CBC poll gives Canadian public school system a B-grade

by Tina Kells | September 2, 2008 at 08:57 am

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As kids head back to school today, Canadian parents have weighed in on the quality of the public education system. In a broad polling sample of 803 Canadian parents, in 10 provinces, the public school system received a B to B- grade.

Do you think class size will become a bigger problem as the global population grows? Answer the Now Public poll.

Of the poll respondents, 49 per cent described the quality of education in their province as good, with 28 per cent opting for adequate. Eight per cent described it as excellent.

Just 13 per cent of respondents said education quality was poor (11 per cent) or very poor (two per cent).

The poll also suggests that more than half the people in the country feel schools do a better job today than 10 years ago.

A little more than 60 per cent of Canadians think both elementary and secondary schools are as good or better than in the 1990s, according to the survey.

Given the size of the sample, the survey results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

A B-range grade seems like a ringing endorsement of public school education in Canada, but 69% of parents polled felt the system could be teaching their children more. Of particular concern was the teaching of core subjects.

"What I would conclude is that we are giving schools a B or maybe a B minus, but we think they should be much better, given the resources they have," Dasko told CBCNews.ca.

"Schools should be teaching more, imparting more knowledge, more of the essential core knowledge required for life," she said. "That's what Canadians feel."

A related question asked whether schools are teaching students "the right things in the right way for the times that we live in."

Even with this point of dissatisfaction the number of parents who rated the public school system as "poor" or "very poor" dropped by 50% over 1995 results. Parents were also unable to identify any one dominant problem within the system, but concerns about funding cutbacks and class size topped the list of current issues.

Parents were evenly split on the topic of teaching both official languages to Canadian students, with a third wanting another non-official language to be offered to their kids. This highlighted the changing face of the Canadian student population, emphasizing the importance of immigration and multiculturalism in Canadian schools.

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