Manitoba may publish test score results by school: education minister

Manitoba may revealwhich schools' students are performing better onprovincial standardized tests, and the only thingpreventing the education minister from making it publicis a persuasive argument.

"I'm not convinced today that it's not the right thing to do," Kelvin Goertzensaid. "I'm just not convinced today is the right time to do it."

On Thursday, the province announced Grade 12 provincial test scores wouldbe broken down by school division, after two decades in which only the provincial average was made public.

Goertzensaid he didn't see the logic in keepingthe divisional breakdown confidential when the province must improve its faltering test scores.

"You don't drive accountability without seeing where things are going well, where they're not going well," Goertzen said.

The divisional results arenowavailable on the provincial website.

Test scores worst in Canada

The province's move comes as Manitobafaces pressure to boost sagging test scores.

A2018report from the Council of Ministers of EducationsaidManitoba's Grade 8 students improved their scores in reading, science and math over 2010 and 2013, but still had the lowest scores in the country.

The practice of releasing Grade 12 test scores by division was stopped in 1999 when the then NDP government decided to disclosethe results at a provincial level instead, the governmentsaid Thursday.

The province began to break down the numbers by region, gender and Indigenous identity in 2016, before starting to categorize them byschool division this month.

Sharing'valuable information with parents': Goertzen

"We want to return to a practice that should have never ended and share this valuable information with parents," Goertzen said in a media release.

Grade 12 students take provincial examinations in English, French andmath courses.

Goertzen said the assessment results will provide insight for the kindergarten-to-Grade-12 education review the province will introducein early 2019.

Discussions surrounding that audit will inform whether test results should be shared at a school-by-school level.

Goertzen said he has held back those statistics thus far because he thought it would encourage comparison between schools when he wants this initial act to be seen as an act of transparency.

He may be inclined to release more, however.

"I almost start from the perspective of, 'Tell me why we shouldn't release things, because my default position on this is people should have the right to know," said Goertzen, who addedheintends to make student absentee rates public in the future.

"If you have a compelling reason why that should remain hidden, I'm open to hearing it, but I think you'll have to convince me."

Divisive approach, NDP says

NDP education critic Matt Wiebe said while the divisional data benefits school divisions, trustees and teachers, it only serves to divide school divisions and families if it's made public.

"This is interesting, the day after new school boards wereelected across the province that thisminister wants to pit school divisions against one another," he said."This is just a preview of what's to come, where the minister wants to take some of the control out of the local school boards and out of the school division hands."

In Winnipeg, students in the city's largest school divisionhad an average score of70.7 per centin pre-calculus mathematics, which exceeds the provincial 68 per cent average, and a 64.6 per cent average in English language arts, which is lower than the 67.8 per cent score province-wide.

In response to the province's decision, the Manitoba Teachers' Society saidit is teachers, not tests, which arebest qualified to measure student success.

The province shouldn'toverestimatethe value of these tests, arguesKevin Lamoureux, an instructor at a University of Winnipeg off-campus program supportingnon-traditional students.

He said the standardized evaluationsdon't evaluate other depictionsof success, such as social or financial.

"We need to be cautious about what these scores represent."

With files from Samantha Samson