Malkin,

Your subjectivity is showing.    When someone finds a 2-5% increase in student scores in private schools, you hail it as a complete success and a mandate for privatization.  When the government shows a 16% increase in the graduation rate, you say “... the government is boasting about (slightly-) improved test scores.”  If that is slight, then the other is insignificant.  A little perspective, please.

But Wayne, the increase in remediation at the post-secondary level, is climbing and well over 40 percent of students, taking numeracy or literacy upgrading.

At the college level, a real money maker where first year students of lower averages in the 60s or below, often have to take a year’s worth of upgrading in the 3 Rs, before they are allowed to take their choice of studies.

I should add, the increase in private tutoring for K to 12 students in the 3 Rs, is another sign that the 16 percent increase in graduation, may be just that an illusion.

Passing the costs to the students and families, and to the rest of society. Isn’t it about time, to crack open the secretive file of graduation rates, and see how well verse the students are in their skills and abilities, needed to transverse life after grade 12? Or are the local teachers wasting their time and effort, on the 3 Rs, so all students at the end of the day will pass their public exams?  On the public exams, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure and spelling counts just as much, as the content of knowledge.

On a side note, apparently NL has the toughest standards on receiving a grade 12 diploma, honours or otherwise. What I have heard from the education crowd, but have not read.

Wayne, I think Malkin’s comments were prompted by this press release below.  How the government actually knows if students have what it takes to succeed is a question for employers and post-secondary institutions!

93,000 Extra High School Students Graduated Since 2003
March 8, 2012

McGuinty Government Support For Student Success Increases Graduation Rate
For the seventh year in a row, more Ontario students are graduating from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.

Last year, 82 per cent of high school students earned their secondary school diploma—a jump of 14 percentage points from 68 per cent in 2003-04. This means that 93,000 more students have graduated than would have had the rate remained at the 2003-04 level—that’s roughly equivalent to the population of the City of Brantford.

The steady year-over-year increase in the high school graduation rate highlights the positive impacts of Ontario’s Student Success Strategy and the hard work of students, teachers, principals and support staff.

Helping students succeed is part of the McGuinty government’s plan to secure a brighter future for all Ontarians.
QUOTES
“The increase in the graduation rate is not just a number. It means a brighter future for 93,000 students. These students now have access to greater opportunities in life thanks to their hard work, and the dedication of parents, teachers and staff.”

– Laurel Broten
Minister of Education

Yes, I read the report briefly.  I said 16, not 14% sorry.  You still are not addressing the point that these results are several orders of magnitude greater than the results posted for private school, yet you dismiss it out of hand.  Interesting ...  verrrry interesting! (Arte Johnson)

Wayne, I’m not sure which private school results you are referring to.

For me, the only meaningful results are the results of tests that can be compared from one year to another.
Anything else, .. we don’t know what we are looking at. Graduation rates, elementary marks, high school marks .. they are meaningless today.

Quoting from memory what was said at the open house at one of the IB programs in Toronto: “I’ve had students coming in for interview with 95% in French, and could not utter one full sentence in French. ... What is the advantage of IB? .. Well the students who finish IB and get admitted to university usually finish the program they were admitted to. In engineering programs that only chooses students with over 90% in high school math about 25% of the students give up in the first year mainly because of math.”

For the record, based on my observations in Toronto indeed most private schools while a bit better they are not substantially better than the public schools. They are more serious about the discovery approach, but it is still a discovery, child-centered approach. There is more discipline but in most of them in my opinion students are still coddled.
Personally I think that in addition to choice we absolutely have to have either high school exit exams or admission to university and colleges based on tests. Because in the absence of these, how are people going to choose? It becomes a marketing game.