The truly sad part of this is that the provincial standard is just a B- or equivalent to 70%. Apparently the ministry finds this to be an acceptable level of mastery. The fact that fewer than 50% of grade 6 students master more than 70% of the curriculum is down right appalling, but it doesn't tell us anything about the students who fall in the 70%-80% range which should be unacceptable as well. If the ministry raised it's standard to 80% which is where I think it should be, how many kids would fail to meet it?