Annual rankings from the Fraser Institute for Terrace’s elementary schools show that student results are on the decline.
This information in the elementary school report card is based on Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) tests taken by students in Grades 4 and 7 and issued by the education ministry.
Suwilaawks Community school dropped the most, down to .7/10 in 2011 from 2.5 /10 in 2010. Suwilaawks was ranked 858 out of 860 elementary schools in B.C. Cassie Hall Elementary also dropped to 1.1/10 in 2011 from 3.3/10 in 2010, and was ranked 855/860.
Uplands Elementary has a slight drop to 4.6 in 2011 compared to 4.8/10 in 2010, and was ranked 787/860.
Thornhill Elementary school stayed the same at 3.6/10, and was ranked 787/860.
Veritas Catholic school also maintained its ranking of 8.3/10 from last year's report card, and was ranked 90/860.
Missing from the results were Centennial Christian School, and Ecole Mountainview. These schools were left out because of a lack of students available to form substantial data.
Coast Mountains school superintendent school district Nancy Wells said the results from the FSAs are taken in to account by the school district as one of many indicators of student progress.
“We don't consider it alone to be the only indication on how well a student is doing,” she explained.
“We always look at them (FSA results) in accompaniment of other results, and we are always trying to improve,” Wells said of this recent round of testing.
Peter Cowley from the Fraser Institute, and one of the report's authors disagreed, saying the results stand firm on their own as cause for concern.
“This is not a slim part of a much larger group of things, the kids have to have these basic skills, and two-thirds of kids at Cassie Hall are showing that they are behind their grade level,” Cowley said.
“How is this going to affect this generation of kids? Just a third of kids have acquired enough skills,” he continued.
The Fraser Institute is a think-tank and its method of ranking schools and only considering academic results are often considered controversial and criticized by teachers and others involved in education.
The institute uses government test results to find a 0 – 10 score, as well as a best-to-worst ranking for schools in the province.
The Fraser Institute also releases a B.C. secondary school reports card as well as a report card on aboriginal performance each year.