Be it a valuable tool for parents or a misrepresentation of
data, many residents will be digging into the Fraser Institute’s report card on
elementary schools this week.
The Fraser Institute, a public policy think-tank, released
its annual report card on Ontario
elementary schools on March 7.
“The report card is the only easily accessible, objective
tool that helps parents assess the performance of their child’s school,” said
Peter Cowley, Fraser Institute director of school performance studies.
The institute says the report card allows parents to compare
schools based on key demographic factors such as parental income or number of
ESL students, and it shows the number of students not meeting provincial
standards in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
“These detailed results provide parents with the information
they need to ask the principal at their children’s school important questions
about a school’s performance,” Cowley said.
The report offers a rating out of 10 for the 2008-09 year.
Public schools:
Arklan
Community Public
School - 7.2
Carambeck
Public School - 6.2
Naismith
Memorial Public
School – 5.9
R. Tait
McKenzie Public
School – 5.1
Beckwith
Public School - 5.1
Caldwell
Street Elementary
School - 4.0
Catholic schools:
St. Mary's Separate
School - 7.0
Holy Name of Mary
Separate School
– 6.3
St. Gregory Catholic - 4.4
The Upper Canada District School Board, however, calls the
report’s findings a misuse of the province’s Education Quality and Accountability
Office results to “create a superficial picture of the place of schools in the
lives of children and families.”
The board says it echoes the Ontario Public School Boards’
Association which said it is misleading to take information and turn it into a
‘top 10’ chart of schools.
Rankings distract people from addressing the more critical
issue of how to improve learning for all students, an association release said.
“Boards use EQAO results to help our teachers and schools to
develop strategies to improve student learning and achievement,” said OPSBA
president Colleen Schenk.
“The published ranking, however, undermines the purposes of
valid assessment measures, discourages and demoralizes teachers, and belittles
the efforts of our students.”
The Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools 2010 rates
2,742 English and French, public, and Catholic elementary schools from across
Ontario based on nine key indicators derived from provincewide tests of
reading, writing, and mathematics skills administered by the province’s
Education Quality and Accountability Office. A number of private schools are
also included
See the report for yourself at
http://ontario.compareschoolrankings.org.