Private Vs. Public Schools, Part 1: The Problem with the Fraser Institute

The Fraser Institute is Not Objective

Some of my friends have looked at the annual rankings of BC Schools, the "Report Cards" issued by the Fraser Institute and used them as guidelines for choosing elementary schools for their children.

What exactly *is* the Fraser Institute?

The problem is, the Fraser Institute is not objective or non-partisan. The Fraser Instititute has as its focus the increased privatization of government services. Its motto is "A Free and Prosperous World Through Choice, Markets and Responsibility." In the debate of public versus private schools, you want objective data.

It claims to be non-partisan and independent, but this is highly doubtful.  After my research, I believe that it promotes privatization and the free market.  It is anti NDP, anti Liberal.  It is against public education and promotes private schools.

Why the heck do parents follow it blindly, and why hasn't the media questioned the objectivity of the Fraser Institute?

Where does it get its money?  Well, who knows, as the Institute stopped disclosing its sources of funding since the 1980s.  I enjoyed reading this article by Donald Gutstein from 2009:

After 30 years in the business of turning people against governments that redistribute wealth and provide social programs, and against regulations that protect workers, consumers, human health and the environment, the institute had burned through $100 million. Some deep pockets must have been bankrolling the institute. But who? And why?...

Unfortunately, more recent documents are not available to reveal the links between the Fraser Institute and other industries, such as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, food, chemicals and private health care. But a partial understanding of corporate backing can be gained by examining the think-tank’s board, since members are most likely invited to join because of their financial contributions.

The Fraser Institute board currently has seven members from the Calgary oil patch, including vice-chair Gwyn Morgan, former CEO of EnCana Corp. And consider that both the 30th and 35th anniversaries were held in Calgary even though the Fraser Institute is based in Vancouver.

What we also know is that the Fraser Institute received $500,000 from the Koch brothers, American oil billionaires:

As the Conservative assault continues against Canadian environmental charities, the Vancouver Observer has learned that since 2007, foreign oil billionaires the Koch brothers have donated over half a million dollars to the “charitable” right-wing Fraser Institute.

As for why the media does not question its objectivity, note that the Calgary Herald was a sponsor of the Fraser Institute's 35th Anniversary celebration, and that the Vancouver Sun sponsored a talk by Lord Lawson who pooh-poohed the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a “politically correct pressure group whose ... report presents an unfounded alarmist account of man-made greenhouse gas emissions...”

The Fraser Institute Misuses Data

The data which is the basis of the Fraser Institutes' reports, a standardized test of English and Mathematics, is skewed since the test is not mandatory in public schools. The parents who ask their children NOT to write the test are invariably the types of parents whose children will score higher on the test. In addition, according to the BC Teachers' Federation:

In some school districts, participation has fallen to less than 50% and in one Vancouver school alone not a single child participated in FSA testing this year.

...Once again the methodological manipulation of FSA tests by the Fraser Institute has come under assault this time from UBC’s Donald Gutstein when he writes that the institute’s ranking formula for schools “doesn’t use the FSA data directly but weighs the indicators. The average FSA scores for each of the reading, writing, and numeracy tests for each of the two grades (Grades 4 and 7)—six tests in total— are allotted a possible 7.5%, for a total of 45% of the overall rating.” The prominence given some variables over others, while ignoring factors such as socio-economic data, ethnicity, ESL, disability, and geographic location underline the misuse of FSA data.

On the Fraser Institute School Reports, a school board member from Kamloops commented:

"It's corrupt," said district school board chair Denise Harper. "It's not an accurate measure and to rank schools based on those marks is corrupt, it's dishonest, it's not truthful." 

Comparisons to private schools, she said, skews public schools' achievements. "We are multi-ethnic, multi-opportunity schools with children of all differing abilities and backgrounds. When you compete against a private school that selects their students it's not always a level playing field."

UBC's Donald Gutstein is a critic of the Fraser Institute and has written a book about it.  On the subject of School Rankings, he writes:

EIGHT DISTORTIONS AND OTHER PROBLEMS IN THE FRASER INSTITUTE’S REPORT CARD

The Fraser Institute says its report card is based on the Foundation Skills Assessment tests written by children in Grades 4 and 7 across the province. But is it really? 

1.  The actual FSA results account for less than half of a school’s ranking. The rest is based on the institute’s manipulations of the numbers.

Grades 4 and 7 reading, numeracy and writing tests account for 7.5 percent each, for a total of 45 percent. With so much of the ranking not based on actual test scores, distortions are created in the results a school obtains. Consider the case of Torquay Elementary in Victoria, which the Fraser ranked as 131st in its 2009 report. University of Victoria education professor Helen Raptis notes that the percentage of Torquay‘s Grade 4 students that met or exceeded expectations on the FSAs was 97 percent (for reading), 85 percent (writing), and 87 percent (numeracy). These figures, Raptis observes, are significantly higher than those for Pacific Christian School, also in Victoria, which scored 83 percent (reading), 69 percent (writing), and 76 percent (numeracy). Yet Pacific Christian ranked 108th. 

Scored higher on Ministry of Education-administered tests, but lower on Fraser Institute rankings. Why? Let’s look at the other variables.

2. Twenty percent of a school’s ranking comes from differences between the results achieved by boys and girls. This artificially depresses the scores of schools with students of lower socio-economic status where, typically, gender differences are more pronounced.

Worse, and inexplicably, the Fraser gives more weight to gender differences than to the actual results. Gender differences in Grade 7 numeracy and reading tests (what happened to writing?) account for 10 percent each. The actual test results account for only 7.5 percent each.

3. Twenty-five percent of a school’s ranking comes from the percentage of tests “not meeting expectations.” This result penalizes low-performing schools by accounting for their low scores twice. 

4. Ten percent of a school’s ranking comes from the percentage of tests not written in a school. This indicator was added in 2007 “to encourage schools to ensure a high level of participation in the FSA testing program.” It is a not-so-veiled attack on the BC Teachers Federation and parents who don’t want their children to write the tests.

That punishing the BCTF is the purpose of this component of the rankings can be seen by comparing the Fraser Institute’s BC and Alberta elementary schools rankings. This component does not exist in the Alberta report card where the union is not as activist in opposing mandatory testing.

5. Obviously, the elite boys and girls private schools—the ones that top the rankings—do not have gender differences. In this case the institute assigns an additional 10 percent to tests not written and 10 percent to tests not meeting expectation, with no rationale for the choices.

6. Nearly a third of BC schools do not enrol Grade 7 students. Students in these schools move on to middle schools, usually after Grade 5. However, the Fraser assigns the Grade 7 FSA results to the schools the children attended in Grade 4. This is not credible because it assumes that the middle school, where the student has studied for nearly two years, doesn’t contribute to student achievement.

7. The method of statistical standardization used throughout the ranking exercise makes small differences look large. Converting the results into a scale from zero to ten makes the differences appear even greater.

8. The worst problem with the rankings is that they take little account of individual and family differences among schools, which include socio-economic status, race and ethnicity, gender, disability, ESL and school location.

Numerous studies done in the U.S. have found consistently that these factorsaccount fully for school differences. In fact, poor public schools may even do better than wealthy private schools, when these factors are fully accounted for.

In Canada, a 2006 Statistics Canada study found that “higher income is almost always associated with better outcomes for children.”

Ignoring such key factors can lead to some bizarre results. On the 2011 report card for BC elementary schools, for instance, Roosevelt Park in Prince Rupert was ranked 874th out of 875 schools in the province. David Johnson, an economist with the C.D. Howe Institute, also ranks BC schools and he does take some—but not all—socio-economic factors into account. Based on his rankings, Roosevelt Park, with 90 percent Aboriginal and 32 percent special needs students, rates as one of the top 17 schools in the province!

How is such an enormous discrepancy possible? And why does the institute manipulate the numbers so drastically?

As an ideologically driven organization, it can’t allow student achievement results to be related to income and other individual and family characteristics.

 If you have the time, you should read his article in its entirety to understand the problems with the misuse of data by the Fraser Institute.  In fact, his whole website offers fascinating reading.

There are no studies that show that private schools produce superior outcomes in university and beyond. In fact, there are studies showing that public school students are better prepared for university.

That did not stop "OUR KIDS", an aggregate site advertising private schools, from writing this lengthy paragraph examining the pressing issue of quality of education:

Public school vs. private: quality of education 

In Canada, the Fraser Institute ranks schools, often finding favour with private schools, although it does highly rank some public schools. In the USA, the situation is similar: there are good public schools but many of the best overall schools are privately funded. A study by Harvard University found that private school students averaged higher than their public school counterparts in standardized tests in 11 of 12 comparisons of students.

In my research, I have yet to find that "study by Harvard University."  The "Chronicle of Higher Education" made reference to the same study but gave no details.  In fact there was no new study conducted but instead a re-examination of the same data produced by the NCES (see below article) but just analyzed with a different bent.  That critical paper from Harvard  disagrees with the findings of the NCES study.  However, the author of that paper says that, " it was impossible for him to draw any conclusions about whether students at private or public schools performed better based on the available data."  Hilariously, this website advertising for Upper Canada College is called "OUR KIDS THE TRUSTED SOURCE."  Yeah, parents, you need look no further for information on public vs private, because this is it.  This is the TRUSTED SOURCE.  Not.

I do have to admit that one thing I do covet from private schools is those uniforms--then I wouldn't have to worry about hitting the Gymboree and Gap sales on a biannual basis.

Well, as the Obsessive Researching Mommy, I have compiled all the studies (and studies that refer to studies) I could find on the Public vs. Private Debate, so get out your coffee or sedating drug of choice and prepare yourself for a long read.  Full disclosure: I am a proponent of public education and equal access for all.  I believe that strength in public education is what makes Canada great.  I am not a teacher or a school board member.  I am a parent who wants the best for my child.

Read all about in Private Vs. Public Schools, Part 2: Studies and More Studies