Laurent Robillard-Cardinal & Allyson Beauregard
At the beginning of November, the Fraser Institute released their annual Schools Report Cards that ranks 454 public, private, Francophone and Anglophone secondary schools in Quebec, based largely on the results of province-wide tests in French, English, Science, Mathematics and History.
Province-wide
Laurent Robillard-Cardinal & Allyson Beauregard
At the beginning of November, the Fraser Institute released their annual Schools Report Cards that ranks 454 public, private, Francophone and Anglophone secondary schools in Quebec, based largely on the results of province-wide tests in French, English, Science, Mathematics and History.
Province-wide
The school with the highest score in the province was, unsurprisingly, the private Montréal school Jean-de-Brébeuf which obtained a perfect score of 10. Province-wide, the highest ranked public school was l’École d’éducation internationale in McMasterville with a score of 9.7.
Sieur de Coulonge high school (ESSC) in Fort Coulonge was ranked 352 out of 454 (4.8 out of 10) while Pontiac High School (PHS) in Shawville was ranked a bit higher at 302 out of 454 (5.2 out of 10).
In spite of ESSC’s lower provincial average, it is
one of the better schools
in the Commission
scolaire des Hauts-Bois-de-l’Outaouais, compared to La Cité étudiante’s (Maniwaki) ranking at
404 out of 454 and
Cœur-de-la-Gatineau (Gracefield) ranking 443
of 454.
In the Western Quebec School Board, PHS ranked at the bottom behind Philemon Wright (145 out of 454) and D’Arcy McGee (129 out of 454).
Subject break-down.
For French training, ESSC’s score dropped from 69.5 in 2013 to 61.6 in 2014. Although the school scored 82.6 for second language instruction, which is higher than the provincial average, the score dropped from 2013’s 91.8. Scores in Science also dropped from 72 to 70.3, while History increased from 61.7 to 62 and Math increased slightly from 60.6 to 60.7.
For second-language training, PHS’s score dropped from 76.9 to 71, but English barely budged, ascending from 67.5 to 67.7. Science on the other hand slid from 73 to 66.3 while Math rose from 61 to 65.2. Lastly, History decreased from 68.8 to 66.
One of the factors that contributed to both of the schools’ lower rankings is the number of ‘F’s’ they both received; both schools’ scores increased with PHS going from 17.6 in 2013 to 25.7 in 2014 and ESSC going from 23.4 to 27.3.
James Shea, Chairman of the WQSB Council of Commissioners, believes that last indicator is unreliable. “It’s (in) the definition of a drop-out. We
have challenged this
with Québec’s Ministry of Education. If a student leaves the provincial system and goes to a school in Ontario, for example, they are considered to be a drop-out. It’s kind of a false statistic because we’ve been able to track students to the schools they go to, and certainly they are not all drop outs,” explained Mr Shea. “For Québec schools bordering Ontario, students leave for all kinds of reasons,” he concluded.
