St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School received the highest ranking of any Sudbury-area school in the Fraser Institute's 2011 Report Card on Ontario's Secondary Schools.

The Fraser Institute, a public policy think tank, released the report May 8. The report uses publicly-available data such as average scores on provincial tests to rank the schools.

St. Benedict received a ranking of 7.7 out of 10 from the Fraser Institute in 2009/10, the same ranking it received five years ago.

Two other South End high schools, Lockerby Composite School and Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School, received the next highest ranking of the schools in the area from the think tank next to St. Benedict, both receiving a score of 7.5 out of 10.

Both schools received a score of 7.4 out of 10 five years ago.

The Sudbury-area school which received the worst ranking from the Fraser Institute is Chelmsford Valley District Composite School, which received a ranking of 1.5 out of 10. The school received a ranking of 3.3 out of 10 five years ago.

"Our report card is the number one source for objective, reliable information
about how Ontario secondary schools stack up in terms of academics," Michael Thomas, Fraser Institute associate director of school performance studies and co-author of the Report Card on Ontario's Secondary Schools 2011, said in a press release.

"By displaying individual school results for the past five years, the report card offers a 'motion picture' indicating whether a school has improved or declined over time. The idea is that every school is capable of improvement, and that everybody should have easy access to clear, up-to-date information about the performance of schools province-wide."

One important "motion picture" the report card reveals is a reduction in the percentage of secondary school exams scoring below the provincial standard over the past five years, dropping to 26.9 per cent in 2009/2010 from 29.3 per cent in 2005/2006, the press release said.

"This is a promising trend for Ontario schools," Thomas said.

"But with more than a quarter of exams still falling below the provincial standard, there is room for academic improvement across the province. Our report card makes it easy for anybody to identify the areas in which individual schools most need to improve to provide their students with the best possible education."

Individual school results may be viewed at www.compareschoolrankings.org.