Equally Prepared for Life?

1. Equally Prepared for Life? How Male and Female Students Perform in Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Schools

2. Background • The following slides provide information about the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) student achievement results in various areas over time, aggregated by student gender: • Early Development Instrument (EDI) for SK students: Spring 2008 • Provincial Primary and Junior Reading Assessment (EQAO) • Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) • Credit Accumulation of the TDSB Grade 9 Cohort • Credit Accumulation of Age-Appropriate Grade 10 Students • 17 Year Old Annual Student Outcomes • 17 Year Old Post-Secondary Confirmations: 2007 Application Cycle • Safe Schools (Student Suspensions)

3. Purpose The purpose of the slides is to provide TDSB educators information about gender gaps in order for programming at the school, Family of Schools, and Board level.

4. Early Development Instrument (EDI) • What it is: • The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a community measure of young children’s school readiness, based on teachers’ assessment of their Kindergarten students. The EDI has five domains: • •Physical Health and Well-Being • •Social Knowledge and Competence • •Emotional Health and Maturity • •Language Skills and Cognitive Development • •Communication and General Knowledge • Senior Kindergarten students (SK) who scored among the lowest 10% of the student population in Canada on two or more domains are generally considered vulnerable.

5. Early Development Instrument (EDI) • The Pattern: • The Spring 2008 EDI results show that: • 10% more male SK students scored very low on two or more domains than female students;

6. Early Development Instrument (EDI) • The Pattern: • The Spring 2008 EDI results also show that: • Gender gaps exist on all five domains; • The largest gaps are in the areas of Social Competence and Emotional Maturity.

7. Spring 2008 EDI: SK Students Scored Low on Each of the Five Domains by Gender

8. Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) Assessments for Primary and Junior Divisions • What It Is • EQAO assessments are based on the reading, writing, and mathematics expectations in The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8. Each assessment covers the knowledge and skills that students are expected to have acquired by the end of the grade being assessed. • The EQAO provides results by two reporting methods: • Method 1 includes all students registered in a particular grade; and • Method 2 includes participating students and excludes students who were exempt or had no data.

9. Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) Assessments for Primary and Junior Divisions • The Trend • Over the past five years, the gender gap in favour of females has remained relatively consistent and is particularly pronounced in Reading and Writing. • The following slide provides EQAO Grade 3 and Grade 6 Reading results for all students (Method 1) over time by gender. • The gender gap has been 8-13% over the past five years and is currently 11% in Grade 3 and 13% in Grade 6.

10. EQAO Primary Division (Grades 1–3) and Junior Division (Grades 4–6) Reading Results by Gender

11. The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) • What It Is • The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), established by the Ministry of Education, is one of the requirements for an Ontario Secondary School Diploma. The test assesses the reading and writing skills of students in their Grade 10 year. • “Fully Participating Students” (Method 2) includes only those students who wrote the test on both days, and who were assigned an achievement result (Successful, Not Successful). It excludes students who were exempted, deferred, or absent.

12. The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) • The Trend • The gender gap has been 4-7% over the past five years and is currently 4%, with 84% of female and 80% of male students successfully completing the test in 2008-09.

13. The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT):First-Time Eligible Students by Gender

14. Credit Accumulation of the TDSB Grade 9 Student Cohort • What It Is • Grade 9 credit accumulation examines the proportion of Grade 9 students who, by the end of Summer School, had completed 7 or more credits. These students are more likely to graduate within five years of starting secondary school. • The Grade 9 student cohort consists of 13-15 year old students who attended the TDSB over the full school year (September through June next year) and who, according to student records, were new to secondary school studies.

15. Credit Accumulation of the TDSB Grade 9 Student Cohort • The Trend • There has been a very gradual, but consistent increase in the proportion of students who had completed 7 or more credits by the end of Grade 9. • Both male and female students are doing better, but the gender gap has declined slightly, from 6% in 2003-04 to 4% in 2007-08.

16. Credit Accumulation of the TDSB Grade 9 Student Cohort by Gender

17. Credit Accumulation of Age-Appropriate Grade 10 Students • What It Is • Grade 10 credit accumulationexamines the proportion of age-appropriate Grade 10 students who, by the end of Summer School, had completed 15 or more credits. • These students are more likely to graduate within five years of starting secondary school.

18. Credit Accumulation of Age-Appropriate Grade 10 Students • The Trend • Since 2003-04, the proportion of both male and female students completing 15 or more credits has increased by 2% in 2007-08. • However, the gender gap still remains at 8%.

19. Credit Accumulation of Age-Appropriate Grade 10 Studentsby Gender

20. 17 Year Old Annual Student Outcomes • What It Is • This examines what happened to 17 year old students (most of whom were in their fourth year of secondary studies). By next Fall students were categorized as: • graduated or accumulated 30 or more credits; • still attending the TDSB; • transferred into another educational institution; or • dropped out of school. • Note:This is only a one-year snapshot of the outcomes for this age group.

21. 17 Year Old Annual Student Outcomes • The Trend • Over time, the proportion of graduating 17 year olds has increased among both male and female students. • However, the gap between males and females has remained constant, at 12-13% over five years.

22. 17 Year Old Annual Student Outcomes by Gender

23. 17 Year Old Post-secondary Confirmations: 2007 Application Cycle • What It Is • Students applying to post-secondary institutions in Ontario provide applications through the Ontario Universities Applications Centre (OUAC) and the Ontario College Application Centre (OCAS). We matched the 2007 applications with information in our Student Information System (SIS) for the 17 year old students in the TDSB on March 31, 2007. • The following graph examines students who confirmed an offer of admission to an Ontario university; who confirmed an offer of admission to an Ontario college; those who apply to both university and college programs, but did not confirm an acceptance; and those who do not apply to post-secondary.

24. 17 Year Old Post-secondary Confirmations: 2007 Application Cycle • The Pattern • Male students are much less likely to confirm an offer of admission to Ontario universities than female students. • However, this is not the case with community colleges, where both male and female students are equally as likely to confirm an offer.

25. 17 Year Old Post-secondary Confirmations: 2007 Application Cycle by Gender

26. Safe Schools • What It Is • A safe and positive learning environment is essential for student success. • On February 1, 2008, Bill 212: The Education Amendment Act (Progressive Discipline and School Safety) came into effect. • The following three slides provide information about the student suspensions in each panel and grade by gender using the TDSB safe schools suspensions/expulsions data collected before and after Bill 212.

27. Safe Schools • The Pattern • Males were suspended approximately 3 to 4 times the rate as females. In 2008-09, 79 % of all suspensions were given to males. • This has not changed considerably in the past five years. For 2008-09, there were 6,174 boys and 1,736 girls who received a suspension. • Intermediate and Senior divisions (Grades 7-12) accounted for 79.1% of all suspensions. • Junior and Senior Kindergarten grades (JK-SK) accounted for 0.1% of all suspensions. • Primary and Junior divisions (Grades 1-6) accounted for 20.8% of all suspensions.

28. Elementary and Secondary Student Suspensions by Gender

29. Total Number of Suspensions By Grade and Gender: 2008-09* *Based on the Safe Schools database used in Data Interpretation Handbook 2008-09

30. Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Thank you