Quebec school 'report card' tells it like it is

One million readers of popular Canadian news and lifestyle magazine L'Actualité snatched up this year's hugely popular and influential academic ranking of Quebec's 455 secondary schools.

The fourth annual Report Card - published first in a 40-page L'Actualité supplement along with 30 pages of magazine editorial - examined both public and private schools, and also received much other media coverage.

L'Actualité editor-in-chief Carole Beaulieu, who publishes the Report Card each year, described it as an education reality check - "maybe cruel and difficult but amazingly powerful and full of revelation". Designed, researched and created by the Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), the Report Card uses public data to grade schools on a scale of 0-10 based on five main indicators: average uniform examination marks in five core courses percentage of uniform examinations failed school-level grade inflation difference between the examination results of male and female students in Secondary V level language of instruction and in Secondary VI level physical science a measure of the proportion of each school's students who stay in school and graduate on time. The ranking also includes a value-added indicator to help neutralise socio-economic effects.

As well as publishing the ranking, the French language L'Actualité polls annually on its usefulness and for the past three years has had the same answers: around 75 percent polled think it is useful information that should be published.

"We are publicly denounced by bureaucrats, school boards and unions for publishing it but our readers have repeatedly let us know how valuable it is for them as another tool to use to help choose schools," Ms Beaulieu said.

Report Card co-author Peter Cowley, the Fraser Institute's director of school performance studies, said that without tools such as the Report Card, parents found it difficult to know the difference between schools.

"When government officials say 'all our schools are excellent', parents get very suspicious but if they have no way of checking, what can they do? There is substantial value in a public system in having information and being able to choose. "The Report Card causes considerable angst amongst unions and principals who do poorly, but it is simply a tool and if it focuses thinking as a result that's important in improving education for everyone." Mr Cowley said it was noticeable that private schools improved very quickly with the public release of ranking data - "they immediately have to pull their socks up or they'll lose customers".

Co-author and MEI researcher Richard Marceau said official reactions to the Report Card in previous years "validated a simple model of self-interest" that could be found in public monopolies in several sectors in Quebec.

Official opinion was strongly opposed to easily accessible information on school performance that might lead to decentralised decision-making in education. However publications as the Report Card could influence the public agenda by breaking down the state's "systematic" monopoly on information, he said.

"Easy access to useful information on results creates a domino effect that eventually touches the most sensitive part of the policy process: the opinions of voters, parents, and media-consumers with which politicians and media will of necessity try to align themselves," Professor Marceau said.

MEI director of communications Patrick Leblanc said the Report Card's success had led to demand for similar information on Quebec primary schools and pre-university colleges. "The current education system is very opaque and provides few ways for parents to get information for their children's education." With the popularity of the Report Card, the government had started making school data available, but "without methodology or number crunching", it was neither "rich" nor comprehensive, he said. The online version of the Report Card allows parents to generate customised rankings based on geographical areas and type of school.

The Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute published the first Quebec Report Card in 2000. The Fraser Institute has published Report Cards on secondary schools in British Columbia since 1998, and in Alberta since 1999.

The first elementary schools' Report Card was published in Alberta in 2002. Report Cards on British Columbia and Ontario elementary schools were introduced this year. The Fraser Institute hopes over time to publish report cards for all of Canada's schools

More information:

The Fraser Institute's web page for all its current report cards.

For readers of French, L'Actualité has extensive coverage of the Quebec Report Card.