HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2006-06-14, Page 8Page 8 June 14 , 2006 • The Huron Expositor
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Seaforth principals put little weight behind
Ben Forrest
St. James School can lay
claim to being one of the top 40
elementary schools in the
province, if data from a recent
Fraser Institute (FI) report is any
indicator.
The FI's annual _ Report Card
on Ontario's Elementary Schools
was released Friday, appraising
over 2,800 schools and ranking
them.
St. James received a rating of
9.8 out of 10 and shares 33rd
place in Ontario with four other
schools.
Each school's mark .out of 10
was determined by results from
Education Quality and
Accountability Office (EQAO)
testing of Grade 3 and Grade 6
students.
The following criteria was
used: average levels of achieve-
ment in Grade 3 and Grade 6
EQAO assessments of reading,
writing and mathematics; the
difference between the average
levels of achievement of male
and female students in Grade 6
reading and mathematics assess -
Institute's report
ments; and the percentage of
EQAO tests that did not meet
the provincial standard.
"We're very pleased," said St.
James principal Mary Brown in
an interview on Monday. "It's
certainly a testament to the skill
of our staff, and the strong sup-
port of our parent community,
and we're very proud of our stu-
dents' achievements."
"We hope to use the infor-
mation to continue to
improve our student
achievement at St. James
School. We recognize, too,
that this is one piece of
information at our school, It
certainly doesn't go into
depth about what makes our
school a successful school,
but still, it's nice to be rec-
ognized."
Seaforth Public School
(SPS) was given a mark of
6.0, up from 5.3 in_ last'
year's report. They share
1,448th place.
"We don't give much value
to reports that rank schools,
as they tend to do more
harm than good," said SPS.
principal Kim Black.
"EQAO test results are
specifically designed to pro-
vide useful information to
improve our learning pro-
grams, but it's misleading to
compare schools based on
only these scores. It's just
one piece of the whole pic-
ture about a school."
Black said later that,
"EQAO assessments are
assessments for learning and
not for ranking or comparing
schools.
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"Boards have always used
EQAO results to help our teach-
ers and schools to develop
strategies to improve student
learning and achievement;" she
said.
"Published rankings such as
this undermine valid evaluation
and testing measures, ,discour-
ages and demoralizes teachers,
and belittles the efforts of our
students."
Brown, for her part, agrees
that schools should not be
ranked.
"I think that every school has
its merit, and I don't think that
it's fair to compare one school to
another," she said.
Brown noted that the 2006 FI
report is based on test results
from 2004-05, and said, "Every
group of students is different.
We do our very best every year,
and we know that our students
do too. : If that gives us a good
ranking, great. If sometimes it
doesn't, well we still know
we've done our best."
Huron -Bruce MPP Carol
Mitchell congratulated -St. James
on its achievement on Monday,
but said the results from the FI
have not been validated by the
Ontario Ministry of Education.
"I know that a number of
years ago, comparing school to
school...there was a. lot of com-
petition building of community
against community," she said.
She then echoed Brown's
statements, saying, "What I
believe is each school has
strengths and weaknesses, and
this report is another factor that
we use as an indicator."
The entire FI report can be
viewed online at www.fraserin-
stitute.ca.
Jeff Heuchert photo
Van Egmond Foundation president Jim McIntosh helps
serve breakfast to Melinda Dietrich, of Egmondviiie Sunday
morning outside the Van Egmond house.