Key Education Performance Measure Stalled

Keeping with the tradition of starting the new school year with a news release to boast about government accomplishments, on August 17th the Ministry of Education issued an information bulletin captioned "Education by the Numbers". It should have said by "Selected Numbers". Fortunately a good deal of what is missing was provided by Statistics Canada in its August 30th release of "Summary Public School Indicators for the Provinces and Territories, 1998-1999 to 2004-2005".

Unlike the backslapping found in the Ministry of Education's release, the Statistics Canada study said: "Between 1998/1999 and 2004/2005, the number of educators increased more than enrolments - or decreased less - in every jurisdiction, except for British Columbia. The national student-educator ratio has declined each year over the last seven, decreasing 3.8% since 1998/1999. Only British Columbia increased their student educator ratio by 1.8%. As a result, the student-educator ratio declined everywhere, except in British Columbia." BC's student educator ratio decreased from 17.2 in 1998-99 to 16.8 in 2001-02, but then reversed direction. BC had the highest number of students per educator, 17.5 in 2004-05; the national average was 15.9; Newfoundland and Labrador had 13.6

The Campbell government frequently points to declining enrolment and says it is increasing funding despite that. The Statistics Canada report says: "From 1998/1999 to 2004/2005, in the majority of the provinces and territories, the total expenditures per student (in current dollars) rose more than twice as quickly as inflation. Ontario and British Columbia had the smallest differences between the total expenditures per student and inflation, at only 8% and 5% respectively."

The Ministry's information bulletin reports: "79 per cent of students graduated in 2005-06 - this has held steady for the fourth year in a row." The Statistics Canada report shows the absolute number of graduates per province but it does not provide the percentage of students who graduated. According to the Ministry's Service Plan: "The school completion rate is determined by calculating the percentage of students who graduate with a Dogwood Diploma within six years of starting Grade 8 for the first time in a B.C. public or independent school. The completion rate was chosen as a key performance measure because it is tangible evidence that students have succeeded in the K - 12 education system, and because it allows students to make a successful transition to the next stage of their life - either post-secondary education or the workplace." The Ministry's target is to increase the completion rate to 81% this school year (2007-08), and to 85% by 2015-16. The only strategies for meeting those targets offered in the Ministry's Service Plan are 1) to monitor and report student achievement levels, and 2) "to improve Aboriginal achievement by supporting school districts as they complete and implement Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreements and to share information and best practices among school districts and other jurisdictions." Those strategies may be admirable, but incomplete when considering BC's failure to keep up with the rest of the country in terms of student educator ratios and education funding.