Alberta Girl’s letter to the editor and my link to the Harper Government Record of Accomplishments was published in the Hill Times. Well done. We have to keep getting the word out.

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This article was written by Cathy Cove and originally published in the Goderich Signal Star.  It is republished here today with the author’s permission because it is related to John Snobelen’s column in yesterday’s Sunday Sun, as well as one of today’s posts here at COTM.

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Last week the Fraser Institute came out with its controversial Report Card on Ontario’s Secondary Schools 2007 edition. The Fraser Institute report ranks of 719 secondary schools based on Grade 9 Math test scores, the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT), and a handful of other measurement indicators.

While our region’s schools did pretty well, a caution against ranking was raised by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne and Rick Johnson, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association. Both suggested that the tests should be used as a diagnostic tool, that ranking is questionable at best and could be very demoralizing if schools find themselves repeatedly hovering near the bottom.

The Fraser Institute’s Peter Cowley, author of the report card, stresses that the report was developed with parents in mind. Parents ultimately want to know how their kids are doing in school based on learning achievements. The report card represents just one tool parents may use to make an educated decision on selecting a school for their children.

Cowley suggests that not knowing how a student is doing is like a track coach never telling his athlete how other runners are performing. That is a good analogy. Without excellence in athletics we’d have no need for games, tournaments, and the recognition that comes with reaping the awards of merit based on skills developed.

There are merits in both philosophies.

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John Snobelen wrote a column in this weekend’s Sunday Sun on the business of learning. It is a definite “must read” for anyone interested in what schools are supposed to be all about — teaching the 3 R’s: reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic. Right? Isn’t that the core of turning our children into responsible citizens?

Well, apparently, that is not what some of the folks at my alma mater (University of Toronto’s OISE) are allegedly saying.  For instance, Snobelen says OISE faculty member John Myers “allowed that reading, writing and arithmetic are important but insufficient to produce responsible citizens in a complex world.” Insufficient perhaps, but are they not at the very core of what responsible citizens need to know?

So, what is the real issue here? It is the school rankings. As Snobelen writes:

Your [Myers'] notion that ranking schools based on test results is unfair to students from poor backgrounds is elitist and absurd. For the record, it wasn’t students who resisted the implementation of province-wide tests and it sure wasn’t parents. It was teachers who didn’t want their students’ performance evaluated and made public. I wonder why?

Well I know the answer, just as Snobelen knows the answer.  It is about teachers’ unions not liking the province-wide tests that ranks schools because teachers might be judged on those results. And, they should be. It sure isn’t about parents because parents WANT and DEMAND that they know how their child is achieving and how their child’s school is performing in relation to other students and other schools.

Is it any wonder that parents are frustrated and there is a grassroots movement for school choice? Parents want their kids to be literate, whether they come from a poor background or not. Yet, as Snobelen says, educators and trustees are worried about so many other things that have nothing to do with the real purpose of schools.

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Note: See also Cathy Cove’s column on the topic of school rankings.