Report Card on British Columbia's Secondary Schools: 2001 Edition:
Notes
1 See, for example, the mission statement of the Vancouver School Board (digital document: www.vsb.bc.ca/information-about-vsb-services/aboutourschoolsystem/index.html, February 12, 2001).
2 See the Consumers Union web site: www.consumersunion.org/.
3 Peter Cowley and Stephen Easton, Third Annual Report Card on British Columbia's Secondary Schools, Studies in Education Policy (Vancouver, BC: The Fraser Institute, 2000), page 4.
4 The 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 enrolment, 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 (http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/k12datareports/). The nature and extent of the data is indicated by the School Level Data Collection Manuals also available on this web 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 2000 are provided by the Ministry.
5 The following provincially examinable courses were offered for at least some of the years between 1992/1993 and 1999/2000: 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 1997/1998), Mandarin 12, Principles of Mathematics 12, Physics 12, Punjabi 12, Spanish 12 and Technical and Professional Communications 12. Students enrolled in schools run by the Francophone Education Authority may write some of these examination in French.
6 A 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% and the school mark that accounts for the remaining 60%.
7 Peter 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).
8 Cowley and Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades: page 7.
9 Cowley and Easton, Boys, Girls, and Grades: page 17.
10 Cowley and Easton, Third Annual Report Card: page 12, 119.
11 Peter Cowley and Stephen Easton, Second Annual Report Card on Alberta's High Schools, Studies in Education Policy (Vancouver, BC: The Fraser Institute, 2000).
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