Kootenay Lake Superintendent Jeff Jones calls 2013 Fraser Institute’s School Report Card 'A Ridiculous Exercise'
By Nelson Daily Staff
By Suzy Hamilton, The Nelson Daily
LV Rogers High School made it into the top 100 schools in the province in the Fraser Institute’s annual 2013 school report card.
The Nelson secondary school was ranked 98 out of 284 schools province-wide by the Vancouver right wing think tank.
This is actually down from the five year average for LVR of 53rd in the province.
But according to School District 8 Superintendent Jeff Jones, the report card is a “ridiculous exercise to rate schools against each other.
“They are using a set of data never intended to be used in that manner.”
Jones is referring to the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA), or provincial math, science and English exam scores that the Fraser Institute uses as an indicator of how schools are doing.
“It was never meant as a measure. It’s used to help inform us of what we need to do to help students,” said Jones.
The Nelson and District Teachers Association agree. “Everyone involved believes rankings are completely invalid as a measure of how a school is performing,” said outgoing NDTA president Tom Newell.
“The data is narrow in scope and the sample size too narrow. They do not measure social and economic factors. The ranking is not a full scope of the educational experience. Social and economic factors have a huge impact.”
But Peter Cowley, Director of School Performance Studies at the Fraser Institute and a co-author of the report, said the report card is designed for parents, to give them “objective information.”
“They can take the information to a meeting and say, ‘Can you explain that?’”
Private schools rank high in the report. The top two schools are Vancouver private girls’ schools. But Cowley has no explanation for what puts these schools on top. “It’s beyond the scope of the report,” he said. “We can’t infer reasons from the numbers.”
However, he said that private schools’ existence depends on what parents are willing to pay for. “A high level of academic success is expected and achieved.”
He does agree that the data is too narrow. “Academics are not the only focus of education.” Citizenship, critical thinking, fine art and healthy lifestyles through sports do not figure into the report cards he said.
He blames the BCTF and the education ministry for not developing other measures of performance.
“The reason we have not seen any other measures of performance is that the teacher’s union is against any measures of any type.”
Jones said that’s just “not true.” He cites data from in care students, early years development and social and emotional development that follows a student through high school for the system to be able to help the student.
“The Fraser Institute’s data is flawed. There are other important pieces of the picture.”
His advice to parents is to “use the information from the Fraser Institute wisely in concert with the information that the school can provide for them.”
The Fraser Institute ranked JV Humphries school in Kaslo 142nd; Prince Charles in Creston 155th; and Mount Sentinel in the Slocan Valley at 188th.
For the complete report go to www.fraserinstitute.org.
