The Fraser Institute has released its annual rankings of the academic performance of 689 Ontario secondary schools, including eight Cambridge high schools.
“Our Report Cards offer parents information they can’t easily get anywhere else, about how their child’s school performs and how it compares to other schools in Ontario,” said Peter Cowley, a Fraser Institute senior fellow, in a press release.
This year, the Report Card on Ontario’s Secondary Schools ranks public, Catholic, and independent schools based on eight academic indicators derived from provincewide results from tests administered by the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO).
The Report Card compiles data derived from Grade 9 EQAO math test results, Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test results, results that were below the provincial standard, and the differences between genders to come up with its rankings.
The number of students with special needs in each school is also considered in the rankings.
In Cambridge, Galt Collegiate Institute & Vocational School experienced a slight decline in results to land at an overall rating of 5.9 out of 10, while Glenview Park and St. Benedict each saw their results improve to 6.3 and 6.8 respectively.
Cambridge French Catholic school École secondaire Père-René-de-Galinée retained its ranking among the region's top schools with an overall rating of 7.8 out of 10.
The Fraser Institute says the data suggest every school can improve regardless of type, location, and student characteristics.
For example, Englehart, a public school in Northeast Ontario, is one of the fastest-improving high schools in the province, rising from a score of 2.2 out of 10 in 2016 to 6.5 in 2022.
Likewise, Toronto Ouest, a French public school in Toronto, is one of the fastest-improving school (rising from 4.9 in 2016 to 8.5), even though 13.7 per cent students have special needs.
“It doesn’t matter where a school is ranked, or what challenges its students may face. The evidence is clear—all types of schools, located all over the province with different types of students, are all capable of improvement,” Cowley said.
Click HERE for the complete results on all ranked schools and to compare the performance of different schools.
Not all the province’s secondary schools are included in the tables or the ranking.
In order to be included, schools must have had, in the school year 2021/2022, at least 10 students who wrote either of the two versions of the Grade 9 EQAO mathematics test and at least 10 “first-time-eligible” or “previously eligible” writers of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test.
Private schools and federally funded schools operated by First Nations are not required to administer the Grade 9 mathematics tests.
Since the results of these tests form the basis for this Report Card, only those schools that administer them could be included.
Also excluded are schools that did not generate a sufficiently large set of student data to enable the calculation of an overall rating out of 10.
The exclusion of a school from the Report Card is not a judgement of the school’s effectiveness, said the release.
The top 10 schools in the province in terms of academic performance are Khalsa Community School in Brampton, 10 out of 10; Colonel By Secondary School in Gloucester, 9.5; Ursula Franklin Academy in Toronto 9.3; St. Augustine Catholic Secondary School in Markham, 9.2; St. Robert Catholic High School in Thornhill, 9.2; London Central Secondary School in London, 9.2; North Toronto Collegiate Institute in Toronto, 9.1; St. Theresa of Lisieux Catholic High School in Richmond Hill, 9; Earl of March Secondary School in Kanata, 9; and École élémentaire et secondaire publique l'Équinoxe in Pembroke, 9.
