Most parents are left confused by a year-old change to how grades are represented on report cards in British Columbia.
In September 2023, the BC NDP government switched report cards for students in Kindergarten to Grade 9 from A to F letter grades to the “descriptive terms” “emerging” “developing,” “proficient,” and “extending.”
To gauge the success of this change, the Fraser Institute commissioned Leger 360 to conduct a poll asking parents what their thoughts were on the two grading forms and tested their knowledge of both.
According to the Leger survey, most Canadians, including parents in the province where it’s been implemented for over a year, cannot identify what B.C.’s new “descriptive grading” terms mean when gauging how well their children are doing in school.
Leger surveyed 1,200 Canadians; one thousand were conducted with a representative sampling of parents across Canada, and another 100 were conducted in Alberta and British Columbia. The survey occurred between March 25 and April 8, 2024, and June 27 and July 8, 2024.
Though a non-probability survey reports no margin of error, for comparative purposes, a probability sampling of this size would have a margin of error of around 2.8%, 19 times out of 20 for the first interviews, and 3.7%, 19 times out of 20 for the second interviews.
The survey found that 98% of parents agreed that “regular, clear assessment of student performance” was important to them. Around half said switching from the letter grades or percentage grades to “descriptive” grading would make their child’s academic progress clearer and easier to understand.
However, as the study went into more detail, probing the parents’ understanding of the two forms, it found that parents were confused by the descriptive terms the B.C. government billed as a “proficiency scale.”
Over nine in ten, 93%, of Canadian parents said the letter grade “A” is clear and easy to understand, and 68% could correctly identify what “A” means. The majority of those who got the answer wrong said the letter grade “A” means the student demonstrated “very good” performance instead of “excellent.”
Over eight in ten Canadian parents, 84%, said the letter grade “C” is straightforward to understand, and 75% could correctly identify what “C” means. Only 3% of parents said they were unsure what “C” means on their child’s report card.
Comparatively, 58% of Canadian parents found the descriptive grade “Extending” unclear and difficult to understand, with 26% correctly identifying what “Extending” means. Most parents, 40%, in Canada said they “don’t know” and were “unsure.” what the term meant.
A majority of Canadian parents, 57%, said the term “emerging” was unclear and difficult to understand, with only 28% correctly identifying what the term means. When asked to identify the term, parents most commonly said they “didn’t know or were unsure,” with 31% agreement.
“B.C. parents were less likely to say they were unsure of what the terms meant, but their ability to correctly select a definition for these terms was not consistently higher than that of parents in other provinces,” the Fraser Report on the survey said.
Two-thirds of B.C. parents, 66%, could not correctly identify the meaning of the term “emerging.” And 64% were unable to identify the term “extending.”
“I think the message is clear (to the B.C. government): it was a mistake to move in the direction of taking away traditional grading. Students rely on understandable grades. Parents want grades or report cards that they can understand,” Michael Zwaagsta, a public high school teacher and senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, said in an interview with True North.
He noted the B.C. Ministry of Education conducted its own survey before the change, which found that more than half of teachers, 60% of parents and caregivers and 83% of students in B.C. disagreed with the “proficiency scale.”
“They shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that the feedback continues to be negative now that it’s been fully implemented. The report clearly conveys that it was a mistake to move in this direction in the first place,” Zwaagsta said. “There is no benefit to having report card comments that no one understands.
He said this study should be enough to dissuade any other province from emulating the NDP government on this issue. The government should reverse its decision and revert to a letter—or percentage-based grading system that everyone understands.
The B.C. NDP did not respond to True North’s request to comment before the deadline provided.
