The Path from the Canada Investment Summit to a More Prosperous Canada

How to Assess a School’s Performance: Vancouver Sun Op-Ed

Published in the Vancouver Sun on June 11, 2010

By David Johnson

There are about 1,400 elementary schools in British Columbia, with about 600 of them in Metro Vancouver. How do parents, teachers, taxpayers and school administrators know if children are attending a school that does well by its students, that is, where the best schools are?

In a study published by the C.D. Howe Institute this week, I have created a measure of school performance that fairly compares schools where students come from similar social and economic backgrounds.

There is a big range in school performance, and some schools are better than others, but they cannot be meaningfully ranked by simply using the percentage of students who do…

Dropouts are the system’s Achilles heel: Globe and Mail Comment

October 26, 2009 –  Celebrating Canada’s performance on international tests overlooks the high dropout rates among francophone men in Quebec and aboriginals, according to John Richards, Roger Phillips Scholar in Social Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute. Writing on the Globe and Mail comment page, Professor Richards assesses the scope of the problem and recommends potential soutions.
To read the op-ed, click here. 

Membership Application

Interested in becoming a Member of the C.D. Howe Institute? Please fill out the application form below and our team will be in touch with next steps. Note that Membership is subject to approval.

"*" indicates required fields

Please include a brief description, including why you’d like to become a Member.

Member Login

Not a Member yet? Visit our Membership page to learn more and apply.