Fraser Institute report controversial as ever

The Fraser Institute’s annual school rankings report released Monday shows nine out of 10 elementary schools in B.C. that have shown improvement over the last year are public, but elite independent schools such as Crofton House, St. George’s and West Point Grey Academy hold the top spots.

The report is based on the annual Foundation Skills Assessment, a standardized test of reading, writing and numeracy skills of 4th and 7th graders administered by the B.C. Ministry of Education. The use of its data by the Fraser Institute for the purpose of ranking schools has long generated controversy.

Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, said the data gathered by the annual Foundation Skills Assessment tests is designed to provide a global snapshot of the system as a whole.

“The Fraser Institute has used this over the years to rank schools under very flawed methodology and is using the data in an approach in which the data was not intended to be used. It’s not a scientific study, and you’d be very hard pressed to find someone who takes it seriously,” Hansman said Monday.

In 2014, an advisory group of educators, school trustees, parents, First Nations and children’s representatives released a report recommending changes to the provincial assessments. Their final report stated, “One of the significant failings of the current Foundation Skills Assessment program is that the results are used to make judgments that go beyond its mandate.”

Peter Cowley, director of School Performance Studies at the Fraser Institute, defended the rankings.

“You could easily say that out of the 956 schools surveyed, every one is different. Some have bigger classes, some smaller, some are rural, or not, some have more ESL, others are closer to universities — every single school is different. Except in one area: they all follow the same curricula, and the skill level that should be achieved is expected at every school.”

Cowley cites Surrey’s Newton school, with a majority ESL student population, which jumped from a rating of 3.8 out of 10 in 2011, to 5.5 in 2015-16, as an example of how the annual report can be used to look at how each school compares to its own previous performances.

“If improvement is important and schools can and should improve the learning of their kids as reflected in these tests and we show evidence of schools improving, why on earth would they ignore it?”