RANKINGS HELP PARENTS FIND SCHOOLS THAT FIT
WIL ANDRUSCHAK
Location, location, location is critical in real estate — and one key component of location is what schools are in the area.
Being close to a great school was certainly a key reason why Kristi Nelson and her family were reluctant to move from Scarboro in the city’s southwest.
“We’re in our second home that we purchased in this community, and the school is a significant reason why we were not willing to leave the neighbourhood,” she says about their move a few years ago when their family was expanding and needed a larger house.
The mother of three children — Eva is finishing Grade 5, Juliana completing Grade 1 and Leah in preschool — is referring to Sunalta School, one of the most highly rated public schools over the past several years in the Fraser Institute’s annual report card on Alberta schools.
The Fraser Institute’s ranking has been a guiding light for many Calgary parents for more than 20 years, says its lead author, Peter Cowley, senior fellow at the rightleaning, British Columbia-based think-tank.
“What we intend, first and foremost, for the report card is providing information to parents as to how individual schools are doing,” Cowley says.
The study has become a can’tmiss report that matters for many individuals involved in education across the province, he says, because it is the only objective measure that compares all school types, whether publicly or privately funded.
At the same time, he adds, it’s useful because it can show how schools are progressing, or not, by tracing their performance over the past five years.
Involving two annual school report cards, one for elementary schools and another for high schools, the long-running Fraser reports rate schools based on outcomes of Provincial Achievement Tests (PATS), written by Grade 6 students, and Diploma Exams written by Grade 12s.
The test performance provides a snapshot of student knowledge in math, language arts and other key subjects, and the collective results for each school receive a numerical rating from the Fraser Institute.
“The overall rating out of 10 is really an answer to just one critical question, and that is, ‘In general, how is this individual school — compared to all the others in the report — doing in these key areas?’ ” Cowley says.
Three private Calgary schools — Webber Academy, Rundle College and Renert School — and Edmonton’s Old Scona, a public school, tied for top spot among Alberta high schools.
The top-ranked elementary schools in the province were Master’s Academy and College, a Calgary public school, Renert School and two Edmonton public schools — Mount Pleasant and Windsor Park.
Cowley says the annual ratings are an important measure regarding each school’s academic performance, but the five-year measure of performance can be equally illuminating, indicating whether a school is improving. He also notes the report cards reveal overall trends among all schools.
For instance, “Grade 6 language arts results have gotten better overall in the last five years,” he says. In 2015, the average mark was 66.5 per cent. The most recent report — based on 2019 results — was 68.3 per cent.
While many find the results of interest, the Fraser Institute’s report cards have plenty of critics, too, including the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA).
“We think the ranking of schools has no meaningful information that actually improves the quality of education,” says Jason Schilling, ATA president. “Ranking schools is just a way to distract from some of the real issues.”
Schilling adds parents and educators have more pressing concerns — like COVID-19, which deeply disrupted the current year. In fact, PATS have been cancelled, and Diploma Exams are postponed. These tests are essential for the report, and Cowley admits next year’s report cards for elementary and possibly high school may not be published if test results are unavailable.
Kevin O’connor, chair of the department of education at Mount Royal University, notes the pandemic has largely changed how parents, teachers and students engage in learning.
“PATS, standardized tests, are snapshots in time, and while they have some use to give us a window of how students are performing at that moment … they don’t represent our current context.”
Still, education consultant Claude Oppenheim says the current report, based on last year’s test scores, is still helpful for parents seeking some indication of schools’ academic performance.
As well, “educators may find it helpful to know how their results compare, particularly to schools that they consider their peers,” says the Calgary-based expert at Oppenheim Education Consultants. Indeed, the report does include comparative data including the percentage of English language learners and students with special needs.
Then again, he also sees limitations. For example, the reports’ scoring can create an illusion of bigger gaps between the quality of schools even though they might score quite closely to one another.
Superintendent of instructional services at the Calgary Catholic School District, Andrea Holowka, says the standardized tests — on which the Fraser report cards are based — offer important data for teachers, principals and other stakeholders. In that context, the Fraser report cards may be of interest to parents and others.
“We would absolutely agree (academic performance) is a very important marker,” she says, but it does not paint the full picture. “There is quite a bit that occurs in a school not captured.”
Even Cowley says the reports’ value is limited, and should not be the only measure parents use to choose a school.
“It doesn’t tell the whole story,” he says.
That’s why Cowley says parents using the Fraser Institute’s report cards should do additional research.
Indeed, Nelson says Sunalta’s ranking was important — it’s ninth in this year’s report, and 10th over the past five years — but it was not the deciding factor. The way parents raved about the school was the key element.
“One of the common threads among all the families from different backgrounds is they really value the uniquely great educational experience,” she says. “It’s just really a great school.”
We think the ranking of schools has no meaningful information that actually improves the quality of education.” — Jason Schilling, Alberta Teachers’ Association president