A fourth secondary school student who ended the year with a 72% grade in maths dropped that score to 43% after failing the ministerial test, the victim of a statistical treatment questioned by experts.
It is not an isolated case, as the Ministry of Education says it has been made aware of “special situations” and is currently “working on a further analysis of the situation”.
Amélie Bérubé, 16, has worked hard all year hoping to pass her high school maths. For this attention-deficit young girl, math has always been her passion, says her mother, Karine Boulay.
After several orthopedic phases, tutoring and “countless screaming and anxiety attacks”, the young woman made it in June with 72 percent. She just needs to pass the ministerial test to get her final grade, she almost made it.
But the exam really doesn’t go as she had hoped, the fear is spreading. Amélie still hopes to get the final passing mark, as the ministerial tests make up 20% of the final mark this year, as opposed to 50% before the pandemic.
The verdict will come in early July. Amélie got 46% on the ministerial test, but the Ministry of Education lowered her grade, which went from 72% to… 43%. she fails
It is a shock for Amélie and her mother. The surprise is total. “It knocked me down,” says Ms Boulay. Her teenager, “curled up in a ball,” then wanted to give it all up, she adds.
“Moderate” ratings
After several steps, Ms Boulay finally understood that her daughter’s school mark had been lowered as part of a statistical treatment by the Ministry of Education that had applied to all pupils since 1974. The “moderation” aims to “make an assessment fair for all students,” says the ministry.
Photo agency QMI, Pascal Huot
For each group, the grades of the students are compared with those of the ministerial examination. If several students in the same group achieve examination performances that are significantly below the grade of their lecturer, the grade will be corrected downwards. The opposite is also true.
It is a process justified by some to ensure that schools’ results are worth the same from one institution to another, to avoid “beauty marks” or overly harsh assessments.
But others have objected to this approach, which they see as giving far too much weight to the ministerial examination in the student’s final score (see other text below).
For his part, the director of the Institut d’enseignement de Sept-Îles, the private secondary school that Amélie attends, defends the work of his “super-qualified” mathematics teacher with ten years of experience.
For Mathieu Brien, it’s more about the context. This year, some students prepared less well for the ministerial exams, as they accounted for only 20 percent of the final grade, he says.
In this secondary school, too, the failure rate in ministerial tests in all subjects is three to five times higher than usual, says Mr Brien.
The latter finds it difficult to understand why the ministry has not changed the way exams are moderated this year. “I find it difficult to see a student who’s worked 10 months get their grades cut because of a test that was worth 20%,” he says.
This statistical treatment is also hard for Amélie’s mother to swallow because it punishes students who perform poorly under pressure. François Roberge to denounce the situation.
At the Department we say we want to assess the situation to see if “solutions could be provided to cases that constitute excessive injustices”.
A request for review of grades is always possible, adds his spokeswoman Esther Chouinard.
A statistical treatment that is not uniform
The statistical treatment applied by the Department of Education during ministerial tests is far from uniform. Experts reject this, while actors in the school network consider it to be quite justified.
Micheline-Johanne Durand, a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Montreal, believes that the moderation of grades “discredits teachers’ professional judgment” by giving too much weight to the ministerial test in the student’s final grade.
“The ministry dictates without nuance, I find that depressing,” she says.
Like several other stakeholders, Ms Durand believes it is high time for the Department to review its assessment policy.
Mélanie Tremblay, a professor at the University of Quebec in Rimouski, also questions the meaning and form of the ministerial tests, where everything is played in three short hours for thousands of students.
Maintaining the policy of moderation is also distorting the relief the government intends to give related to the pandemic, Ms Tremblay added.
With the Group of High School Mathematics Leaders, however, the story is different. Its President, Guy Gervais, supports this statistical treatment.
“It’s important to make sure that high school has the same status across Quebec,” he says.
At the Association of Private Educational Institutions, the head of educational services, Christian LeBlanc, also defends this practice, which he says is “entirely justified” even in the current context.
“The Ministry wants to ensure that students are judged fairly. Normally, a teacher who respects the program and the assessment framework shouldn’t have too many surprises,” he says.
However, this statistical treatment should be better known and explained to students and their parents, adds Mr. LeBlanc.
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