Taking their message into the eye (and home) of the Hurricane

Representatives of Fraser Institute’s School performance study arrived in Prince Rupert on Wednesday night and faced a rather critical audience. Local residents and educators expressed their concerns with the Institute’s results and its methodology in arriving at its observations. Peter Cowley, a co-author of the report spent a good portion of his time in the multi purpose room at Charles Hays fending off criticism and attempting to present his view of the state of education across the province and what the report should accomplish as far as Prince Rupert is concerned.

Over the years studies have proven to be rather controversial as the more affluent areas of the province tend to score the highest, while those parts of the province with socio economic factors on the decline tend to rank the lowest.

This years report saw a number of Prince Rupert schools listed in the bottom level of the rankings, a trend that has been the norm for the Performance studies over the last number of years. Feeling at bit under attack, local residents expressed their concerns about the series and the damage it may do to the local education system.

The Daily had a full report on visit and the fallout, which we provide below.

‘THINK TANK’ STANDS BY ITS HARSH REPORT
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Pages One and Two

The Fraser Institute made a presentation in Prince Rupert last night, and faced a slew of criticism for their ranking and analysis of the province’s schools.

Peter Cowley, director of school performance studies at the Institute and co-author of the ‘Report Card’ spent a significant portion of the evening addressing concerns around the think tank’s study, which has consistently handed out low marks for Prince Rupert schools.

The most common criticism of the report card was that it is too narrow in focus and doesn’t take into consideration other elements that make up school life.

“We have said from the very beginning that the report card should provide as much information as would be relevant for parents, if they want information about fine arts … they should have that information and we would willingly put it in the report card,” he said. “Ironically, it is the most vocal critics of the report card – who say it is too narrow in focus – who are precisely the same organizations who, if they wanted to, could generate data that would measure effectiveness in these other areas.”

Cowley uses the example of attendance records, one of the areas that some have criticized the report for not including. The Fraser Institute sent out letters to all 60 districts requesting the information; only six responded.

Vancouver offered them the data for the Vancouver School District at the cost of more than $140,000.

“I continue to strongly encourage the other education stakeholders to consider the development of more data,” said Cowley. “So far they’ve chosen not to do that.”

Another common criticism of the report card is that it’s just a snapshot and represents just one day.

“There are a number of different measures, with the elementary report card we look at six tests,” he said, adding that the data is also looked at over a period of five years in addition to the current report card year.

“I look at it not so much as a snapshot, but as a motion picture … it’s a whole bunch of snapshots over time giving you a sense of where things are going.”

Critics also claim the report card is unfair because it pits private schools, which can select their own students, against public schools.

“In fact, the vast majority, more than 80 percent of enrollment in private schools in this province do not select their students … on the basis of an academic test,” said Cowley.

“Look at Roosevelt Park. Is there a reason to compare that to West Vancouver’s Collingwood (private) School … there’s very little use. But there may be very interesting comparisons for other schools.”

Cowley also addressed the feeling, particularly by teachers, that the ranking makes staff and students feel demeaned and that a variety of social factors should be taken into account.

“The thing about the public reporting of results is, it gives you a place to start, you say ‘okay this is what we’re doing now’,” he said. “If you concern yourself with making an overall rating out of 10 that takes into account parents and family, in some sense you’re setting yourself up by suggesting it might be all right if we don’t do all that well because the characteristics of our kids.”

Cowley says a quote by former Education Minister Christy Clark that a B. C. student can get the same excellent education anywhere in the province, something people wouldn’t say about cars or restaurants, its enough reason for pause.

“The idea of rating as an incentive (from) positive competition is something we accept every day in virtually every other area of society except in schools,” he said.

The Fraser Institute provides report cards across Canada for 6,500 schools including
three in B. C.