Private schools get top marks in report

Toronto schools score high in Fraser Institute's annual report in reading, writing, math

Ontario’s private elementary schools rank higher than public ones when it comes to reading, writing and mathematics, according to a controversial annual report by the Fraser Institute published on Sunday.

The right-wing think tank issued its Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools, which rates more than 3,000 schools based on nine academic indica- tors drawn from provincewide standardized tests.

Of the top 20 schools, most of which are in the GTA, 13 are private, meaning they charge tuition and aren’t funded by the province.

Six of the top 20 are in Toronto: Avondale Elementary Alternative School, Havergal College, Islamic Institute of Toronto, Northmount School, Sathya Sai School and St. Sebastian Catholic School. All six received a top score of 10 out of 10. Only two — Avondale and St. Sebastian — are publicly funded.

Of the 3,046 elementary schools, just 32, or 1 per cent, are private, yet they dominate the list of the highest-ranked schools.

“The majority of schools in the top ranks are private,” report co-author Peter Cowley told the Star. He suspects the reason for that is because those schools need to justify pricey tuition.

“If you’re going to spend money on it, and (a high academic score) is one of the parental desires, then the private schools are going to have to deliver,” he said. “If you don’t deliver … you won’t be in business.”

Cowley says it’s a mistake for parents to choose a school based solely on the basic skills of reading writing and math, because there are many other important factors.

“There’s lots more that happens at a school than just skills development in

these three areas,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to make a decision solely on this.”

The ranking is based on data from the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO), an independent provincial agency that measures students’ achievement by testing them for reading, writing and math. The report looked at EQAO scores in grades 3 and 6 for the 2017-18 school year.

The Fraser Institute’s ranking, first published in 2003, is popular, but also controversial, with some saying it doesn’t paint a complete picture and is more a reflection of family income. Realtors use it to promote properties located near high-ranking schools, which drives up housing prices.

Charles Pascal, professor at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, says there’s no value to the ranking.

The former deputy education minister and former chair of the EQAO says the data were never intended for ranking. The data should be used by individual schools to assess how they are doing, year over year, to see what improvements are needed.

“When you start ranking one school over another, because there’s a three-point difference, what you don’t have is what the trend is,” said Pascal.

“One school may be scoring higher than another school not too far away, but the difference is that one school, over three years, is starting to make improvements. And the other school, even though i t’s (ranked) higher, is going in a different trend line.”

He said it’s not surprising that the Fraser Institute would release a report heralding private schools as better than publicly funded ones.

“I take anything that comes out of the Fraser Institute with a very, very large grain of salt.”

Toronto District School Board spokesperson Shari SchwartzMaltz says rankings don’t provide sufficient context.

Some schools may have high, or low, EQAO scores for various reasons, such as a particular cohort of students that year.

She says that when schools receive individual EQAO data, they use it in their school improvement plans. So if there has been a dip in literacy, or in mathematics, they put resources toward improving those grades.

Maria Rizzo, chair of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, is happy to see St. Sebastian at the top, but adds she doesn’t like any ranking system that uses just one criteria, such as EQAO scores, calling it “a bit lazy.”

Rizzo worries the Fraser Institute’s report can be “demoralizing” for schools that don’t rank high, but have worked hard to boost achievement.