(Aired on April 6, 2010)
The completion rate for students is kind of like the Holy Grail of education. How many kids make it through to graduation? It’s a benchmark, and a fundamental building block that is a measure used by the government, by those like the Fraser Institute who like to rank schools, and by the schools, students and parents themselves.
Why then, would the province be so lax in how they determine this rate? Our school district wanted to find out why their own statistics showed an 82% completions rate, when the government’s stats were 6% lower. When the district looked, they found deceased students on the province’s role (I guess they didn’t complete school), students who were in non-graduation programs, special First Nations programs, international students who may only stay a year or two in our country and never intended to be here until graduation, and so on.
In other words, the province’s figures were poorly researched, and the results are unfair. That certainly hurts the reputation of the district, and it could mean changes in funding based on those results.
Isn’t it ironic that those like the province, who live and die by statistics, don’t seem to care if those statistics are accurate or not. Why should I be surprised?
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