After hearing it discussed on CBC Radio yesterday, I spent some time looking at the Fraser Institute’s controversial “Report Card on British Columbia’s Elementary Schools 2010” primarily based on BC’s Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) Testing.
As to be expected, it looked like the Victoria public schools that did the best in 2010, and consistently over the last 5 years are in the “best” neighborhoods.
I’m encouraged that it looked to be fairly equal English and French immersion schools, as we don’t intend to go French immersion. We have heard that if enrolling English consider a full English school.
It’s kind of sad, but expected that our severely underfunded education system would be most successful were supplemented by parents, and where parents put more value on school excellence, and have the energy to be more active in their children’s educations.
I was disappointed, but not surprised that the closest school to our house, Cloverdale Traditional School did not do well. Although, surrounded by some nice neighborhoods, there are also commercial areas close by and (relatively) less expensive homes. I was hopefully that the focus on tradition of the school would give it a significant boost. The reported 49.4% ESL surprised me.
I’m looking forward to reviewing the 2011 reports for elementary and secondary that will come out next month. Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) will be doing a report for the Western Provinces for the first time this year, but only for secondary schools.