Charles Cirtwill, co-author of the 7th Annual Report Card on Atlantic Canadian High Schools, said it is now easier to get answers about school performance.

But “we still have a lot of work left before us,” said the executive vice-president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.

Nova Scotia has done better than New Brunswick by reintroducing provincial exams, producing more information and making it public, the think-tank said.

But Mr. Cirtwill pointed to important data on the outcomes of university students collected by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission.

“Those (commission) reports do not help your local math teacher identify the fact that her students regularly take and fail calculus at UNB or at Dal or at Memorial,” Mr. Cirtwill said.

“The data could easily tell us that, but no attempt is made to report that information at the high school level.”

But it’s not because the commission doesn’t want to release the information.

“It’s because they have not been given the mandate to do so, and this needs to change,” said Mr. Cirtwill. The group would also like to see research on those who go on to community college, private training or the workforce and on those who don’t graduate from high school.