HALIFAX – The President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies has issued a public letter to the Premier of Prince Edward Island, Hon. Pat Binns to look personally into why no public information is available on the performance of the province’s high schools.

PEI’s schools, like those in the rest of Atlantic Canada, consistently rank behind those in the rest of the country on national and international tests. In order to make a positive contribution to remedying this situation, AIMS undertook to take all publicly available information about the performance of individual high schools around the region and to produce an annual report card on how each school was doing in ensuring its students got a strong education.

When AIMS was putting together its first annual high school performance report card, it was discovered that the PEI government knows virtually nothing about what goes on in the province’s own high schools. Additionally, education officials were complacent about this absence of information vital to ensuring that each student gets the very best quality education possible.

In his letter, Dr. Crowley urges the Premier to instruct his officials to stop trying to obstruct the annual report cards, and to work with AIMS to make sure appropriate information on school performance is identified and gathered. In weighing this request, Dr. Crowley asks the Premier to consult not only those in the education establishment, but also parents and students. “You will find, as I did when we released our report card, that there is a thirst out there for real information about what is going on in the schools. In the four days following the release of our report card, we had over 100,000 hits on our website. Parents thanked us for doing what they had been begging the schools to do for years – let them know how their school is doing compared to others.”

The letter was delivered to the Premier Monday, March 17 and is posted on the AIMS website.

For further information, please contact:

Jordi Morgan
Director of Communications and Development
Atlantic Institute for Market Studies
AIMS (902) 429-1143
Direct (902) 446-3532
Fax (902) 425-1393
[email protected]