Both school board trustees and teachers want the provincial government to consider random sampling of students' provincial test scores rather than using school-wide results to determine how well schools are performing
academically.
As expected, the Fraser Institute's report on 280 secondary schools in B.C. and Yukon released in April does not rank School District 57 schools high on the list.
Cedars Christian, a private school in Prince George, has the highest overall SD 57 ranking at 108th out of 280, followed by Duchess Park (128), Valemount (133), D.P. Todd (148), Prince George secondary (157), Mackenzie (218), College Heights (223), and Kelly Road (252). All of the top 14 in the overall rankings were private schools, mostly in affluent areas of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
School District 57 school board vice-chair Sharon Bourassa is in favour of standardized student testing but says the government should be more responsive to the test scores and should allocate more resources to schools that continually struggle to achieve provincial standards.
"Right now, it doesn't look like it goes anywhere other than rating schools, it doesn't appear the ministry is doing anything with that data to increase the success rate of the students," said Bourassa. "It's pretty obvious the inner-city schools rank much lower than the independent schools. If the ministry used that information and geared some of its funding towards that, it would be fabulous. Those schools need more help, they need to up the academic standards and money would definitely help. It costs to get extra help in the classroom."
Since 1998, the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think tank, has released an annual report on secondary school rankings based on information provided by the education ministry. Critics of the annual report card have said it is impossible to rate academic success of schools without actually visiting those schools.
This year's overall rankings are based on seven indicators, including: the average provincial examination mark in Grades 10-12; percentage of provincial examinations failed; average school mark of provincial examinations; difference between male and female students exam results in English 10; the gender difference in Math 10; the graduation rate, and the likelihood a Grade 10 student will complete high school in three years.
Results of Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) tests written this year by Grade 4 and 7 students have yet to be released to the public. The Fraser Institute has used those results for its annual ranking of elementary schools since 2003.
Low school rankings can prove damaging to those schools to the point where parents moving into the city will avoid certain schools based on that report's findings.
Matt Pearce, president of the Prince George District Teachers Association, sees random sampling as a better alternative. In a random sample, everyone would write the tests but the results of only a few students in each area would be released and their schools would not be identified.
"The real purpose of the FSAs originally was to test how effective a curriculum was with our students and a random sampling of students was a good way to give feedback and make sure the curriculum was working the way it was intended," said Pearce. "Then, with freedom of information, the results got out there and were used by people like the Fraser Institute for purposes they were never intended for.
Pearce calls the report "damaging" to the morale of students and blames the ministry for continuing to release test results that chart individual school performance. He said some private schools use the test scores as a recruitment tool and allow students to practice for the tests before they actually write them.
"There's no sensible argument that can be made that teachers at an inner-city school, working with the challenges they have and the challenges those students come to school with, aren't doing fantastic work," Pearce said.
"It's ridiculous to compare that to a private school teacher who has a hand-picked class of kids with motivated parents of children who aren't coming from a background of poverty who aren't special needs, because those schools generally screen those kids out."
