Report card ranks elementary schools on reading, writing and math 

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The Fraser Institute’s annual report card on the academic performance of almost 4,000 elementary schools in Ontario released Tuesday finds six of the 13 with the highest rating of “10”  are in Toronto.

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The rankings include public, Catholic and private schools and are based on nine academic indicators, all derived from the results of province-wide student testing carried out by Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) in grades 3 and 6 in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The study is based on the academic performance of elementary school students in the 2021-22 academic year.

The top performing schools in Toronto were Avondale Alternative Elementary School — the only school in the province to have received the highest rating of 10 by the Fraser Institute over the past five years — King George Junior Public School, Laure-Riese Elementary School, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School, St. Michael’s Choir School and Northmount School.

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Rounding out the top 13 performers with a rating of “10” were Hawthorn Public School, Khalsa School Malton and Ahmadiyya Elementary School, all in Mississauga; Ahlul Bayt Islamic School and École élémentaire catholique Saint-Guillaume, in Ottawa; St. Ann Catholic Elementary School, in Fenwick; and the International School of Cambridge, in Cambridge.

The Fraser Institute’s “Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools 2023” can be found at fraserinstitute.org.

The annual report card on the performance of Ontario schools by the conservative think tank has been criticized in the past by educators for not considering such factors as the demographics and family incomes of the communities surrounding Ontario elementary schools, and whether the school is public or private.

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The Fraser Institute itself cautions that “of course, the choice of a school should not be made solely on the basis of a single source of information” and that “a sound academic program should be complemented by effective programs in areas of school activity not measured by the Report Card.”

It recommends parents should also consult websites maintained by the EQAO, the provincial education ministry, local school boards, as well as parents with children enrolled in the school or schools they plan to have their child attend, to get a more complete picture of any school’s overall performance.

That said, the Fraser Institute argues that its annual report card on student academic performance is one of the few comprehensive tools parents have to compare how their child’s school — or the school they plan to have their child attend — compares to others in terms of academic performance.

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It notes that without comparing student performance across schools over time, it’s impossible to know which schools are doing things right and which ones could do better, as well as whether their academic performance is improving or deteriorating over time.

The reality, the Fraser Institute report says, is that even when accounting for family income, “it will come as no surprise to experienced parents and educators that the data consistently suggest that what goes on in the schools makes a difference to academic results and that some schools make a greater difference than others.”

Indeed, the fact that the primary job of an elementary school education– to equip students with basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics — is often overlooked in never-ending political squabbles between the provincial government, school boards and teacher unions about salaries, pensions and other benefits, class size, and what schools should or should not be teaching children in such areas as gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion.

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