When AIMS issued its first Atlantic Canadian High School Report Card in 2003 six schools received an A+ or an A. This year only one school out of 316, Islands Consolidated School in Freeport, Nova Scotia, earns an A.

“We have a lot of good schools in this region”, says Charles Cirtwill, vice president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), “but we have few schools that are running away from the pack. In fact, what we see in this year’s results are a lot of schools falling into the pack and others dropping behind it.”

The report card is published annually in Progress business magazine and this is the fourth year the magazine has dedicated an edition to the AIMS Report Card.

The news this year is not good. In francophone New Brunswick only eight schools received a ‘B’ or better, compared to 11 last year. In Anglophone New Brunswick that number is 16, compared to 21 last year. In Nova Scotia there are 24 schools above a ‘B’ but there were 29 last year. In Prince Edward Island the ten schools assigned a final grade split evenly; 5 with a ‘B’, 5 with a ‘C+’.

But the news is not all bad, Newfoundland and Labrador had only 49% of its schools score a B or better last year, they improve that to 66% this year.

The decline results from the ongoing challenge of securing complete data from education officials about what goes on in schools. Says Cirtwill, “AIMS, and anyone interested in knowing what’s going on in our schools, is dependent on what the educators make available in terms of data. If the data is not recorded and reported then we have to assign those schools an Incomplete.”

The number of schools in this report card that could not be assigned a final grade has swelled to 108 of 316. Last year that number stood at just 47. However, some data is available on just about every school.

Also available this year is an on-line report card that provides the public with all of the measures available for 316 high schools in Atlantic Canada. Parents, students and teachers can review this information by using this link (click here). 

“The purpose of the report card is to help all of us understand what is going on in our schools and work toward making it better for everyone,” says Cirtwill.

“The Report Card is a guide,” says Cirtwill. “It tells you where you should be asking questions and what types of questions you should be asking. If your math exam scores are low and half your kids are generally absent, then you have one problem. If everybody has been in class, and your exam scores are low, you have another.”

To access more information and results tables, click on the links below:

For more information, contact:

Charles Cirtwill, AIMS vice president 
902-489-7699

Barbara Pike, AIMS Director of Communications
902-446-3543 / 902-452-1172