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.
How does the school's English program compare to the provincial average?
While the basic academic indicators and the Overall rating described above give an overview of the effectiveness of the school's academic programs, they do not tell us anything about the effectiveness of specific academic departments within the school.
For example, at Elgin Park Secondary in Surrey, the average examination mark for the 1999/2000 school year was four percentage points above the provincial average. However, the school's average mark in English 12 exceeded the provincial average by nearly seven percentage points.
To provide a closer look at results in individual courses, we have introduced a new feature. Each year, we plan to focus on the school's results in one of the eight most frequently written provincially examinable courses. This year the Report Card shows how each school performed in English 12 compared to the province as a whole in each of the last eight years. First, the difference between the school's average mark and the provincial average mark is reported. Second, the school and provincial participation rates in the course are compared. The average examination mark must be viewed with the participation rate in mind. If a school has a very high average mark but a low participation rate, it may mean that only those students with a history of high achievement in the course are encouraged to take it. Finally, the results are analyzed to determine whether the school is improving relative to the province as a whole or not. Significant improvement or deterioration over time is reported in the Trends column.
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