Fraser institute issues its alert

It's like an early warning system for the locals, leery of the research methods of the right wing think tank the Fraser Institute.

The Institute issued a press release on Friday, advising one and all that their rather controversial secondary school rankings will be released on Saturday.

In the Friday release, a second press release was promised for bright and early Saturday morning, 6 am to be exact, which will offer more details on the Fraser Institutes rankings of the 291 public and private secondary schools in BC and the Yukon.

All the mystery seems a bit overindulgent, but then the Fraser Institutes rankings of secondary schools in the Province always seem to polarize the province like few things can.

Last year's results didn't sit particularly well with the local populace, many of whom suggest that the Institute ignores a number of socio-economic factors that impact on local education.

The results are designed to provide to spark conversation, which they certainly do, even if some of it is rather heated and seemingly counter productive at times.

In the end, the rankings don't really account for much, despite the rhetoric that comes from the Institutes own public relations releases. The release of the rankings does manage to get people excited and angry in some cases, but we're not sure that they provide for much in the long run that changes the education system to any great degree.

They will however make for supper time reading in the Saturday and Sunday papers from the lower mainland, which print the scorecard with the same diligence as a Canuck's score sheet.

For those not willing to wait for the Vancouver papers to arrive, the Institute promises to publish the results to their web page on Saturday.

Let the sides form up, let the rhetoric begin!