The Fraser Institute Report Card on BC's Schools

West Vancouver High Schools

The Report Card on British Columbia’s Secondary Schools collects a variety of relevant, objective indicators of school performance into one easily accessible, public document so that all interested parties—parents, school administrators, teachers, students, and taxpayers—can analyze and compare the performance of individual schools. Parents use the Report Card’s indicator values, ratings, and rankings to compare schools when they choose an education provider for their children. Parents and school administrators use the results to identify areas of academic performance in which improvement can be made. 

Where parents can choose among several schools for their children, the Report Card provides a valuable tool for making a decision. Because it makes comparisons easy, the Report Card alerts parents to those nearby schools that appear to have more effective academic programs.

The foundation of the Report Card is an overall rating of each school’s academic performance. Building on data about student results provided by the Ministry of Education, we rate each school on a scale from zero to 10. The Fraser Institute based overall rating of each school’s academic performance on seven indicators: 

(1) The average exam mark in the grade-10, grade-11, and grade-12 courses that include a mandatory provincial exam; 

(2) Percentage of grade-10, grade-11, and grade-12 mandatory provincial examinations failed; 

(3) Average difference by which the school mark exceeds the examination mark in the courses considered in (1) and (2) above; 

(4) Difference between male and female students in their exam mark in English 10 only; 

(5) Difference between male and female students in their exam mark in Mathematics 10 only; 

(6) Graduation rate; 

(7) Delayed advancement rate.