Atlantic Canadian newspapers continue to wade into the debate on AIMS Report Card on Atlantic Canadian High Schools. In the Friday March 21 edition of the Journal Pioneer in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, the paper said it is hard to get upset over Education Minister Chester Gillan not having information on high schools ‘readily available’ when staffing issues should take priority.
AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley invites Premier to help ensure information on education is made public.
Reaction is swift across the region
The Daily Gleaner, March 15 editorial said the "The public.. is making public education its business." and asked why educators would ask the public to "ignore this report.” The editorial also asks the NBTA to “place their concerns firmly, clearly, and rationally on the table. Only then will the public be able to dismiss and condemn or accept and praise the AIMS work.”
Here is a sampling of the debate over the Report Card on Atlantic Canadian High Schools released by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. These letters appeared in the Wednesday, March 12, 2003 edition of the Halifax Chronicle Herald.
The Principal of Oxford Regional Schools reacts to the AIMS Report Card on Atlantic Canadian High Schools.
AIMS is front and centre in the Atlantic Canada media this week following the release of its Report Card on Atlantic Canadian high schools. The Report Card, which ranks regional high schools' performance, has ignited a heated debate over not only the results, but also the impact the study will have on the education system. Critics inside the education establishment have gone so far as to tell teachers not to even read the study. Supporters are saying this type of external review has been far too long coming.
Hopefully, future discussion of the AIMS rankings will shed a little less heat, and a little more light, on the education system.
In a strong editorial endorsement of AIMS' new high school report card, Grading Our Future, the Editorial Board of the St. John’s Telegram gently chides the report’s critics in the educational establishment for their “ostrich-like” attitude in counselling parents to refuse even to read the document. And how should Newfoundlanders and Atlantic Canadians regard the High School Report Card? The editorial argues that, …the study, like or lump it, is an extensive and expensive effort, and the think-tank should be congratulated for its initiative. There is great value in talking about what makes schools good or bad, and looking at ways that various schools can learn about their comparative strengths and weaknesses, and, as part of that, how they can improve. A most AIMS-like conclusion…
We say: N.B. should adopt and encourage the approach to evaluating the education system that the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies has initiated