Girls' private academies earned the top three spots in the Fraser Institute's annual secondary school rankings, a list criticized by many teachers as a biased endorsement of privatized education.
The only public schools to break the top 22 are Vancouver's University Hill and Lord Byng at 15th and 18th place, respectively. Of the 280 schools ranked, 48 are private.
But the report's co-author, Peter Cowley, says it's also important to acknowledge the schools that have shown improvement over the past five years, including 14 public schools spread across the province.
"They've found ways to ensure that the current class is doing better than the previous classes, and that is all you can ask of any school," Cowley said. "It doesn't matter where you start from, it's which direction you're going in that counts."
Another 26 schools showed statistically significant declines in performance, 22 of which were public. The four private schools that dipped were Southridge, Shawnigan Lake, Immaculata and Surrey's Holy Cross, which fell from 40th place to 86th.
Two public schools, Nisga'a in New Aiyansh and George M. Dawson in Masset, tied for last place overall with scores of zero. Neither school was ranked last year.
Cowley said he can't understand why so many educators oppose the rankings, calling them "the only objective measures that are easily available and easily understandable that the parents and educators have."
Mike Lombardi, vice-chair of the Vancouver School Board, said the annual report is more adequately described as "basically rubbish."
"Anybody in the research community other than the Fraser Institute will tell you that it has no value whatsoever for student assessment," he said.
Lombardi said some private schools give their students practice tests for the Foundation Skills Assessment exams that are used, in part, to determine rankings, and that the final list effectively punishes and humiliates students in poorer communities.
He told any Vancouver students discouraged by their school's position to keep their chin up.
"I'm proud to have them in our system, and we're working with their teachers and their parents to make a difference so these kids can succeed and go on to realize their dreams," he said.
Other factors used in the report include average exam marks for Grade 10-12 courses that require provincial exams, percentage of provincial exams failed, graduation rate and delayed advancement rate.
Similar studies are completed each year in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, and the results are collectively viewed by roughly one million parents across Canada, Cowley said.
Over the weekend, the BC School Trustees Association passed a motion calling on the government to end the FSA standardized tests in favour of randomized student assessments.
A third of Vancouver students' parents already refuse to let them take the FSA, Lombardi said.
To view the Fraser Institute's annual school report cards, click here.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Scott Roberts
