Proof That Catholic Schools Do Better Than Public Schools

In my previous post, I was asked for proof to my statement:

“The children coming out of the Catholic School system consistently outperform children in the public system”

So I am providing data below based on EQAO test scores. For those who are unaware, the province gives tests at grade 3, grade 6 in reading, writing and mathematics and they have done so since the 2001-2002 school year. They provide detailed information by board and by province.

Looking at this information is very critical at this time because the Liberal government is quietly leading voters down the path of removing the Catholic school system from the offering to Ontarians. It has not been explicitly stated, but it is clear that if they do not support segregated school funding support for all faith based schools, that this is simply an extension as the Catholic system IS a faith based system.

As there are dozens of school boards, I selectively chose ones that had both a public system and Catholic system that overlapped. This is the results which you can go confirm yourself at the EQAO website.

Durham School Board Comparison

Ottawa Carleton School Board Analysis

Renfrew School Board Comparison

Toronto School Board Analysis

Waterloo School Board Analysis

York School Board Analysis

So you can see that YES the Catholic school systems consistently outperform the public systems when put on equal footing in terms of testing and locale.

The only system in which the Catholic system lost out was in Toronto. If math was removed from the Toronto equation, the Catholic school system, again, outperformed the public system.

7 thoughts on “Proof That Catholic Schools Do Better Than Public Schools


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    September 13, 2007 at 10:42 am
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    Those numbers are misleading

    1. the EQAO states “Exercise caution when
    interpreting results for small schools or boards. Results may vary considerably from year to year, and differences may look exaggerated. For example, in a school of 20 students, a difference of 10% represents only two students.” So to compare smaller Catholic boards to larger Public boards is misleading.

    2. The numbers from EQAO includes students that are exempt from writing the tests in the final percent. Basically you don’t have to write you still get counted as zero. The public board has a much higher percentage that the Catholic board. Taking those exemptions out and the numbers are very close.

    3. The public board also has much higher numbers of ESL students on average.

    The moral of the story is that Catholic and Public students are both doing quite well and trying to say the Catholic board is doing so much better is very misleading without a proper analysis.


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    September 13, 2007 at 11:11 am
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    Yeah, it’s a pretty inane comparison.

    Which system has more schools that are filled with rich, suburban white kids whose families have been in Canada for generations, the public system or the Catholic?

    Which system has more schools that are filled with poor, urban, visible minority kids whose families just moved to Canada, and who are just learning English?

    Now, I think I know the answer to both those questions (it’s pretty obvious), but regardless, if one can’t answer those kinds of questions, the conclusion you reach above, based on the numbers you use above, is utterly meaningless.

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