These Mississauga Schools Just Received Very Good Rankings on a Controversial Report

A controversial report is out and the results are in.

And for yet another year, a number of Mississauga elementary schools are earning high praise.

In what might be considered very good news for Mississauga students (and parents of Mississauga students), a few of the city’s elementary schools recently netted good grades on the Fraser Institute’s Report Card.

Some top scorers in Mississauga include the Al Risala Academy, IQRA Islamic elementary school, Khalsa School Malton and the Safa & Marwa Islamic School.

All four schools received perfect (10/10) scores, keeping good company with other top-ranked schools on the list of over 3,000 academic institutions.

Other top-scoring Mississauga schools include Olive Grove School (ranking 23 at 9.6), St. Rose of Lima (32 at 9.4) and ISNA Islamic (34 at 9.3).

Other top scoring schools included Avondale Alternative elementary school in Toronto, Khalsa Community School in Brampton and St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn in Oakville.

The Fraser Institute ranks schools using publicly-available data such as average scores on province-wide tests.

While not everyone is on board with the Fraser Institute’s rankings (some say the rankings rely too heavily on the results of standardized tests), the think tank says its report card is useful tool for parents.

“The Report Card is a valuable tool for parents and educators because it allows them to easily identify successful schools across the province—serving similar students and communities—that can serve as an example to follow,” said Peter Cowley, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute’s School Performance Studies, in a news release.

The think tank also pointed out that the report card tracks a school’s progress and highlights significant improvements.

The Fraser Institute uses the example of St. Catherines’ E.I. McCulley Public School, where 61.9 per cent of students have special needs. According to the think tank, the school improved its overall rating from 4.6 out of 10 in 2014 to 8.9 out of 10 last year.

The report also mentions that McKellar Park Central School in Thunder Bay (which has 66.7 per cent special needs students) improved its overall rating from 3 out of 10 in 2014 to 7.7 last year.

“All too often, principals and teachers try to excuse a school’s poor overall performance by blaming the characteristics of its students or the communities they serve, but the Report Card shows that any school, no matter where it’s located or what challenges its students face, can succeed,” Cowley said.

To read the entire report, click here.