This week the Fraser Institute's annual report card on B.C. high schools was released and reported on in the Vancouver Province.
We too have a story this week, telling you how our three local schools ranked - along with comments from educators and school trustees who clearly are not in favour of such a report card.
While these statistics may seem to be a good idea, the selective criteria and the hockey statistics style in which this report is presented, is clearly not in the best interest of our education system.
The report provides a ranking of the province's 279 public and private secondary schools.
On the surface, to some, the report card sounds like an objective way of comparing schools.
In our opinion, the results are clearly skewed to favour private institutions and big-city schools that cater to the best students and have no time for the rest.
On the Sunshine Coast, we have three high schools that get access to the same education, but in the process, when you compare our results to that of the private and big-city schools, it looks like our educators are not doing their job.
This report card takes a slap at our teachers and our education system.
The report card takes a narrow slate of categories - provincial exam results, graduation rates, differential between school marks and provincial exam marks - and assigns each school a grade out of 10. When you look at the final rankings for the Vancouver Island and Coastal schools, eight private schools are in the top 10 along with two public schools. The two public schools, by the way, include Whistler Secondary and Claremont in Victoria.
There is no mention of any of the little guys or the smaller schools in isolated communities such as the Sunshine Coast.
The report card doesn't take into account the fine arts, athletics, music or parent participation - all things we're sure our Sunshine Coast schools are proud of.
Sure, our education system is not perfect, but is this an accurate reflection of what is going on at our schools?
While we're sure some feel the Fraser Report Card is a valuable educational tool, it says only one thing to us - private, big money education trumps public education.
That's a sad thing and a disservice to our education system. Be sure to remember that when you read this report.
