Can high school grades be trusted?
If you need better marks, some private schools are happy to oblige—for a fee
It’s long been common practice for secondary students to attend night or summer school to make up a missed credit or improve a grade. Among teenagers, some public schools are known to be more difficult than others, and some teachers mark easier than others. But that’s not new, and by all accounts the public system is still equitable. On the other hand, private schools, once the exclusive domain of the rich, have become more popular. Students from upper middle- and middle-class backgrounds, along with English-as-second-language students with excellent grades in math and science but lousy English marks, are turning to private schools because of their low student-teacher ratios, flexible schedules and specialized programs catering to learning disabilities or language instruction. The students’ goal is to get not just good marks, but outstanding ones. As the number of students attending university has grown over the past decade, competition for admission to choice programs has grown fierce, in some cases pushing average entering grades into the 90s.
Of course, most private schools are reputable. Yet some operations—often referred to as “credit mills” or “credit shops”—are using students desperate to get into university (along with their parents) as cash cows. As long as a student slaps down hundreds of dollars per credit—in some cases as much as $1,500—these schools are happy to oblige with marks in the 80s and 90s, whether the student earns them or not.
On May 18, 2009, at 8:25:35 p.m., a Toronto high school student using the handle Skeske1234 posted the following on a forum hosted by StudentAwards.com, a popular site that matches high school students with scholarship and bursary information at Canadian universities.
Skeske1234: I want to upgrade my grade 12 advanced functions mark this summer, but I am not sure what private school I should go to . . . there are many . . . many in Toronto. Name the one that you went to or that you know someone who went to that school and tell me about your experience there. Off the top of my head, some questions:
What mark did you end up getting?
How was the workload, exam and teachers?
How did the process go about and did it go smoothly for when the school transfers your mark back to our school—did the private school upload the mark on OUAC [Ontario Universities’ Application Centre] or did they send the mark back to your original school?
What did you specifically tell guidance counsellor when you knew that you wanted to upgrade or take a credit during the summer at a private school?
Later that evening, ZoSo471 replied with a name of a private school in Markham, Ont.
ZoSo471: I took it for English
I got 90 per cent
Absolutely no workload, exam was like 15 minutes, teacher was smart but naive
Process was smooth, I didn’t have to do anything
Guidance counsellor didn’t like it, especially with a course like English, but it was worth it.
It was basically a buy your mark, but we read a lot of books so that counts for something . . .
Unlike Vancouver’s Peter Hill, educators in Ontario, particularly in the Toronto area, no longer find this kind of disclosure from students surprising. For Joan Timmings, head of guidance at Joan Fraser Secondary School in Mississauga and past president of the Peel Guidance Heads Association, the issue started to bubble up about five years ago at “pockets of schools” in Peel Region, west of Toronto. Since then, Timmings says, the number of public high school students taking one or more courses at private school has grown rapidly. “We did a needs assessment with our group of guidance heads, and it was almost the No. 1 area of concern that they wanted to have addressed by the executive,” says Timmings.
All hail the public school system and it’s ultimate righteousness. This honestly should be the least of there concerns when huge discrepancies occur within there own program. I have seen people transfer schools after receiving poor grades in 9th and 10th grade to later on graduate with great grade 12 averages and receive national scholarships… The problem doesn’t lie in private schools but the system itself. The system is flawed and there will always be people willing to exploit these flaws for there own personal gains. The simple solution would be to hold students and institutions accountable for these actions. This would be easily achieved by the instalement of a nation wide standarized test like the “sat”.
Credit shopping was common even when I was in high school almost 15 years ago. We picked the easiest teacher from the easiest school on the most difficult subject. The only way to stop credit shopping is introduce public exam, so that every student is ranked on the same scale.
Sign me up, sounds great to me. As someone who goes to the best public academic school in my city, it angers me to no extent how much easier all the other students have it. I could have gone to another high school and seen a 5 mark increase in my average most likely due to a lower standard, and when I’m looking at scholarships for university next year I find myself wishing I did. What are the best (read: worst) online private schools in Ontario so I can get in while it’s still around?
Taking up language courses in their own community schools and receiving 98& averages is not fair when compared to students who do a honest job at school.
Universities wake up!
Standadized testing to get into universities is ‘THE BEST’ ‘THE HONEST’ and “THE CORRECT & FAIR ” thing to do
Tarring all private schools with the same brush is arbitrary and patently unfair.
I have no doubt that there are improper practices by some private schools. However, the ministry of Education holds the responsibility and has the authority to address this problem by identifying them and revoking their licenses. It is four years since the ministry closed four private schools. Since then, the number of private schools has grown like mushrooms, yet the ministry has not closed any other school during this period.
It is not fair to download the consequences of such practices onto the whole population of private schools.
I suggest that Ministry of Education considers the followings to combat this issue:
• sending their inspectors out more often (currently every two years)
• Sending out their inspectors randomly, without pre announcement (currently they give about three months advance notice)
• Regulating the teaching practices
• Checking teacher qualifications and their relevant experiences
Here is the link to the original Ministry Letter and FutureSkills High School response: http://www.futureskills.com/article/
Hassran — No one is tarring all schools with the same brush. Re-read the following paragraph: “Of course, most private schools are reputable. Yet some operations—often referred to as “credit mills” or “credit shops”—are using students desperate to get into university (along with their parents) as cash cows. As long as a student slaps down hundreds of dollars per credit—in some cases as much as $1,500—these schools are happy to oblige with marks in the 80s and 90s, whether the student earns them or not.”
In Germany a new wave of student protests is going on right now: In more than 20 universities lecture halls are and will at least be occupied until Friday. They have the full support of lecturers,profs and the public.
Germany spends less money on education than most other OECD countries (only Spain, Slowakia, Turkey and Ireland invest less in their schools and universities). Other reasons for the protests are the new Bachelor/Master system, tuition fees, psychological pressure, …..
link to a map with all the universities participating in the protests:
http://maps.google.at/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=de&msa=0&msid=116283369278129786033.0004778dfa81fb402d565&ll=49.21042,8.876953&spn=23.014452,46.582031&z=4&source=embed
My brother is looking for a private school to transfer, the first consideration was Century High school though a friend recommend until i read about the article. my brother wants to go to UBC after graduation, my question is if century high school student’s grade is eligible to be accept by UBC. or any other suggested high school to go to? My brother’s english is not good, that’s why he looking for a private school to transfer, otherwise he will be force into a adult high school since public high school does not allow students stay after grade 12 even though students did not pass the english exam.
[...] you have not yet read the Macleans article detailing pay-for-credit high schools in BC, please take some time to do so. This was referenced a [...]
Another aspect regrading attitudes towards credits mills, is that we have told students for many years that they are the greatest (the “child centreded approach in elelmentary), so consequently they believe that they are entitled to everything – usually with as little effort as possible. It is no surprise then that students go out and use credit mills. The arrogance of many of this younger generation is incredible. It appears as they do not have to work for anything. Perhaps that is an article for another day.
[...] you have not yet read the Macleans article detailing pay-for-credit high schools in BC, please take some time to do so. This was referenced a [...]
This is amazing but I’m not surprised. I went to one of the harder public highschools in my city. Other public schools were so easy. If I got a 70 or 80 in a class people at other schools would get marks in the 80′s or 90′s. So annoying.
I wish I’d known about this back in the day. But I got into Waterloo and graduated so I’m happy.
An overhaul of the public school system is overdue. It’s reaching the point where a Canadian version of the SAT’s or standardized entrance test will be required to enter university.
At the same time if a student knows they can get a higher grade I say go for it. (Keep in mind some people will flunk their first year at university because they credit shopped and can’t keep up. Seen it happen time and time again.)
Good luck kiddies.
This is pretty shocking to me, and I think the government should crack down and it should be clear where students take their courses. At least at UBC you have to write the LPI if your English mark is a B or lower – which provides some standardisation (and do provincial exams!).
It’s normal to have some variation (we had easier teachers too – but the variation was 10% or less, not 40%). But this is fraud.