How Quebec funds disadvantaged schools — and why some say it can hurt kids in need

For nearly 30 years, Quebec has used a system to determine which schools should get extra funding and help based on how disadvantaged they are compared to others.

It’s called the Indice de milieu socio-économique (IMSE), a socio-economic background index.

But there are questions about the province’s calculation method and whether it leads to students in some schools being deprived of services they desperately need.

Here’s a breakdown of the IMSE, how it works, how it’s calculated and how its application can ultimately affect your child.

How the IMSE is calculated

The Quebec government has been using the IMSE tool since 1998.

It ranks the socio-economic levels of schools on a scale of 1 to 10 — with 10 being the score for the most disadvantaged schools.

The higher the number, the higher the probability that a school will receive extra funding for services while also possibly benefitting from smaller classroom sizes.

The Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE), a federation that represents several unions with a combined membership of about 65,000 teachers in Quebec, provided examples to Radio-Canada.

Schools with the worst scores, 9 or 10, can receive about $100,000 in extra funding and have a class-size limit of 20 students. A score of 7 or 8 could limit that extra funding to $30,000 and classes could have up to 26 students.

Schools with a score of 1 through 6 are considered to be less disadvantaged and that means no extra funding.

The government uses two variables to come up with a school’s grade:

• The percentage of households in any given school with a mother who is without a high school diploma.
• The percentage of families at a school who have unemployed parents.

Critics say this calculation method is flawed and oversimplified.

Cynthia Lachance, a mother of eight who lives on Montreal’s South Shore, says it’s “outdated” and wants the Quebec government to put the IMSE system on hold until it comes up with a new one.

Quebec’s Education Ministry has not made the most recent ratings public, but according to the FAE, each school is aware of its score.

How a score can affect your child

According to parents as well as groups representing teachers and school administrators Radio-Canada spoke with, the problem with the IMSE system is it can give schools better scores — and, as a result, fewer services — even if their overall socio-economic reality hasn’t changed.

Essentially, a school could receive fewer services for students with learning difficulties, for example, simply because the situation at other schools has gotten worse.

“We have more and more families that are vulnerable, but the budget for supporting disadvantaged schools remains the same,” Catherine Renaud, FAE’s vice-president, told Radio-Canada in French.

“We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. What we want is for each disadvantaged student to receive all of the necessary support services.”

Quebec’s Education Ministry told Radio-Canada that its budget to support disadvantaged schools has grown from $112.1 million to $135 million in the last five years.

This amount excludes the money spent on food assistance, which is distributed to all schools.

The effect of the latest census

These IMSE scores are assessed annually and fluctuate as a result.

This year, however, the change in scores in many cases was significant: 40 schools had their IMSE rating lowered, according to the FAE.

The reason for the change? This was the first year that the IMSE rating was based on data from the 2021 census as opposed to the one from 2016.

The newest scores would take effect next school year and could lead to a reduction in funding for schools that are deemed to be doing better than they have in the past.

The Association montréalaise des directions d’établissements scolaires (AMDES), which represents school administrators in Montreal, said basing the IMSE on data from 2021, which was the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, makes the results even more unreliable.

“It was clearly an exceptional time,” said Kathleen Legault, president of the AMDES. “We know that during and coming out of the pandemic, there were lots of changes, especially as it pertains to employment.”

Call for changes

Lachance, the mother of eight on Montreal’s South Shore, wants Quebec to revise its calculation method. She’s launched a petition that has so far garnered at least 4,500 signatures and she’s received support from Independent MNA Isabelle Poulet.

Claude Lessard, a sociology professor at the Université de Montréal and the head of a group called École ensemble, says too much has changed in Quebec society since the IMSE system was put in place in 1998 — immigration, the number of students with disabilities or learning difficulties — for it to remain valid.

“It hasn’t aged very well,” Lessard said. “It’s time to analyze practices that are bit more refined elsewhere in the world.”

He points to a system in France that is based on about 40 variables and tries to account for families’ cultural practices and realities.

In a response to Radio-Canada, the office of Quebec Education Minister Sonia LeBel said it has no intention to modify the system. It said the IMSE’s two main variables — those being whether mothers at a given school have high school diplomas and whether the parents are employed —have the strongest links to academic success.

It said schools still have several months to adjust for the next school year and there is funding available to ensure a “harmonious transition” to a new funding reality, should that be the case.