New interactive version of the annual Report Card on Quebec’s Secondary Schools unveiled today in Montreal

Montreal, August 24, 2006 – The Fraser Institute today introduced a new interactive, web-based version of the popular Report Card on Quebec’s Secondary Schools. The Bulletin interactif des écoles secondaires du Québec was launched in conjunction with the Montreal Economic Institute and L’actualité magazine at a Montreal event hosted by L’actualité.

Available online at www.lactualite.com, this new tool lets parents, teachers, and school and district administrators decide how they want to judge a school’s academic performance. Users can choose overall school ratings or detailed, course-by-course exam results. They can then compare their school’s results with the provincial average as well as with up to five other schools that are ranked in the Report Card.

They can also compare schools that share similar school and student characteristics such as the percentage of special needs students at the school or the average income of the students’ families.

“With our new bulletin interactif parents and educators are more easily able to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges,” said Peter Cowley, the Institute’s director of school performance studies and co-author of the Report Card.

The schools’ results are presented instantly in an easy to read, full-colour chart that provides a graphic illustration of how the school is doing. Each chart includes up to eleven years of historical data to clearly display how a school is performing over time.

“There is no more comprehensive and easy-to-use source of information on Quebec schools than can be found today in the Bulletin interactif des écoles secondaires du Québec,” added Norma Kozhaya, co-author of the Report Card and economist at the Montreal Economic Institute.

The Web site contains the school results included in the 2005 edition of the bulletin that was released in October of 2005. It will be updated annually at the same time as the annual Report Card is published.

–30–

CONTACTS:
Peter Cowley, Director of School Performance Studies, The Fraser Institute / Tel.: (604) 714-4556 / Mobile: (604) 789-0475 / Email: peterc@fraserinstitute.ca
Patrick Leblanc, Director of Communications, Montreal Economic Institute / Tel.: 514-273-0969 / Mobile: 514-571-6400 / Email: pleblanc@iedm.org