TORONTO – There was some very good news for two Manitoulin Island elementary schools with the release of the Fraser Institute’s Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary schools. The 2020 report takes in results for 2018-2019 for Grade 3 and Grade 6, in reading, writing and mathematics in 3,037 elementary schools in Ontario.
“One school that did really well in the most recent rankings report was Charles C. McLean Public School (C.C. McLean),” said Peter Cowley, Senior Fellow with the Fraser Institute on Friday of last week. In the Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) area, “they (C.C. McLean) couldn’t beat out perennial R.L. Beattie which posted an overall rating of 8.8 out of 10. C.C. McLean posted an overall rating of 8.7 overall that puts them in 118th (ranked) out of more than 3,000 schools in Ontario.”
“The report card is a valuable tool for patents both as a source of objective data that they use when they are choosing a school for their children, and also as an annual audit that shows whether their child’s school is improving or falling behind,” said Mr. Cowley. The annual report card is also a valuable resource for educators because it allows them to easily identify successful schools across the province, serving similar students and communities-that can serve as an example to follow, he said.
“That’s a ranking in the top five percent of all schools in all of Ontario,” stated Mr. Cowley of C.C. McLean’s results 118 out of 3,037 schools. He pointed out the overall average rating of all schools in Ontario is 6.0 out of 10. “In 2015-16 C.C. McLean had a rating of 6.7, 6.4 in 2016-2017 and a mark of 3.5 in 2017-2018. However, “in the results from 2018-2019, is if in response to that low number they had a rating of 8.7 overall.”
And, for Little Current Public School (LCPS), which ranked 1,119, “this is a good news story,” said Mr. Cowley. “In 2015-16 they had a rating of 4.7, in 2016-2017 6.0, 6.2 in 2017-2018 and 6.7 this past years. The school has made significant improvement over the four years; every year they have done better than the year before.”
Mr. Cowley reported that Central Manitoulin Public School (Mindemoya) ranked 1,821 provincially while Assiginack Public School (Manitowaning) ranked 1,756. For the complete results on all ranked schools, and to easily compare the performance of different schools, visit www.CompareSchoolRankings.org.
