Chignecto-Central School Board slammed for refusing to provide grade data for study

Last updated at 11:51 PM on 03/04/08  

Chignecto-Central School Board slammed for refusing to provide grade data for study

 
 

"The other school boards have obviously done it, but because they've been bullied into doing it."

BY SEAN KELLY

The News

 
 

NEW GLASGOW – The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies is calling on Nova Scotia school boards to quit being so stingy with their information.

Despite a freedom of information ruling that the release of student achievement data was in the public interest, no school board publicly reports provincial exam results or teacher-assigned grades on a school-by-school basis.

The report also cites Chignecto Central Regional School Board as the only school board to not supply separate provincial exam and teacher assigned grade data for its high schools.

"This is particularly troubling in light of an indepth report in 2007 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development which found a direct link between a country's achievement on the Programme of International Student Assessment and the publication of performance results at the school level," said AIMS executive vice president Charles Cirtwell.

He asks, "What is it that they do not want the public to know?"

Meanwhile, Noel Hurley, superintendent of the school board, says AIMS should be considering the findings of those reports. Nova Scotia schools are doing very well, he said.

"Canada ranks second in the world – and we're lumped very closely to the mean of the Canadian group. So what we should be doing is celebrating our success instead of beating up on one group or one of our schools."

"The other school boards have obviously done it, but because they've been bullied into doing it. And, I would prefer to have our consultants and co-ordinators and teachers time working towards improving achievement at the school level – and not wasting time providing cannon fodder for someone to beat us up with."

Hurley said he takes exception to a few of the rankings on the report card, including those which cite university participation rates.

Even with socio-economic circumstances folded into the report rural schools fall short, but he said it's not because students are performing poorly once they leave high school. The report discriminates against those schools, he said.

"In Nova Scotia, with the highest tuition rates in Canada, it's not possible for  poor students to attend the first year that they finish school . We're tracking some of our students – and a lot of students will take a year or two years to earn some money to go to post secondary," Hurley said.

For example, tuition rates for community college in the province are nearly on par with those of Memorial University in Newfoundland.

"Rural incomes are roughly about 60 per cent of urban incomes. So, if you've got rural high schools, you've got kids that can't afford to go right away when they're done."

Hurley said he doesn't oppose an outside objective look at student achievement. He believes AIMS is doing the best it can, given the information it has.

"As many sources as you can get your information is fine. I'm not discounting everything they've done here,"

"One of the difficulties is that we don't have really good data that's reliable in Nova Scotia, from a test perspective. We're improving all of the time and the province is improving all the time."

He said the provincial government continues to make good progress in provincial assessment reports.

For now, he suggests that's the data that the institute should be considering, "Rather than trying to build a model when there's already a better model in place than what they have."

"I think it's time that somebody challenged  what they're saying here and pointed out how good we're doing, instead of how bad we're doing."

04/04/08  

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