Can high school grades be trusted?
If you need better marks, some private schools are happy to oblige—for a fee
In August, in response to concerns from educators that some private schools are still inflating grades despite the addition of the mident number to transcripts, the Education Ministry announced that beginning in 2010, credits earned at private schools will be marked with the letter “P” on transcripts. Timmings believes it’s a step in the right direction. But many educators aren’t convinced that it’s an answer—after all, a number or a letter doesn’t indicate whether a student deserved that grade.
In an interview with Maclean’s, Darling admits that until now universities have not done anything with the data. “Our whole system relies on ‘a grade is a grade is a grade,’ ” says Darling. “If we have to give in to weightings of different schools and delivery methods, summer school versus distance versus day school—boy, it would get pretty ugly and messy.” Furthermore, most decisions by far are made by computer. “You couldn’t go through them [applications] manually,” Darling says. He and Ken Lavigne, the registrar at the University of Waterloo, have agreed to undertake a joint study of the data sometime in the future—at the moment, it’s still in the planning phase. “I think that one of the fears when we first opened this can of worms,” Darling explains, “was people were saying, ‘Great, we can use this to shut down people who are abusing the system, but then are you going to take the next step and start examining all of us and see where our grades are at?’ ”
Tracking high schools using their government-issued identification number is not new. In the past, the University of Toronto’s engineering faculty did it until the province changed the curriculum during the double cohort. The University of Waterloo’s engineering faculty still makes minor adjustments to marks based on high school. But the practice has never really taken off, largely because it’s hugely unpopular among high school and university officials alike. “If I said I’m interested in School X, we could go back through our records and identify every student who has taken courses at school X,” explains Karel Swift, the registrar at the University of Toronto. “And if we accepted them, and they came here, we could then look at how they did. That would take years and it would not be useful unless you had a fairly large number of students from that school. It would be several years hence and the school could have disappeared or changed or changed its name.” And then there’s a practical reality: “No matter how good or not good a school may be,” Swift says, “a student could be legitimately a very good student and could do very well [at university] no matter what their prior circumstances.”
Students say regulating private schools is a good start, but more needs to be done to improve the education system itself in Ontario. Hailey Simpson, who is in first year at the University of Guelph, hasn’t taken a course at a private school, but she has friends who have and she’s somewhat sympathetic. “Obviously if students are seeking private school courses,” Simpson says, “there is something wrong with the regular high school system.” She also wonders why so many students stick around for another year after finishing Grade 12—the so-called victory lap, during which they repeat courses or take additional courses in an effort to improve their marks. Some even see it as a way to do extracurricular activities they never had time for before, such as running for student council or participating on a sports team. “I think the problem started [in Ontario] when they got rid of Grade 13,” she says. “It has compacted everything down on us and it makes our lives stressful because there is so much to do.”
York Mills student Sam also lays the blame on the system itself: “Students from my school cannot cope with the workload, and the problem starts with the high schools.” And like many other students, he laments the high marks required to get into universities: “It would be totally awesome if universities cared a little more about [other] criteria and less about marks.”
Meanwhile, in British Columbia, the 2007-2008 individual school results have recently been posted on the government’s website. It appears that Century, Royal Canadian, Pattison and St. John’s College International have aligned their grading practices more closely with provincial standards. One of the schools, Kingston High, has closed, citing a drop in student enrolment after the government issued its warning. For the remaining four schools, the differences between exam marks and classroom marks have shrunk. “It’s amazing how much closer the exam mark is to the school mark compared to those other years where the school marks as all A’s and the exam marks were F’s, in effect,” says English teacher Hill.
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.