Setting them up to fail? Excellent school marks don’t necessarily lead to excellent exam marks Robert Laurie, Director of Education Policy Atlantic Institute for Market Studies 3 May, 2007 ‘How low can you go?’ seems to be the inflation is pervasive in universities what about in prevailing approach of many high school math our high schools? Does it even exist? If so, how teachers when it comes to student expectations. bad is it and what are its effects on student This goes against every serious study which performance? concludes that raising student expectations is the way to go if we want students to succeed. Mathematics scores in New Brunswick francophone high schools tell an interesting tale. Let’s be clear: the practice of handing out A pattern emerges when one combines three excellent grades to students who don’t always consecutive years of average school marks (those deserve these grades is not a new phenomenon. A which are completely decided by teachers) and wealth of literature discusses this phenomenon provincial exam (PE) marks. Figure 1 shows the called grade inflation. Interestingly, the practice average school marks and the average PE marks of grade inflation is usually discussed and for school years 2001-2002 to 2003-2004. 1 criticized at the university level. But if grade Figure 1: NB francophone average school marks and average provincial exam marks 100 80 60 40 Percentages 20 0 123456789101112131415161718192021 School number Average school marks - math Average provincial exam marks - math 1 See Annex 1 for a complete list of New Brunswick francophone schools and their corresponding data. Page 1 of 10 AIMS Commentary – Grade Inflation May, 2007 It is easy to see that the school marks in all 21 high schools were higher than the provincial This analysis will focus on cases where the exam marks. The provincial average for school difference between teacher assigned grades and marks is 73.7 % while the average for PE marks provincial exam grades lie outside the “normal” is 60.1 % over the three years. gap. We will show that grade inflation is a BIG problem and that higher standards not higher If the provincial exams are tailor made to reflect grades should be the goal. the provincial curriculum it seems appropriate to “… grade inflation is generally If it is somewhat normal to ask why the school marks observe higher teacher are always higher than the seen to reflect on the teacher’s assigned marks than those provincial exam marks. obtained on provincial exams Since teachers are then why all the fuss about required by law to teach or on the school’s grade inflation? Grade the provincial curriculum inflation is generally seen to shouldn’t the teacher expectations… the higher the reflect on the teacher’s or the assigned marks be about school’s academic the same as those on the grade inflation the lower the expectations towards the provincial exams? Not students; the higher the grade necessarily. inflation the lower the expectations” expectations and vice-versa. While provincial exams do assess student In the context of provincial performance based on the exams and teacher assigned prescribed curriculum, these exams cannot, nor grades, grade inflation is defined as the do they purport to, assess every student outcome difference between the teacher assigned marks in the curriculum. Clearly, teachers are in a better and the results on a provincial exam for that position than external exams when it comes to particular course. For example, say a class has a assessing some student outcomes. So while both teacher assigned average mark of 85 % and that ways of assessing students are perfectly same class has a 70 % average on the provincial acceptable, and necessary for different reasons, exam we would say that there was 15 % grade one must realize that they are measuring slightly inflation. different things. It follows then that the results may differ. Now if high expectations are supposed to lead to high results and low expectations to low results Another argument sometimes used to explain the we should see two things: 1) lower teacher lower provincial exam marks is that they span the assigned marks should lead to high achievement whole course whereas the teacher assigned marks on the provincial exams, and 2) higher teacher are made up of a series of short term tests and assigned marks should lead to low achievement other work which cover only a small section of on provincial exams. So what do the data tell us? the curriculum. Since it is easier to remember only a small section of the curriculum instead of We calculated the average grade inflation for all of it the argument is made that it is not grade 11 mathematics for each francophone and surprising that students do better on class tests anglophone high school in New Brunswick as than provincial exams. So the existence of a well as for the Math 3204 course in somewhat constant gap between teacher assigned Newfoundland and Labrador. The New grades and provincial exam grades should not be Brunswick francophone data is taken over three a surprise. consecutive school years, 2001-2002 to 2003- Page 2 of 10 AIMS Commentary – Grade Inflation May, 2007 2004 as is the Newfoundland and Labrador data Not surprisingly, higher grade inflation points to for school years 2002-2003 to 2004-2005. We lower provincial exam results. Of the 21 high only have two years of data for the New schools, École Marie-Gaëtane has the highest Brunswick anglophone schools, 2001-2002 to grade inflation, at 24.7 %. With a provincial 2002-2003, an impact of the decision to eliminate exam average of 52.3 % this school is also the provincial exams in the spring of 2004. least achieving school in the province. These observations are exactly what we should see if Figure 2: NB francophone grade inflation and average provincial exam mark - math 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 Percentages 10 0 -10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111213141516171819202122 School number Grade inflation - math Average provincial exam mark - math the hypothesis of high expectations high Moreover, for nine anglophone schools data are results, low expectations low results is correct. only available for one of the two years. Due to these differences the New Brunswick Anglophone data, while not as robust, show a francophone and the somewhat similar visual pattern to Newfoundland and Where grade the francophone date as seen in Labrador data are more inflation goes Figure 3. representative and stable. Nevertheless, the data tell the down, performance Visually, the most obvious case that same story. stands out is that of Southern Victoria goes up High School (school #43)2 which Figure 2 shows grade inflation clearly has the highest grade inflation and student performance on the at 29.5 % and the lowest achievement grade 11 mathematics provincial on the provincial exam at 45.5 %. exams for each of the 21 francophone high schools. The first observation is that both sets of Not surprisingly, the two schools which showed points are practically mirror images of each the best performance on the provincial exams other. This means that in general, lower grade with an average of 76.0 % (Moncton High inflation points to higher provincial exam results. School, #10; and Canterbury High School, #39) This is most obvious in four schools; Polyvalente show grade inflation at only 1.0 %. Clearly, the Louis-J-Robichaud, Polyvalent Mathieu-Martin, expectations towards students at these two École Grande-Rivière and Polyvalente Roland- schools are much more aligned to those of the Pépin Not only do these four schools have the provincial curriculum than they are at Southern lowest grade inflation with values ranging from - Victoria High School. 0.7 % to 9.3 % but they are also the four top performing schools on the grade 11 mathematics 2 See Annex 2 for a complete list of New Brunswick provincial exams. anglophone schools and their corresponding data. Page 3 of 10 AIMS Commentary – Grade Inflation May, 2007 Figure 3: NB anglophone math grade inflation and average provincial exam marks 80 60 40 20 Percentages 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 -20 School number Grade inflation - math Average provincial exam marks - math Predictably, the story unfolds in the same way in At the other end of the spectrum, the two schools Newfoundland and Labrador. The most obvious which have the most grade inflation (Cloud River case here is that of St. Joseph’s All Grade School Academy – school #53, St. Michael’s Regional (school #73)3 which actually shows grade High – school #50) have poor results on the deflation instead of grade inflation. In this case mathematics 3204 provincial exams with the school mark is 9.9 % LOWER than the averages over 3 years of 49.8 % and 39.9 % provincial exam mark of 78.6 %, the best in the respectively. province. Figure 4: NL math 3204 grade inflation and average provincial exam marks - math 3204 100 80 60 40 20 Percentages 0 -20 0 1020304050607080 School number Grade inflation - math 3204 Average provincial exam marks - math 3204 3 See Annex 3 for a complete list of Newfoundland and Labrador schools and their corresponding data. Only schools where data was available for 3 consecutive years are included in the Newfoundland and Labrador study. Page 4 of 10 AIMS Commentary – Grade Inflation May, 2007 So what you ask? Let’s assume the following Inflating grades is a set-up for massive hypothetical situation to see the impact and disappointment later on. Sooner or later reality seriousness of this situation.