A Fraser Institute report card shows more Ontario high schools declined in performance in 2019 than those that improved.
Senior Fellow Peter Cowley says the results are derived from provincially mandated reading, writing and math tests.
73 schools around the province experienced declining performance, while 47 showed improvement.
Cowley says “It’s not a matter of saying you did a bad job or any of that stuff. What really needs to be focused on is what to do next. As a province those improvers should be analyzed.”
He notes “The Ministry of Education could do worse then to send somebody to those nearly 50 schools who had showed improvement to find out what it is the principal and the staff did to make that improvement possible.”
On the other side of things Cowley says the results should serve as a warning call that something has to be done.
“Essentially what the principal has to do, along with the staff, is to ask themselves how is it or why is it that we’ve shown a decline but much more importantly what are we going to do to turn the trend around.”
Cowley adds “We hope those 70 odd schools that are showing decline will really sit back and think again about what their improvement program is, whether or not it’s working, and see if there’s anything else that they can do to improve students results.”
Only one high school in Kenora-Rainy River finished above the Ontario average in the Fraser Institute rankings.
Atikokan scored a 7.0 out of 10.
The provincial average of 6.
However, Cowley again stresses the report is all about showcasing improvement.
“Dryden, for instance, has shown significant improvement even though they have over 34% of the students who have some sort of special needs. The average for that is down below 25% or so.”
DHS received a 5.4 out of 10 score, up from 4.4 back in 2015.
Cowley says “It’s actually the result of some kind of identifiable change. It’s not just random fluctuation of the results from year to year.”
Here are the regional 2019 rankings:
Atikokan: 7 out of 10. 225th in Ontario
St. Thomas Aquinas: 5.6 out of 10. 484th in Ontario
Dryden: 5.4 out of 10. 503rd in Ontario. *Only local school to see an improvement in rating
Rainy River: 5.1 out of 10. 542nd in Ontario
Fort Frances: 5 out of 10. 556th in Ontario
Beaver Brae: 4 out of 10. 642nd in Ontario
Red Lake: 1.4 out of 10. 720th in Ontario
Queen Elizabeth: 0.3 out of 10. 729th in Ontario
