The Fraser Institute published the annual rankings of Alberta secondary schools, the most easily accessible tool for parents to compare the academic performance of the province's high schools.
The Report Card on Alberta's High Schools 2024 ranks 292 public, Catholic, independent and charter secondary schools based on eight academic indicators generated from Grade 12 provincewide testing, grade-to-grade transition and graduation rates.
"The report card offers parents information they can't easily get anywhere else, about how schools perform over time and how they compare to other schools in Alberta," said Peter Cowley, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.
Contrary to common misconceptions, the data suggest every school is capable of improvement regardless of type, location and student characteristics.
For example, Forest Lawn High School is one of the province's fastest-improving schools, climbing from a score of 3.5 (out of 10) in 2017 to 6 in 2023, the latest year of available comparable data, despite 46.2 per cent of the school's students being English Language Learners and 19 per cent of students having special needs who require additional support.
Over the same period, Strathcona-Tweedsmuir, a private school in Okotoks improved from a score of 8.2 to 9.7.
"We often hear that schools can't improve student performance because of the communities and students they serve, but the findings in our school report card suggests otherwise," Cowley said.
For the complete results on all ranked schools and to compare the performance of different schools, visit https://www.compareschoolrankings.org/
