TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -03/04/12)- The Fraser Institute today published its annual ranking of Ontario elementary schools, allowing parents to review the academic performance of their child's school over the past five years and compare it to that of other schools in their community and across the province.

"Using long-term, provincewide school performance data, our school rankings let parents monitor the performance of their child's school over time and also help educators identify key areas for improvement in their classrooms," said Michael Thomas, Fraser Institute associate director of school performance studies.

"Our report card is the only objective, reliable tool that shows which schools across Ontario have improved, or fallen behind, in terms of reading, writing, and mathematics over the past five years."

The Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools 2012 rates 2,695 public, Catholic, and francophone elementary schools across the province based on nine key indicators using data from the annual provincewide tests of reading, writing, and mathematics administered by the Ontario government's Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO).

The report card also includes key information about each school's make-up, including parents' average income, the percentage of ESL students, and the percentage of special needs students. Results of the report card are available in an interactive and searchable format or as a free PDF at http://www.compareschoolrankings.org.

According to the rankings, the 20 Ontario elementary schools showing the fastest academic improvement over the past five years include 16 schools where parental incomes are below the provincial average. At one of these schools, ESL students make up 32.7 per cent of the total student enrollment; at another, 36.6 per cent of the students are special needs. The complete list follows.

The report also notes that, of the 19 schools tied for first in the provincewide rankings, seven have parental incomes lower than the provincial average.

"In fact, of the 2,695 schools included in the report card, 565 performed above average academically despite having parental incomes lower than the provincial average," Thomas said.

"These results show that both academic excellence and continued improvement in academics is possible in any school, regardless of the personal and family circumstances of its student population."

Data contained in this year's report card also shows that 29.5 per cent of exams written in 2011 scored below provincial expectations, compared to 30.1 per cent in 2010.

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Fraser Institute Ranks Academic Performance of 2,695 Ontario Elementary Schools