Report Card on British Columbia's Elementary Schools
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Studies in FRASER Education Policy I N S T I T U T E Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary Schools 2018 by Peter Cowley and Stephen Easton COMPARESchoolRankings.ORG Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary Schools 2018 By Peter Cowley and Stephen Easton Contents Introduction / 3 Elementary schools included in this report / 5 Key academic indicators of school performance / 6 Other indicators of school performance / 8 Notes / 9 Detailed school reports / 10 How does your school stack up? / 82 Appendix: Calculating the Overall rating out of 10 / 92 About the authors / 94 Publishing information / 95 Supporting the Fraser Institute / 96 Purpose, funding, & independence / 96 About the Fraser Institute / 97 Editorial Board / 98 2 Introduction The Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary perform well or show consistent improvement are Schools 2018 (hereafter, Report Card) collects a variety of applauded. Poorly performing schools generate con- relevant, objective indicators of school performance into cern, as do those whose performance is deteriorating. one, easily accessible public document so that anyone This inevitable attention provides one more incentive can analyze and compare the performance of individual for all those connected with a school to focus on stu- schools. By doing so, the Report Card assists parents dent results. when they choose a school for their children and encour- The Report Card, however, offers more than incen- ages and assists all those seeking to improve their schools. tive: it includes a variety of indicators, each of which reports results for an aspect of school performance The Report Card helps parents choose that might be improved. School administrators who are dedicated to improvement accept the Report Card Where parents can choose among several schools for their as another source of opportunities for improvement. children, the Report Card provides a valuable tool for making a decision. Because it makes comparisons easy, Some schools do better than others it alerts parents to those nearby schools that appear to To improve a school, one must believe that improve- have more effective academic programs. Parents can also ment is achievable. This Report Card provides evidence determine whether schools of interest are improving over about what can be accomplished. It demonstrates clear- time. By first studying the Report Card, parents will be ly that, even when we take into account factors such as better prepared to ask relevant questions when they visit the students’ family background, which some believe schools under consideration and speak with the staff. dictate the degree of academic success that students will Of course, the choice of a school should not be have in school, some schools do better than others. This made solely on the basis of any one source of informa- finding confirms the results of research carried out in tion. A tour of each school of interest and an interview other countries.1 Indeed, it will come as no great sur- with the principal can be useful. Parents who already prise to experienced parents and educators that the data have a child enrolled at the school can provide another consistently suggest that what goes on in the schools point of view. And, a sound academic program should makes a difference to academic results and that some be complemented by effective programs in areas of schools make more of a difference than others. school activity not measured by the Report Card. Nevertheless, the Report Card provides a detailed pic- Comparisons are the key to improvement ture of each school that is not easily available elsewhere. By comparing a school’s latest results with those of earlier years, we can see if the school is improving. The Report Card encourages By comparing a school’s results with those of neigh- schools to improve bouring schools or of schools with similar school and student characteristics, we can identify more success- The act of publicly rating and ranking schools attracts ful schools and learn from them. Reference to overall attention and can provide motivation. Schools that provincial results places an individual school’s level of 3 4 Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary Schools 2018 achievement in a broader context. You can contribute to the Comparisons are the key to improvement: making development of the Report Card comparisons among schools is made simpler and more meaningful by the Report Card’s indicators, ratings, The Report Card program benefits from the input of and rankings. Comparisons among schools can be made interested parties. We welcome your suggestions, com- more easily by using the Institute’s school rankings ments, and criticisms. Please contact Peter Cowley at website, <http://www.compareschoolrankings.org>. [email protected]. Elementary schools included in this report This edition of the Report Card includes two types combination of two schools—grades 1 though 5 at the of elementary schools. The majority of the schools elementary school and grades 6 and 7 at the middle (656 out of 946) enroll both grade-4 and grade-7 school—with academic performance at Type-1 schools students. An additional 290 elementary schools that in the same and other districts. do not enroll grade-7 students (hereafter referred to Of course, the staff at Type-2 schools could argue as “Type-2 schools”) are also included. The students that, since they cannot influence the effectiveness of who attend these elementary schools generally move learning outside their own school, they cannot be to a middle school or junior high school after com- held responsible for the grade-7 results of their for- pleting the highest grade (usually grade 5 or grade 6) mer students now attending a middle school. To some that the school offers. Type 2 schools are identified in extent, this may be true. However, in many cases the the detailed school reports and in the ranking table Type-2 school has been responsible for the child’s aca- with double daggers (††) immediately following each demic development for five years and it is reasonable Type 2 school’s name. to assume that effective teaching during that period The procedure for determining the indicator val- would benefit students as they move through their ues, ratings, and rankings for the two types of schools studies at middle school. Further, it is likely that the is the same with one important exception. Because administrators in districts where middle schools are Type-2 schools have no grade-7 enrollment, they do established have developed liaison programs to ensure not generate the grade-7 level provincewide test results that student progress continues uninterrupted by the that are used in seven of this Report Card’s academ- transition from elementary to middle schools. ic indicators. However, students who were enrolled Further, we cannot be certain that all the grade-4 in Type-2 schools participate in the grade-7 test sit- students at a Type-2 school moved to the same school tings—usually at a middle school—a year or two after for grade 7. In some cases, students will have two or they have left their elementary school. The Ministry more middle schools from which to choose. Some stu- of Education provides grade-7 level data required for dents may move to private schools offering a greater the calculation of the indicators grouped by the school grade range. Still others may choose to attend a Type-1 at which the students were enrolled in grade 4 rather school in a neighbouring district. However, there is no than by the school at which the students had written reason to believe that the ability to choose from a vari- the grade-7 tests. We are, therefore, able to attribute to ety of grade-7 schools will effect a particular Type-2 each Type-2 school the grade-7 level test results of the school’s results systematically. students who attended grade 4 at the school. Readers reviewing the results for Type-2 schools We believe it is reasonable to make this attribution. should bear in mind that they reflect the combined In districts where Type-2 elementary schools operate, effect of both the elementary school and the middle parents are able to compare academic performance at a schools that its students subsequently attend. 5 Key academic indicators of school performance The foundation of the Report Card is an overall rating in reading, writing, and numeracy at the grade-4 and of each school’s academic performance. We base our grade-7 levels. Overall rating on ten indicators: Fundamental to the mission of elementary schools is teaching its students the basic skills of reading, 1. average Foundation Skills Assessment2 (FSA) writing, and mathematics. These skills are essen- score in grade-4 reading; tial building blocks for life-long learning. The tests 2. average FSA score in grade-4 writing; upon which the Report Card is based are designed to 3. average FSA score in grade-4 numeracy; achieve a distribution of results reflecting the differ- 4. average FSA score in grade-7 reading; ences in students’ mastery of the skills embodied in 5. average FSA score in grade-7 writing; the curriculum. Differences among students in abili- ties, motivation, and work-habits will inevitably have 6. average FSA score in grade-7 numeracy; some impact upon the final results. There are, how- 7. the difference between male and female students ever, recognizable differences from school to school in their average FSA scores in grade-7 reading; within a district in the average results on the FSA tests. 8. the difference between male and female students There is also variation within schools in the results in their average FSA scores in grade-7 numeracy; obtained in different skills areas and at different grade 9.