B.C. students leave schools when test scores bring 'bad news'

RESEARCH BRIEFING (pdf, 3 pages) | Working paper | DISCUSS THIS RESEARCH

13th January 2010: The publication of school-level test scores in British Columbia has been highly controversial.  But did its introduction tell parents anything they didn’t already know?  If so, did this information actually change parents’ decisions about where their children attend school?

A new study from SFU’s Centre for Education Research and Policy shows that grade 4 students in B.C.’s Lower Mainland public schools became more likely to leave their school when published Foundation Skills Assessment results showed that it scored poorly relative to public schools serving similar students.

Families living in low-income neighborhoods were most likely to respond to school test score information, and did so as soon as the Ministry began releasing school test scores in 2000.

For example, in the least affluent 25 per cent of Lower Mainland neighbourhoods, schools that received news that their school’s average test scores were one standard deviation lower than at schools serving similar students - meaning fewer than one in five schools received worse news - saw their exit rates increase by 18 per cent. For a typical low-income school with 50 grade 4 students, this would mean that the number of grade 4 students leaving in that year would increase from five students to six.

In high-income neighbourhoods, only families who do not speak English at home responded to new information about their school’s average test scores. English-speaking families in high-income neighbourhoods showed no systematic pattern of leaving schools that received bad news about FSA scores.

Non-English-speaking families did not respond to the first sets of school test scores published by the Ministry, but did react strongly to subsequent publications by the Fraser Institute, regardless of neighborhood income level. This response was particularly clear among Chinese-speakers, who increased their exit rate by about 25 per cent when they received very bad news from the Fraser Institute.

“This research shows that public information about school-level achievement has the power to affect behavior in ways that may have real consequences for educational outcomes,” noted CERP Director Dr Jane Friesen.

What are the FSAs good for?
Guest Opinion in the Vancouver Sun from CERP Director Dr Jane Friesen

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