Would you really be better at work if your boss graded your work in percentages every week and constantly compared your grades to those of your colleagues?
You would be tempted to obtain short-term results, to take fewer risks, and the atmosphere could become heavy. That’s why the bosses don’t constantly spy on you with their notepads.
Yet this is what we do at school with our children from the first year of primary school, at 6 years old.
Since 2012, all Quebec children have had encrypted report cards in primary and secondary school. This clear evaluation system is appreciated by parents.
Last week, the Quebec Federation of Educational Establishment Directors (FQDE) asked the Legault government to do what most experts recommend: put an end to encrypted report cards. They would like to move to report cards where skills are assessed more.
The new Minister of Education Bernard Drainville quickly put an end to the debate. “Numbered report cards and group averages are here to stay. […] I don’t feel like reopening that debate,” he said.
Damage ! It would be in our interest to question our obsession with numbered report cards, particularly in elementary school.
We can already hear some people screaming their indignation at this proposal. We don’t live in a Cuddle Bear society! We must not overprotect our children!
Calms you.
In Finland, children do not have numbered ballots until they are 13 years old. Young Finns are assessed by a rigorous set of criteria, and this Nordic country has one of the best education systems in the world (4e in reading, 13e in math, 5e in science, comparable results in Canada and Quebec).
The Superior Council of Education (CSE), the associations of school principals, university experts (Isabelle Nizet in Sherbrooke, André-Sébastien Aubin at UQAM) all come to the same conclusion: we evaluate too much and badly our students in Quebec1. The system “feeds an unhealthy relationship to error”, according to the CSE. Teachers are forced to spend too much time preparing for exams. Up to 30% of the time in class, according to certain actors in the field.
Since 2018, the Superior Council of Education (CSE) has therefore been asking to review our evaluation system, an opinion that the Legault government ignores. We hope that the CAQ will change its mind and reform the method of evaluation. Even if it’s politically sensitive.
In any reform, the most important thing is to reduce the time and importance devoted to examinations and report cards. If you constantly evaluate, there is less time to learn. Assessment should serve learning, not the other way around.
During the pandemic, Quebec reduced the formula from three to two bulletins per year. There is also an unencrypted communication to parents in the fall (an unencrypted report card). We should return to the formula of two bulletins and one communication in the fall.
We must also have a national reflection, with experts, to replace the encrypted ballots in primary school.
Please note: this does not mean the end of evaluations. Instead of your child having 61% in math and 75% in French, the report card could tell you in each subject which skills your child is doing very well, well or not at all. For example, we could return to the report card by grades (eg: A for “excellent mastery”, B for “mastery well”, C for “in the process of mastering”, D for “not mastering”).
Such a system is less stigmatizing for children with difficulties at school. It is also clear for the parents, who know if there is a problem, and what its nature is exactly.
Any reform must respect these two central objectives. Parents need more information, not less.
In primary school, where children’s confidence is more fragile, it would be particularly appropriate to return to the report card by letter. It seems less essential to us in high school, but let’s wait to see what the experts have to say.
The numerical marks would not disappear completely: they would be kept for the ministerial examinations at the primary and secondary levels.
Carrying out such a reform requires political courage, given the popularity of the encrypted ballot.
It’s easier for Minister Bernard Drainville to defend the status quo.
This does not mean that numbered report cards are always the best option for evaluating our children from the age of 6.