Grading Ontario's secondary schools
Fraser Institute publishes first annual Report Card
Contacts:
Peter Cowley, Director of School Performance Studies
The Fraser Institute
Telephone: (604) 714-4556
Email: peterc@fraserinstitute.ca
Release Date: 18 April 2001
TORONTO, ON —The Fraser Institute today released its first Report Card on Ontario's Secondary Schools: 2001 Edition. This annual report card is the only publication of its kind to analyze relevant, publicly-available data to rate 815 of the province's English and French, public, separate, and private secondary schools.
Parents can use the Report Card as a valuable tool to help them decide which school to choose for their kids. "By first studying the Report Card, parents will be better prepared to ask relevant questions when they interview the principal and teachers at the schools under consideration," says Peter Cowley, director of school performance studies at The Fraser Institute, and the report's author.
The foundation of the Report Card is an overall rating of each school's academic performance. Building on data about student results provided by the Ministry of Education, each school is rated on a scale from zero to 10.
For each school five indicators of school performance are measured:
The percentage of advanced courses taken;
The percentage of courses passed;
The core courses taken per student;
The difference between male and female students in the average course mark received for advanced grade 12 level English (or French for schools designated by the Ministry as having French as the language of instruction);
The difference between male and female students in the average course mark received for advanced grade 12 level Mathematics.
From these statistics, a rating for each of the six school years, 1993/94 through 1998/1999, has been calculated.
"We have selected this set of indicators because they provide systematic insight into a school's performance. Because they are based on annually generated data, we can assess not only each school's performance in a year but also its improvement or deterioration over time," says Cowley.
In addition, the Report Card follows academic improvements in each school based on six years of data and measures any apparent trends over time.
Also included is a measure of the socio-economic background of the school's student body that allows parents and school officials to compare their school's results with other schools that have similar student-family characteristics.
The Report Card makes detailed objective information on school performance widely available so that school communities—principals, parents, teachers, and students—can come together and compare the performance of individual schools. In this way, the Report Card encourages and assists those seeking to improve their schools.
"Comparisons are at the heart of the improvement process and making comparisons between schools is made simpler and more meaningful by the Report Card's indicators, ratings, and rankings," says Cowley.
An enormous amount of taxpayer money—over $13 billion a year in Ontario—is spent on primary and secondary education. Any public expenditure of this magnitude should be subject to close independent scrutiny and the results should be made available to any interested taxpayer.
"Regular measurement of performance is a necessary component of any plan for improvement. It is to the continuous improvement of all Ontario schools that the Report Card is dedicated," concludes Cowley, "The Report Card provides objective results—good and bad—and offers educators an opportunity to accept poor results for what they are: a starting point from which to improve."
The Fraser Institute has published Report Cards on secondary schools in British Columbia since 1998, and in Alberta since 1999. The first Report Card on Quebec's Secondary Schools, produced in association with the Montreal Economic Institute, was published in 2000.
Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver, with offices in Calgary and Toronto.
For further information contact:
Suzanne Walters, Director of Communications,
The Fraser Institute
(604) 714-4582
Email: suzannew@fraserinstitute.ca