The Fraser Institute’s ranking of elementary schools based on Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) results that pegs Cedar Grove Elementary as the lowest-rated school on the Sunshine Coast is “simply silly,” according to superintendent of schools Patrick Bocking.
Students in Grades 4 and 7 take the provincial FSA tests each year to gauge their ability in reading, writing and numeracy. The Fraser Institute then uses that FSA information to rank schools in a report card it releases annually. The results for the 2015 school year were released by the Institute on April 3.
While most elementary schools on the Coast managed a score of between six and eight out of 10 on the report card, Cedar Grove Elementary received a 4.5.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Halfmoon Bay Elementary received a score of 9.5 out of 10.
Reached for comment this week, Bocking said he didn’t know what led to the high and low scores.
“Things go up and down all the time in these kinds of rankings,” Bocking said.
“It can be anything from an illness going through the school when the FSA is being written to the weather. There can be an awful lot of things that can skew results in a particular school at a particular time and that’s why one of the biggest concerns with rankings is how poor a use of the information this is. Because it’s completely out of context.”
Sunshine Coast Teachers’ Association president Louise Herle noted that when she taught Grade 7 one year, the Fraser Institute ranked her school as the top on the Coast but the following year the same school came in last place.
“Same teacher, same school, same principal, same support staff, same textbooks and resources, same portable classrooms, same desks and classroom organization,” Herle said.
“What was the difference? Two students with exceptionally high aptitude pulled the class average to the top the first year and the next year I had a perfectly average class.”
Bocking said the easily skewed numbers are one reason he pays little attention to the rankings when they come out each year.
The Fraser Institute has ranking results listed since 2011 for most elementary schools in the district, and Cedar Grove Elementary scored a 7.0 in 2011, 4.2 in 2012, 4.9 in 2013, 6.7 in 2014 and 4.5 in 2015.
Halfmoon Bay Elem-entary scored a high of 9.9 in 2011, 8.2 in 2012, 8.9 in 2013, 7.6 in 2014 and 9.5 in 2015.
The Fraser Institute only has data for 2015 for Davis Bay Elementary (6.8) and no data for Madeira Park Elementary, as the school is too small to be included.
Kinnikinnick Elementary has consistently seen improvement in their rating since 2012, from 5.0 to 7.9 this year, and West Sechelt Elementary’s rating has ranged from 6.7 to 7.9 since 2011. In the same timeframe, Gibsons Elementary’s rating has ranged from 6.4 to 8.3 and Roberts Creek Elementary between 4.6 and 6.6.
Full results for schools can be found at britishcolumbia.compareschoolrankings.org
Bocking said the act of ranking schools is a “terrible idea” and not something School District No. 46 (SD46) endorses.
“It negatively impacts on the credibility of the Fraser Institute because it’s such a bad use of data that anyone who understands the complexity of schools knows that it’s simply silly to be using these results from one assessment when teachers are doing superb work assessing their students on an ongoing basis,” Bocking said.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to rank students based on this kind of single measure. It’s like going on a family trip, taking one picture and saying, ‘That was the trip and it represents everything.’ It simply doesn’t.”
He said SD46 does use the information gleaned from the FSA tests each year to guide future planning and gauge where resources would best be placed, but noted those test results are weighed equally with other forms of assessment.
He encouraged parents who might be concerned about the rankings to talk with their student’s teacher or principal to get a clearer picture of what kind of learning is taking place at individual schools.
