Seven Toronto schools have scored perfect marks in the Fraser Institute’s annual ranking of Ontario elementary schools.

The think-tank ranked 3,037 public and Catholic schools, as well as a small number of private schools, based on province-wide tests in reading, writing and math. The institute uses the average level of achievement for Grade 3 and Grade 6 students to generate a score out of ten.

For the 2013-2014 school year, the following Toronto schools all received perfect scores of 10:

  • Arbor Glen Public School;
  • Kennedy Public School;
  • Avondale Alternative Elementary School;
  • Cherokee Public School;
  • Hollywood Public School;
  • Sathya Sai School; and
  • the Islamic Foundation School.

Six other schools in the province also received perfect scores, including four Mississauga schools: St. Edmund Separate School, Olive Grove School, Khalsa School Malton, and the IQRA Islamic School.

Of the more than 3,000 schools in the rankings, the Fraser Institute says 180 elementary schools have shown significant improvement over the past five years.

Overall, scores in reading and writing improved slightly across the province, while there was a dip in math results.

"Educators at the 180 improving schools should be applauded for their success. Conversely, parents at declining schools should be asking the principal why the school’s overall rating is failing," the institute’s director of school performance studies, Peter Cowley, said in a press release.

The Fraser Institute’s school rankings have caused controversy in other parts of the country for their use of standardized testing and their failure to note socio-economic factors that could affect test scores.

In British Columbia, the B.C. Teacher's Federation opposes the Foundational Skills Assessment test used to generate the rankings. The federation says on its website that the test "does not help students learn or teachers teach."

But Cowley said the annual rankings are useful for parents, and "provide an incentive for all those connected with a school to find ways to improve."

He also said this year's Ontario rankings prove every school is capable of improvement, regardless of surrounding factors such as location, the proportion of students with special needs or in ESL programs, and the type of school.