Canadian educators can draw key lessons on how to improve student performance from the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute publication. In “What Policies Work? Addressing the Concerns Raised by Canada’s PISA Results,” author John Richards addresses six widely discussed education policies that may reverse Canada’s falling PISA scores. Relying on the exhaustive background research undertaken by PISA, he concludes that four of the policies may work; two probably won’t.
The latest round of PISA tests assessed 500,000 students in 60 countries at age 15. “The results show statistically significant declines in mathematics, science, and reading scores for many Canadian provinces,” states Richards. “Overall, Canada is doing reasonably well. But drilling down into the results reveals signs for concern.”
Richards believe that education policymakers should heed the following findings when developing policies that will put Canadian students back on track:
PISA concludes that, both internationally and in Canada, students who had attended pre-primary classes (such as kindergarten) earned better mathematics scores a decade later when aged 15. In Canada, students who had received early-childhood education were disproportionately from advantaged families. “However, the potential benefit of early childhood education is greater among socially disadvantaged families,” Richards observed. “Canada should do more to target early childhood programs toward disadvantaged families.”
School autonomy over in-school resource allocation seems to generate benefits in student outcomes, but only if school academic results are publicly posted. If school-level results are confidential, then schools with less autonomy fare better. “Posting school-level results is part of a sensible school accountability program,” concludes Richards.
Paying Canadian secondary teachers generously relative to their US counterparts is probably among the reasons for Canada’s faring much better in PISA tests than US students. Canadian salaries are on average about 50 percent higher than in US. “Canadian schools have a responsibility to use their more generous budgets to hire well qualified teachers, and not succumb to the hiring and firing rigidities characteristic of many US states,” said Richards.
Quebec is the Canadian province with, by far, the best PISA mathematics scores. It is also the province with the highest share of students attending private schools. Quebec private-school PISA results exceed Quebec public-school results, but the public-school results are also above the Canadian average. While students in Quebec private schools disproportionately come from socially advantaged families, the competition between private and public schools probably helps explain Quebec’s superior performance.
“Two policies to improve mathematics scores that PISA results do not support,” said Richards, “are reducing the student/teacher ratio and spending more class time teaching mathematics.”
He finds that PISA offers no evidence to support reducing Canada’s average student/teacher ratio or relying on increased mathematics teaching time as means to improve results.
“Internationally, there is no link between PISA mathematics results and student/teacher ratios – provided the ratio is below 20 students/teacher, which is true for Canada,” states Richards. “Average class size is higher than the student/teacher ratio because some teachers work with small groups of special needs students or undertake administration.”
Among Canadian provinces there is no link between average time per week on mathematics instruction and provincial mathematics PISA scores. “Quality of instruction probably matters more than quantity,” added Richards. “Education authorities should be concerned with the mathematics knowledge among teachers and with curriculum design.”
“By regularly testing the academic performance among large random samples of students in many countries, PISA provides useful information in assessing which policies will probably work and which probably won’t,” concludes Richards. “When the likely alternative is policy based on policy fads and very little evidence, comparative assessments such as PISA are valuable tools.”
For the report , click here:
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The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to raise living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. Widely considered to be Canada's most influential think tank, the Institute is a trusted source of essential policy intelligence, distinguished by research that is nonpartisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review.
