Large bodies of empirical evidence show that policies and practices that support failure in schools does little to improve student outcomes, yet course failure remains widespread in secondary schools. Further, there is a growing body of evidence indicating these policies and practices are costly in fiscal terms. This study builds on this body of evidence to ask the question: how much money does course failure in secondary schools cost the Ontario public education system annually? Borrowing from Levin & McEwan’s resource cost modelling approach, the study calculates the volume of course failure across all secondary schools in the province and establishes estimates of the annual cost of secondary course failure taking into account some factors known to be systematically related. This work aims to better understand the costs of providing public secondary school education in order to make more effective use of resources. In the 2008–09 school year 7.9% of course registrations in Ontario secondary schools resulted in failure. Fail rates are greater for students who receive special services and vary considerably by subject area. The annual cost is estimated to be $472 million.

Large bodies of empirical evidence show that policies and practices that support failure in schools does little to improve student outcomes, yet course failure remains widespread in secondary schools. Further, there is a growing body of evidence indicating these policies and practices are costly in fiscal terms. This study builds on this body of evidence to ask the question: how much money does course failure in secondary schools cost the Ontario public education system annually? Borrowing from Levin & McEwan’s resource cost modelling approach, the study calculates the volume of course failure across all secondary schools in the province and establishes estimates of the annual cost of secondary course failure taking into account some factors known to be systematically related. This work aims to better understand the costs of providing public secondary school education in order to make more effective use of resources. In the 2008–09 school year 7.9% of course registrations in Ontario secondary schools resulted in failure. Fail rates are greater for students who receive special services and vary considerably by subject area. The annual cost is estimated to be $472 million.