The Fraser Institute has released a new report on school performance, updated with 2016 data.
Entitled the Report Card on British Columbia’s Secondary Schools 2017, the report ranks schools based on data from the Ministry of Education and measures academic performance only. As a result, it attracts certain opposition towards its methodology.
The BC Teachers’ Federation often criticizes the yearly study as flawed and poorly measures the quality of education.
The study gives Hope Secondary an overall rating of 4.8 out of 10. The average overall rating for HSS from 2012 to 2016 is 4.76, with 2014 being their best year at 5.5 and 2013 being the worst, at 4.0. The average overall ranking for all secondary schools is 6.0.
The data also shows that Hope Secondary stands at 223rd place out of 293 schools currently. Last year, the school had a overall rating of 240th out of 294 schools.
This means that HSS has improved both in its overall ranking and position among British Columbia’s schools in 2016 as compared to 2015. Last year it had a rating of 4.5.
The Institute based their overall rating on seven indicators. The first is the average exam mark in grades 10-12 courses that include a mandatory provincial exam, which was at 65.9 in 2016. Adding to that is the percentage of those exams failed, which is 13.4 per cent for HSS students.
The third factor is the difference between the marks students get in school exams and provincial exams. There is a difference of 2.7 percentage points and the Fraser Institute said that this difference has been increasing.
The report also considers gender gaps. In 2016, female students taking Mathematics and English 10 have a 6.1 and 7.7 percentage point advantage over male students.
The graduation rate of HSS students is at 95.7 per cent, while the delayed advancement rate — a measure of the rate in which Grade 10 students would not graduate in a normal time — is at 36.1 per cent.
In a statement, Fraser-Cascade School District 78 superintendent Karen Nelson responded that the school district continues to review student achievement on a holistic basis and provide the necessary support for student success in academics, creativity, personal interests and career exploration.
“I was honoured to recently participate in the portfolio interview process at HSS which focused on achievement in the following areas: Intellectual; personal management (responsibility, teamwork, leadership, and attitude); Career preparation; Social/emotional and physical development,” wrote Nelson.
“I was most impressed with the accomplishments of each of our graduates, as they shared their reflection of their educational journey, and how personalized each journey was; some in academics, some in the arts, and others in the trades; but each with a true, personal sense of worth, accomplishment and readiness for the next chapter of their lives.
“These testimonials speak to how proud we are of the wide-range of programming options that we continue to provide for our students in School District 78 as they transition from high school to post-secondary and the world of work.”