The SUSI Rankings are, naturally, not without a little controversy. I have had angry women from various school districts that do not rank well call me, shout at me for five minutes, and then hang up before allowing me to speak. I have had teacher organizations launch a personal attack on me for creating rankings based on EQAO test-scores. I have had the Globe & Mail write several articles about what I do, and the articles have been fair.

A lot of people would like to know what kind of credentials I have to post information on schools. That’s a good question! My credentials are:
1. Concerned parent; 2. Concerned citizen; 3. Real estate agent who needs to know this information for her clients. It’s public data – No more credentials needed! I crunch the numbers in a fairly basic way, and use demographics to compare them to each other. And the demographic analysis corporation I use (Environics) keeps me updated every year! :)

But most of the controversy that I have heard about from educators can be said to revolve around the following statement:

“Test scores DON’T tell the whole story of a school! Some schools lie in disadvantaged areas which make it more difficult for teachers to teach academics properly, while other schools actually PREPARE their students specifically for the EQAO tests, giving them an unfair advantage. What do you have to say about that?”

I agree 100%. A school’s merits certainly do not lie in test scores alone, and teachers in disadvantaged areas sometimes have to concentrate more on life-teaching to their students than academia. However, if I’m a parent, and I have the option, I want my children to go to a school that does do well in the EQAO tests, for a couple of reasons…

• One, I can indeed AT LEAST make the light assumption that a school that has much-better test results than others are seemingly DOING their job properly*, that is, making my children learn something of value (and different from what they learn on Xbox) and if a particular school DOES over-prepare their students for the EQAO tests so that their overall average is higher, well, that still isn’t the worst thing in the world….

• Two, I’d rather have my children be influenced by peers who DO wish to do well on tests and ARE interested in learning, rather than peers who might have other priorities…

And the Potency Rankings DO rely on socio-economic factors in a district to tell the story of that particular school – that is, they rank that particular school based on how it stacks up against other schools with students from similar socio-economic backgrounds. Those rankings count for one-third to one-half of the total weight of the overall rankings, and so I believe that the SUSI Rankings are the Number-One Source for school rankings in the GTA today. I even moved my own children into one of the top school districts in my rankings.

(*In no way does this imply that schools with poorer test results have teachers who AREN’T doing their jobs properly – I will never imply that.)

If you are still interested in this debate, I have posted an article written AGAINST the EQAO testing, and one written IN SUPPORT of the EQAO testing.