Independent schools top Fraser Institute rankings
Posted April 21, 2018 5:00 am.
Last Updated April 21, 2018 9:34 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Does your school make the grade? The Fraser Institute is out with its annual report card on BC’s elementary schools.
“Well, every year, the report update is a good day for parents,” says co-author Peter Cowley, Director of School Performance Studies for the right-leaning think tank.
READ: Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary Schools 2018 (source: Fraser Institute)
Cowley says the research, which is based on the results of the Foundation Skills Assessment or FSA test, can be a powerful tool for parents.
“If things aren’t looking good, if the results over five years are staying relatively low with no movement, or even declining, then parents can be a very, very vocal and effective group of people for change.”
This year, West Vancouver’s Cedardale ranked first overall, followed by Crofton House in Vancouver, and Diamond Elementary in Surrey, all of them private schools. However, the most improved were public schools: Parkview Elementary in Sicamous and Marie Sharpe Elementary in Williams Lake.
Cowley says these results prove an important point.
“Any school can improve,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter if they’re rural or urban, doesn’t matter if they’re big or small, doesn’t matter if they’re public or private. It really doesn’t matter because there’s nothing you can do about it what the results were before. The question is, how is this school going to do in the future?”
The report is not without its critics, chiefly the BCTF, but Cowley stands by his work. “The British Columbia Teachers Federation does not want any data to be provided to the public that would enable anyone, particularly parents, to compare one school to another, and perhaps, come to the conclusion that one staff of teachers is better than the other.”
