Equcati FOR an organization whose members pro- duce report cards on customer performance by the baie, the B.C. Teachers Federation is unusualiy sensitive about receiving report cards on its member- ship’s performance. Consider, for example, the Fraser Institute’s 1999 Report Card on British Columbia's Secondary Schoals. The followup to last year’s Fraser Institute educa- tion eye-opener provides cus- tomers of the province's school system with much insight into education quality control. Thus the controversy. For reasons known only to those who have university degrees, release of said infor- mation is considered bad. Take, for example, the lamentations of outgoing BCTF president Kit Krieger. In a March 26 opinion column in the Province news- paper, Mr. Krieger fires both BCTE barrels at the Fraser Institute for compiling the report and its rankings of sec- ondary schools and at the Province for publishing them. Writes Krieger: “Such rankings not only fail to enlighten communities about the relative virtues of schools, they actually produce behav- . jours that may lessen school effectiveness.” There is more to school quality than test scores and graduation rates, he argues. * That there is, Mr. Krieger. Pd wager, however, that the majority of the great mailbox yarns unwashed outside the walls of academe know that. But those same tolk also know that the school pertor- mance indicators measured in the Fraser Institute report — the average provincial exam mark; the percentage of provincial exams failed; the difference between the aver- age exam mark and the aver- age school mark; the gradita- tion rate; and the number of provincial examinable courses taken per student — tell a story. They provide insights into the quality of education their children are getting — insights that they have previ- ously had no access to. If shat is bad then Tam operating on the wrong plane of reality. Regardless of what the BCTF bright bulbs would have you believe, things that are measured improve. The trouble is that there ivas been precious litle public measurement of B.C.’s edu- cation system performance, According to the Fraser Institute report: “... although it is responsible for the S4 billion spent cach year edu- cating students from kinder- garten to Grade 12, the British Columbia Ministry of Education makes no system- atic effort to determine in syste whether each school is eftec- tive in the discharge of its duties.” . So there is no system of comparing performance levels of B.C. schools; no way to gauge whether you and your children are getting good g g dollar value trom the school taxes you pay cach year. Earlier this year, the gov- ernment declined to release to schools and school districts data gathered through the provincial learning assessment program. The reasoning behind that decision escapes me. The program gathers information from Grades 4, 7 and 10 on student perfor- mance in areas of reading, writing and math. It could provide parents and others with information that could be used to com- pare the performances of stu- dents in specific schools. Rut any kind of assess- ment of teacher and school performance that is not shep- herded by the BCTF through its collective agreement is apparently unacceptable to the teachers’ union. Thus the dearth of sys- tematic teacher and education system improvement in B.C. Accountability and com- petition are the key issues here. Accountability doesn’t work well with union princi- ples of seniority — tenure in the teaching trade — i¢ makes things uncomfortable for non-performers at the top of the tenure ladder. And competition has long been frowned upon in the monopolistic school system. Academic wisdom dictates that it’s bad for people's feel- Get rid of Glen and NDP gang Lear Editor: Enough is enough. On top of casino scandals, the fast ferry fiasco and exploding deficits, we now find that with Glen Clark and -the NDP at the helm the gap between rich and poor in the province is actually increasing. According to a recent ‘report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, B.C. has the dubious distinction of having the biggest gap between rich ‘and = poor amongs: all provinces, In sharp contrast, the gap between rich and poor in all other western provinces _ is shrinking. For a party that once espoused policies to address social inequality, this research is a sharp reminder of how British Columbians are suffering under Glen Clark and the NDP. While no single policy can explain this increasing gap, the NDP’s “tax and spend” poli- cies have clearly forced lower income British Columbians to subsidize everything from government advertising cam- aigns to mega-projects that an hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. Furthermore, excessive tax- ation has combined with gov- ernment red tape to drive mid- dle-class jobs out of the province, Pm sure Glen Clark and the NDP lemmirgs will con- tinue to tell you not to worry ~~ good times and new poli- cies are just around the corner. Don’t believe them. B.C. requires fundamental change in government and that will only come after the next -provincial election. Katherine Whittred, MLA North Vancouver. . onsdale HY HEAT THE DIRT? 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Parents with students at i St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, would be interested to know that the school was one of two in the province that finished at the top of the rankings with a perfect overall — trenshaw@direct.ca Mut hok hes services approved 1362 Marine Drive 980-9115 Mon-Sat 8.00arn-6:00pm, Sun. 9:00am-5:00pm Expires Mar. 31 -7we: 6s Geo Ge en en ON Se et ee ee ee S.LAURSEN & SON score of 10; Windsor sec- ~ draperies & Diinds itd. ondary users would likewise Serving the Lower Mainland for over 25 years be inrerested to know that R : ° ee "7 the school finished signiti- cantly further down the list at 125 out of the 262 schools measured, Consumers of the Fraser Institute report have enough common sense to know that its numbers and rankings are just one piece of a very com- plex puzzle. Criticism of how the school rankings were com- piled is fair game. But the question remains: should school pertormance be measured? I'd wager that anyone helping pay the education freight in this province would say yes. 1 Bur, while they criticize. the Fraser Institute's approach, neither the reach- ers’ union nor the govern- ment provide any alternative numbers or approaches of their own. They would prefer that no numbers comparing schools be released to anyone any- where and that the people serviced by the system be kept in the dark. The Fraser Institute’s report performs a valued ser- vice: it provides a basis for discussion about our educa- tion system; it arms parents with at least some informa- MERC CO RD Another one of our designs. 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