The Fraser Institute released its controversial school rankings today, and Herbert Spencer Elementary garnered the top ranking in New Westminster by placing 193rd out of 853 schools in the province.
Next local schools in order of ranking were Richard McBride, Lord Tweedsmuir, Queen Elizabeth and Lord Kelvin. In New Westminster only five out of nine school were ranked on the performance report.
Peter Cowley, Fraser Institute director of school performance studies, said the report card is based on the student results in Foundation Skills assessment in Grade 4 and Grade 7, provincewide testing in reading, writing and math in those two grades. When looking at the data from the tests, they need the school to have at least 15 student writers and at least 15 test results in each one of those six tests, Cowley said.
"Even everything else was OK. If they had say, only 14 students wrote the writing test in Grade 7, that would eliminate the school," he said.
For school districts with middle schools, such as New Westminster, the Fraser Institute tracks students' Grade 7 test score and attributes their performance to the elementary where that student attended Grade 4, Cowley said.
There are a number of parents who pull their kids out of the test because the British Columbia Teachers' Federation opposes how the Fraser Institute uses the results to rank schools.
In the overall ranking, 12 schools were tied for the No.1 spot - all were private school except West Bay Elementary School in West Vancouver.
