Six Edmonton elementary schools listed as fastest improving by Fraser Institute

According to the Fraser Institute’s Report Card on Alberta Elementary schools there are six Edmonton schools that are the “fastest improving schools in the report”.

Belvedere, Sweet Grass, John A. McDougall, Hazeldean, Grandin and Greenview were listed in the top 10 schools that the Institute believed were improving quickly.

“It is almost the only thing you can ask of a school in terms of action to find ways and means to ensure that each successive class has more success,” co-author of the Report Card Peter Cowley told CTV News.

The organization said there were 52 schools in total across the province that were showing significant improvement, 21 of those in Edmonton.

“I can’t think of anything more important than to consult with these folks and see what happened,” Cowley said.

“It is possible there are things that they have done that could be adopted by other schools for the benefit of their kids as well.”

However, Cowley admitted the Report Card was limited to academic results of the schools.

“The difficulty I have is that there are no objective comparable annual-generated data that measure how successful schools are in any of the several other aspects of education that would probably be very important to parents and to educators.”

According to the report Edmonton’s high performing schools were:

Cowley suggested that parents use the report to look at how schools have been performing over the years.

“You get a much better idea over those five years and looking at those five years of how the school is doing.

“This is not just random change from one year to another but actual trend.”

The organization said that Hazeldean in Edmonton, which ranked eight in the top 10 showed “marked improvement”.

“Despite over 50 per cent of its Grade 6 class having special needs, Hazeldean students earned a score of 5.9 in 2014 – more than double its rating five years ago,” a press release stated.

Belvedere’s overall rating was 5.2 out of 10, Sweet Grass was 6.9, John A. McDougall was 5.3, Grandin was at 8.4 and Greenview was 7.4.

The Report Card ranks 813 public, separate, francophone, private and charter schools using provincial testing results.

For more information or to read the report visit the Fraser Institute’s website.