The Fraser Institute's annual ranking of B.C.'s elementary schools was released Monday, with South Surrey's Southridge School topping the local school list – again – with a perfect score of 10.
The Vancouver-based public policy organization annually gives B.C. schools a rating out or 10 based on results of the Minister of Education's 2009/2010 Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) tests of writing, reading and numeracy in Grades 4 and 7.
Seven of the highest-ranked Surrey schools are private, while three public schools made the top 10 with scores of 7.9 or higher. Southridge has scored a 10 for the past several years. Overall, local school scores dipped as low as 2.1.
The B.C. Teachers' Federation says the Fraser Institute's rankings are meaningless and misleading because they're based on test scores only, ignoring the many other things happening in B.C. schools.
Peter Cowley, the Fraser Institute's director of school performance studies, argues the tests are crucial in measuring performance of individual schools and help identify trends.
The full report is available at www.fraserinstitute.ca.