Fraser Institute results to be the talk of the town

The Daily News put the finishing touches on its article about the results from the Fraser Institute's Elemenatary school report.

The numbers which were released on Saturday morning, painted a picture for local parents and educators of a public system with a few positive developments, while the independent school suffered a bit of a decline from past expectations.

As we outlined on Monday on this blogsite, Westview school is the the school with the best overall record according to the Fraser institute, with the city's only independent school Annunciation finding itself in a rather unusual spot of fourth place in this years rankings.

The Daily featured the story as its front page item in Wednesday's paper.

Fraser Institute’s ranking of schools full of surprises
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Page one and three

Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Public schools are now at the top of the heap locally when it comes to education, according to the Fraser Institute's recently released annual elementary school report card.

Of the local schools, Westview Elementary had the highest ranking in this year's report card, ranked 601st out of 984 schools in B.C. Westview was followed by Lax Kxeen, ranked 756 out of 984, Pineridge 822nd, Annunciation 895th, Conrad Street, 955th, Kanata, 959th, and finally Roosevelt, ranked 963rd out of 984 schools.

The rankings were a big step up for Roosevelt and a big step down for Annunciation.
During the past five years, Annunciation has ranked on average 425 out of 877 among the province's schools, with an overall score out of 10 ranging between 6.4 and 7.6.

This year, the school dropped to 3.7 out of 10 and slid down the rankings.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt Elementary, which received a zero out of 10 last year, has jumped back up to a score of 2.3 out of 10, slightly less than its five-year average.

The Fraser Institute report uses data gathered by the province through the Foundation Skills Assessment tests. Administered in Grade 4 and 7, these tests assess students in reading, writing and numeracy.

"Since the report card tracks results of a school over a number of years, teachers and administrators can also use it to compare results for their schools with those of other schools whose students share similar personal or family characteristics. Seeing how other schools have improved and what they have accomplished can make a useful contribution to each school's on-going improvement efforts," said Peter Cowley, the institute's director of school performance studies and co-author of the Report Card on British Columbia Elementary Schools.

Among other local schools, Conrad Street dropped in score this year, ranking 2.6 out of 10 from a high of 5.1 in 2003. Kanata dropped to 2.4 out of 10, from a high 4.8 in 2003.

Lax Kxeen improved its standings up to 4.9 out of 10 compared to scores in the mid to high three's in the past two years, but still down from its best performance of 6.4 in 2003. Pineridge also improved from 3.5 out of 10 last year to 4.4 this year, but is also down from its historical high of 5.6 in 2003.

Westview Elementary remained consistent, taking a small drop from 6.1 last year to 5.7 this year, but still on the upper end of its five-year scoring spectrum.

Cowley noted this year's report card includes a new indicator that compares each school's overall rating to that which is predicted by the socio-economic characteristics of the students' families. This indicator provides an estimate of the size of the contribution that the school makes to the success of its students.

"Over the years, critics of the report card have suggested that the socio-economic status of their family has a great bearing on students' progress at school. This indicator helps isolate that variable and shows the extent to which schools are successful in helping students overcome the various challenges they face," Cowley said.

Of all the schools, only Lax Kxeen students did better than their parents' education indicated, but very minimally, while Westview did only a fraction less well than the parents' education would indicate.

In addition, this year's report card included a new indicator that measures the number of FSA tests that could have been written by students who were absent from the test but not excused.
"The Foundation Skills Assessments are an important part of the province's Grade 4 and Grade 7 curriculum," said Cowley.

"Higher participation rates in the FSAs provide parents, teachers and school administrators with an objective assessment of students' progress. The results also allow school administrators and teachers to compare results among schools, an important advantage in any school's effort to improve the learning environment."

Conrad Street had the highest percentage of students who did not write the FSAs, at 7.2 per cent. No other school in the district exceeded 3.2 per cent.