‘I woke up bullshit’: BC school’s new grades debate

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‘A’s are gone from British Columbia reports, but BC parents who want to assess their child’s performance find the newfangled ‘descriptive’ grading system confusing, according to a new report.

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Last year, the British Columbia government abandoned the traditional A, B, C grading system for students in kindergarten through Grade 9 in favor of a descriptive grading system that graded students’ progress on a scale from “emerging” to “expanding.”

“Parents, by and large, don’t understand the new descriptors: emerging, developing, proficient and expanding,” said Michael Zwaagstra, a senior research fellow at the Fraser Institute.

A report conducted by Leger for the Fraser Institute asked parents of school-age children (ages five to 18) enrolled in public and independent schools across Canada to match “expansion” to the British Columbia government’s definition.

In British Columbia, 43 per cent of parents made the wrong choice, the highest proportion in the province; the extension, as decided by the government, means “Pupils meet expectations for learning standards to an increasing extent. This is not perfection.”

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While 83 per cent of Canadians said a ‘C’ letter grade was clear and easy to understand, only 36 per cent of BC parents could correctly identify what a ‘C’ grade meant.

Ninety-nine per cent of primary and secondary school parents in BC said they wanted clear academic credits on their child’s report card.

The new grading system was fully implemented last year, following a pilot project launched in 2016 that tested the scale in half of the province’s school districts.

The system was initially launched as part of a plan to modernize the school curriculum. However, the letter grade system remains in grades 10 to 12.

Dominique Walker, a North Vancouver parent of three, says she’s no stranger to confusing grading systems.

In the early 1990s, her younger brother, diagnosed with dyslexia, was in Grade 6 when B.C. tested its controversial Y2K education reform program. This initiative would have been intended to slowly introduce changes to update the education system, including free certificates for grades four to seven.

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“There was no relative judgment,” Walker said. “The evaluation was: You are doing well. You’re doing great where you are right now.

If the purpose of report cards is to provide feedback to parents, then of course the feedback should be understandable to the average parent

She remembers her mother “pulling her hair out” trying to figure out whether her children needed extra help at school or not.

Walker said she shares her mom’s sentiments. “There should be a clear idea of ​​(assessment) benchmarks,” she added.

Zwaagstra echoed this perspective.

“If the purpose of report cards is to provide feedback to parents, then of course the feedback should be understandable to the average parent,” he said.

Victor Brar, a University of British Columbia professor who specializes in K-12 education, said the descriptive grading system has been met with opposition because the traditional letter system is “ingrained in our psychology.”

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“It’s the only system we’ve ever known, (and) there’s no alternative in sight,” Brar said. “I think a lot of parents, given the system they grew up in, are comfortable with it and don’t understand anything else.”

Brar added that he believed it was a case of “bad communication of good policy.”

It advises schools to “call parents into the gymnasium in September and have an old-fashioned ‘Here’s the system’.”

Brar said the lack of communication forced students to choose the “new system” on their own and match the “extension” to the “A” grades.

Across Canada, academic grades typically vary by province, level of education and institution, but are generally based on a letter and percentage system.

However, students in public primary and secondary schools in Ontario receive, in addition to the traditional letter and percentage, a “level” to indicate their progress. There are four levels, each corresponding to a letter and percentage range.

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According to the Ontario Ministry of Education, level four “identifies achievement that exceeds provincial standards” and represents an “A” range, or 80 per cent and above.

Level one represents “achieving well below provincial standards” and is in the “D” range, which is between 50 and 59 percent.

BC Education Minister Rachna Singh previously said the new system is intended to help students better understand each subject, “not just trying to get a good grade.”

Parents, Brar said, need to “reorient their thinking” about the grading system. “We are looking for mastery of competencies,” he said. “If you present it that way to students and parents, I think there would be much greater adoption and acceptance.”

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Walker appreciates that the province is trying to avoid discouraging students with traditional letter grades, “but at the same time, ultimately life will give you a grade.”

“Class A or B, stretching or not, it doesn’t matter,” Walker said. “I feel like we’re trying to say the same thing in a different way.”

The BC government has attempted to distance the proficiency scale from the traditional letter grading system; government infographic says that “expanding” does not equal perfection and “emerging” does not equal failure.

According to Walker, this differentiation barely merits a passing grade.

“My daughter repeatedly said after bringing (the assignment) home, ‘I’m taking it longer so I get an A.’ In his brain he just translates it,” Walker said.

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The Fraser Institute study comes after John Rustad, leader of British Columbia’s Conservative Party, criticized NDP Leader David Eby over the province’s decision to lower letter grades, calling the system “woke bullshit.”

Rustad stated that Eby’s decision “left parents in the dark as to their children’s progress.”

By creating descriptive grades, “you’ve created a barrier for parents,” said Zwaagstra, who emphasized the advantages of the traditional letter grade system.

With A and B, “you can take a look and immediately get a rough idea of ​​how your child is doing,” he said.

“When you have these descriptors, you have to interpret them.”

A 2021 report from the British Columbia Ministry of Education, which had more than 4,000 participants before the change, found that 69% of respondents were dissatisfied with the idea.

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More than half of teachers reported low levels of satisfaction, while 60 percent of parents and 83 percent of students disapproved of the concept.

After Singh agreed, the move was immediately met with concern and opposition from some parents and teachers.

Zwaagstra said the consultations were the right decision, “but their results were ignored, which completely undermines the heart of the matter.”

Singh’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

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