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Other indicators of school performance

The Report Card also includes a number of indicators that, while they do not contribute to the Overall rating out of 10, can provide useful information about each school's effectiveness.

For all but the Promotion rate indicator, the Report Card provides seven years of data for most schools. 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. This is particularly the case in the measurement of examination results. In one year, a relatively easy annual uniform examination may produce a high average mark and a low failure rate. In the following year, the opposite may occur. It can, therefore, be difficult to tell whether an individual school's result is changing over time due to real change in school performance or due to differences in the make-up of the annual examination.

To detect trends more easily in the performance indicators, we developed a trends indicator (noted in the tables as Tendences). It uses regression analysis to identify those dimensions in which the standardized scores achieved by the school show a statistically significant change. ¹⁴ In these circumstances, it is likely that the school's results have actually changed relative to the results of other schools. Because trend calculation is very uncertain when only a small number of data points are available, trends are calculated only in those circumstances where at least six years of data are available.

Certainly, 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 minimize the effect of any disadvantages that their students may have. Nonetheless, it is useful to isolate the "value added" to the students' achievement by the school. By doing so, we will be able to identify those schools that appear to be making a greater contribution than others to their students' success. In order to isolate this "school effect" and to provide readers with more information regarding the personal and family characteristics of the school's student body, the Report Card includes four indicators related to non-school factors.

1. EHDAA (%) indicates the proportion of Secondary IV and Secondary V students at the school with learning disabilities or other handicaps. This indicator is produced directly from data provided by the Ministry of Education.
    
   Note that only students whose schools are eligible for additional ministry funding as a result of their disability are counted in the calculation of this ratio. With few exceptions, private schools are not eligible for EHDAA funding. Thus, while such schools may enroll students who, in a public school, would be classified as EHDAA, these private schools are nonetheless shown in the Report Card as having no EHDAA enrollment.
2. Late entry (noted in the tables as En retard (%)) indicates the proportion of the students who are 16 years of age or older when beginning their Secondary IV year. Along with EHDAA (%), this indicator gives us some insight into the personal characteristics of the school's students as they begin the last two years of their secondary school program. This indicator is produced directly from data provided by the ministry of education.
3. Average parents' employment income (noted in the tables as Revenu des parents) indicates the average parental income from employment enjoyed by the families of the school's students and is reflective of the student body's family background. This indicator was calculated using enrollment data provided by the ministry of education and income data provided by Statistics Canada.
4. Adjustment for value added (noted in the tables as Ajustement valeur ajoutée) is an estimate of the contribution of statistically important non-school factors to the Overall rating out of 10.

We calculated the Adjustment for value added as follows. First, using by-postal-code enrollment data provided by the Ministry of Education and socio-economic data derived from the 1996 Census, ¹⁵ we established a profile of the student body's family characteristics for each of the schools in the Report Card. We added to this profile the average values for student characteristics (EHDAA and Late entry) and certain school characteristics (student enrollment, school sector). We then used multiple regression--a tool used in statistical analysis--to determine which of these factors were associated with variations in school performance as measured by the Overall rating out of 10.

Taking into account all of these variables simultaneously, we identified several factors that possessed a statistically significant association with the Overall rating. Details of our findings are reported in Appendix 2. The relative importance of the two factors Late entry (%) and Average parents' employment income led us to adopt them for use in the calculation of the Adjustment for value added.

The Adjustment for value added when added to Overall rating out of 10, provides our best estimate of the contribution of the school to the success of its students. For example, at l'École Donnacona, the Overall rating out of 10 for 1999/2000 is 7.3 and the Ajustement valeur ajoutée is -0.6. When we add these two values together, the sum is a new value of the overall rating adjusted so that the non-school factors are removed. Thus in the case of Donnacona we estimate that what happens at the school contributes 6.7 rating points out of 7.3: the personal and family characteristics contribute the other 0.6. Compare this to the results for École polyvalente de Cabano. At this school with a lower Average parents' employment income value and a high Late entry value, the non-school factors contribute nothing (Adjustment for value added equals 0) and we estimate that the school contributes all of the reported Overall rating out of 10. Thus, while the school contribution at both schools is the same, favourable non-school factors resulted in a higher overall rating for Donnacona.

This measure of the value added by the school is presented with two important notes of caution. First, when all the schools in the Report Card are considered, only a small amount of the variation among schools in the Overall rating is associated with the socio-economic and student factors studied. Clearly, many other factors--including good teaching, counselling, and school administration--contribute to the effectiveness of schools. Second, these statistical measures describe past relationships between non-school factors 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, these socio-economic indicators should not be used as an excuse or rationale for poor school performance.

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Last Modified: October 20, 2000.