Can high school grades be trusted?
If you need better marks, some private schools are happy to oblige—for a fee
Counsellors in Toronto and, to a lesser extent, in Ottawa and London express similar concerns. The problems they cite include students who are guaranteed A’s as soon as they sign on the dotted line and hand over the tuition, and students who do not have the course prerequisite (in some cases, they don’t even have the prerequisite for the prerequisite) somehow getting an 85 per cent or higher at a private institution. In the public school system, a principal can waiver a prerequisite, but it’s done only under exceptional circumstances. Suspicion has also been raised by the number of courses some students are taking and the amount of time required to complete a full credit course. “The Grade 12 year is a heavy year, and most students take three or a maximum of four courses at once in a semestered program,” says Timmings. “But we have students taking four, five, six, seven courses at the same time. They may be taking three or four here in day school and then taking two or three more at the private institution. There seems to be no limit, and they will get exceptional marks in those courses.” Furthermore, Timmings says, some students will actually drop out halfway through a semester and then finish their courses by the end of the semester at a private school. “I don’t know how, in let’s say two months, they’ll have finished four entire courses if not more,” she says. “If they’re supposed to be in a 110-hour course, what they’re doing there is theoretically an impossibility.”
In the spring of 2008, principals at several Toronto public high schools decided to track the number of their students taking one or more credits at private academies. As far as anyone knew, it had never officially been done. Anecdotally, everyone from the minister of education to the school board seems to know about the problem, but unlike British Columbia, Ontario does not have provincial exams, so comparisons are difficult. “We’re collecting the data. The data tell the story,” says Clara Williams, principal at York Mills Collegiate Institute in North Toronto. “There’s no question they [private academies] are popping up all over the place right across the province. In Scarborough, they are popping up everywhere. And if they close they just reopen at another place.”
Williams wouldn’t divulge the statistics for York Mills. But Beverley Ohashi, principal at Toronto’s Earl Haig Secondary School, did. During the 2007-2008 academic year, 101 Earl Haig students took a total of 136 credits at 30 private schools. Most took Grade 12 courses in English, followed by math, then a few courses in social science and sciences. “When [we] compared the mark to the mark in our programs, some of them [showed] such a big range that you wonder about the integrity of the program that is being offered,” says O’Hashi.
At Toronto’s Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, principal Peggy Aitchison said 140 students took credits part-time at private schools in 2007-2008, mostly in Grade 12 math or English; typically, they earned marks 15 to 40 points higher than at Forest Hill. (Several other schools were part of the group in Toronto that collected the data, but many of those contacted by Maclean’s did not return calls. Instead, Maclean’s was referred to Mary Jane McNamara, central co-ordinating principal, secondary curriculum, at the Toronto District School Board; she did not respond to a request for an interview.)
This is not just a concern for public schools. Some of Toronto’s most respected private schools, known for their tough academic programs, are grappling with the same issue. Vince Pagano, the principal at Crestwood Preparatory in northeast Toronto, first noticed his students taking credits outside Crestwood during the early 1990s. “My biggest problem is the marks that are coming back are, on occasion, completely out of line, and the difference can be huge,” says Pagano. “The example of a kid who got a credit over a three-week period actually floored me because, technically anyway, there is a 110-hour requirement for all high school courses. So I don’t know how anybody can have 110 hours in three weeks—or four weeks or five weeks, for that matter.” Pagano is worried that a few bad apples will give all private schools a bad rep.
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.