High marks for C.B. high schools - TheChronicleHerald.ca
High marks for C.B. high schools Strait board also shows well in think-tank's annual report card By KRISTEN LIPSCOMBE Education Reporter Fri. Apr 4 - 10:52 AM Cape Breton schools garnered great grades in a report card released Thursday by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, snatching six out of the top 10 spots in this year's ranking of high schools across the province. Cape Breton Highlands Academy in Terre Noire stole the show, achieving the only A- grade in Nova Scotia. Dalbrae Academy in Southwest Mabou ranked third and Baddeck Academy was fourth, with both schools achieving B+ marks. Mr. Cirtwill said the think-tank's main concern with Nova Scotia's school boards is their resistance to releasing standard exam results and teacher-assigned grades on a school-by-school basis. A ruling by Nova Scotia's review officer for the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act two years ago said "the release of student achievement data (is) in the public interest," the institute says. But Chignecto-Central superintendent Noel Hurley doesn't put much stock in the annual report card, pointing to continued academic success across his region. Inserted from <http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1047528.html>
On the mainland, Charles P. Allen High in Bedford received a B+ too, maintaining its grade from last year but moving up from seventh to second place. Dr. John Hugh Gillis Regional School in Antigonish was fifth on the list, also with a B+.
At the other end of the spectrum, four schools from the Halifax region were among the bottom 10 on the list of 65, with Musquodoboit Rural High in Middle Musquodoboit ranked 64th with a C-. Duncan MacMillan High in Sheet Harbour, Cole Harbour District High and Millwood High in Lower Sackville all receiving C grades.
Three of the 10 lowest-ranked schools are from the Chignecto-Central region, including Springhill Junior-Senior High, which got a C- and was at the bottom of the list.
Overall, the province's public school performance "is pretty consistent with how they performed last year," Charles Cirtwill, acting president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, said after releasing results from the region during a news conference in Moncton.
"We have kind of a wide range of schools," he said in a phone interview. "We have schools that are doing very well across a large number of measures and then you have schools that have particular challenges, but no school's without something to work on and no school has a situation where there's nothing that they're doing well."
Strait region schools are usually successful, but he said they really stand out in this year's results with four in the top 10.
On the surface, the Halifax region appears to have dropped down the list, but Mr. Cirtwill stressed that two former top schools, Queen Elizabeth and St. Patrick's, have been replaced by the new Citadel High. Last year's report card ranked QEH at No. 1 and St. Pat's at No. 8.
"The problem with the Halifax board, of course, is that two of the schools that were doing quite well don't exist anymore," he said. "We won't have a sufficient data set for Citadel High for at least three years."
While some boards such as Halifax have improved their information flow, Mr. Cirtwill said others, including Chignecto-Central, "continue to be a real problem in terms of reporting data that's useful to the public."
"We're beating each other up with a comparison that, as far as I'm concerned, has very little validity," Mr. Hurley said Thursday.
For instance, he said, Chignecto-Central placed fourth in the province last November in a worldwide reading assessment. Chignecto-Central students also placed second in standard Grade 3 and Grade 9 assessments, he said.
"We should be celebrating how well we're doing in Nova Scotia, not beating schools down. Their data is muddled. They're really not a representation of how the schools are actually doing."
Jack Beaton, director of programs and student services for the Strait board, agreed that the think-tank's study uses "a rather narrow band of information that's used to determine academic achievement."
Although he was pleased to see Strait schools rated so highly, Mr. Beaton said he has serious concerns "around the whole idea of ranking schools."
"You need good measurement of how students are doing and how schools are doing before you can start coming to conclusions about what you should be doing in the future," he said.
Education Minister Karen Casey said the provincial government is doing its best to get information to the institute.
"In fact, we're quite anxious to get that information out so everybody can recognize the successes we are having and teachers and principals can build on programming that will help close that gap," she said after cabinet Thursday.
Ms. Casey said boards were asked to submit data so the province could distribute it to the institute. But she added the province doesn't have a sophisticated data system in place.
Mr. Cirtwill emphasized that the more we know, the better off our students are in the end.
"Everybody has a natural concern about having their performance assessed. It's an uncomfortable process at the best of times (and) people get worried that it's going to be a finger-pointing exercise.
"(But) we need to have a conversation. If you publicly report information, schools get better. . . . That's the bottom line."
With Amy Smith, provincial reporter
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