I was born and raised in BC. This account completely aligns with my past schooling experience (80s-90s) and what I am hearing from relatives still in Vancouver. Though I have some details to add.
The old provincial exam system was great. Even private school students took the same Grade 12 exams, and the exams were not optional as they are for AP exams. So everyone in the school who was enrolled in the academic subject in question (BC English 12 , BC Math 12, etc.) needed to take the associated exam to get credit for graduation. The local universities had all they needed to fairly compare applicants between schools, since the exam and school grades were shown separately on our transcripts. In addition to looking out for individual student outliers in terms of grade discrepancies, they could calculate a historical average difference between school and exam marks per subject per school and thus “adjust” school grades across the board for patterns of consistent bias if they wanted to. I actually know for a fact that competitive programs in Ontario (e.g. engineering at U of Waterloo) would make these adjustments for BC school applicants (they also would encourage everyone to take their national math contests then used those scores as well to further adjust).
This accountability through exams had positive downstream consequences. It really forced teachers to cover the full curriculum lest their students be put at a disadvantage. It also incentivized giving grades, especially in Grade 12, that would approximately align with what students would get on the exam. It was a highly effective restraint on grade inflation. Not only because it would look suspicious if your school grades were always so much higher than exam marks, but also as a defense against student or parent complaints that your grades were too low. This in turn meant that the universities could make admission decisions that were not holistic at all. It was quite uncommon, even at flagship universities, to be asked to write a personal essay, list extra-curricular activities or list any other accomplishments for admission to a regular undergraduate program. That was reserved for scholarships, some very competitive special programs or something that required a portfolio (e.g., fine arts program).
As for the new, stupid, grading rubric, you may be surprised to learn that it isn’t even new (the never-ending story in education reform)! While the old BC high school grade and exam system was laudatory, I can report that back in the early nineties at least some school districts (such as mine on the North Shore) were using a three level grading system on reports cards as late as Grade 7. The vague levels were “Proficient”, “Satisfactory” and “Needs Improvement”. A level would be marked for each skill in a standard list on the report. For example, you might see something like: “Multiplication and division - S”.
While okay for nursery or primary school, this system had serious problems in the older grades. In fact when my brother, who has small kids in the province, heard that they were introducing the Proficiency Scale you describe for K-9, his first reaction was horror that they were bringing back the old, bad system under which he had suffered (and now extending it to even later grades!) I hadn’t realized this, but apparently he attributes the fact that his middle school slacking and disengagement (then subsequent developing of gaps in some key areas) was unnoticed by our parents for years to the uninformative report cards. He is quite passionate about this. He feels it really affected his educational trajectory.
For me, I have a grudge against this resurrected proficiency scale of the opposite kind. I was a very good student and especially gifted at math. But this talent was unknown to my parents, and, to a certain extent, even to me, until I got to high school with proper percentage grades. When all you get is a bunch of “proficients” on everything, how is anyone to know if that means 1 in 5 good or 1 in a 1000? Combined with BC’s longstanding allergic reaction to talent identification or acceleration, me and many of my fellow British Columbians lost opportunities to go deeper and faster in our schooling where we could.
I was born and raised in BC. This account completely aligns with my past schooling experience (80s-90s) and what I am hearing from relatives still in Vancouver. Though I have some details to add.
The old provincial exam system was great. Even private school students took the same Grade 12 exams, and the exams were not optional as they are for AP exams. So everyone in the school who was enrolled in the academic subject in question (BC English 12 , BC Math 12, etc.) needed to take the associated exam to get credit for graduation. The local universities had all they needed to fairly compare applicants between schools, since the exam and school grades were shown separately on our transcripts. In addition to looking out for individual student outliers in terms of grade discrepancies, they could calculate a historical average difference between school and exam marks per subject per school and thus “adjust” school grades across the board for patterns of consistent bias if they wanted to. I actually know for a fact that competitive programs in Ontario (e.g. engineering at U of Waterloo) would make these adjustments for BC school applicants (they also would encourage everyone to take their national math contests then used those scores as well to further adjust).
This accountability through exams had positive downstream consequences. It really forced teachers to cover the full curriculum lest their students be put at a disadvantage. It also incentivized giving grades, especially in Grade 12, that would approximately align with what students would get on the exam. It was a highly effective restraint on grade inflation. Not only because it would look suspicious if your school grades were always so much higher than exam marks, but also as a defense against student or parent complaints that your grades were too low. This in turn meant that the universities could make admission decisions that were not holistic at all. It was quite uncommon, even at flagship universities, to be asked to write a personal essay, list extra-curricular activities or list any other accomplishments for admission to a regular undergraduate program. That was reserved for scholarships, some very competitive special programs or something that required a portfolio (e.g., fine arts program).
As for the new, stupid, grading rubric, you may be surprised to learn that it isn’t even new (the never-ending story in education reform)! While the old BC high school grade and exam system was laudatory, I can report that back in the early nineties at least some school districts (such as mine on the North Shore) were using a three level grading system on reports cards as late as Grade 7. The vague levels were “Proficient”, “Satisfactory” and “Needs Improvement”. A level would be marked for each skill in a standard list on the report. For example, you might see something like: “Multiplication and division - S”.
While okay for nursery or primary school, this system had serious problems in the older grades. In fact when my brother, who has small kids in the province, heard that they were introducing the Proficiency Scale you describe for K-9, his first reaction was horror that they were bringing back the old, bad system under which he had suffered (and now extending it to even later grades!) I hadn’t realized this, but apparently he attributes the fact that his middle school slacking and disengagement (then subsequent developing of gaps in some key areas) was unnoticed by our parents for years to the uninformative report cards. He is quite passionate about this. He feels it really affected his educational trajectory.
For me, I have a grudge against this resurrected proficiency scale of the opposite kind. I was a very good student and especially gifted at math. But this talent was unknown to my parents, and, to a certain extent, even to me, until I got to high school with proper percentage grades. When all you get is a bunch of “proficients” on everything, how is anyone to know if that means 1 in 5 good or 1 in a 1000? Combined with BC’s longstanding allergic reaction to talent identification or acceleration, me and many of my fellow British Columbians lost opportunities to go deeper and faster in our schooling where we could.