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Basic School Rankings

OurKids.net can help you find the best school for your family

We understand that many parents want the best school for their children. Basing your idea of "best" on third party rankings is fundamentally naïve, though. In fact, it can mislead families when they put undue emphasis on school rankings lists.

Please remember these basic points:

• Rankings provided by anyone are unfair to both schools and parents. They're always unfairly reductionist with respect to schools. For parents, they create the impression that there is one school that's best while all others are inferior (including the one they may end up sending their children to). Read more about the unfairness of school rankings.
• No ranking algorithm will be an exact match with your own values. External authorities rank schools based on a set of criteria that may purport to be objective, but supposed objectivity is always coloured by bias.
• They cannot tell any family which school is the best for their needs and the needs of their children. Parents who engage in a long, well-thought school search are often surprised by their end choice. They encounter many subtleties in their search process, subtleties which can never be accounted for in simplistic ranking lists.

• How we rank schools
• Advice from experts on how to read school rankings

Why Ourkids.net provides school rankings

Regardless of any misgivings we have about school rankings, parents and families continue to consult such lists (sometimes out of simple curiosity, for sure). Searches for "best schools" and "school rankings" number roughly 20,000 per month in Canada, signalling the value parents and kids attribute to these ratings. Around the web, you'll find school rankings lists provided by everyone from the Fraser Institute to real estate agents and others who have no business telling parents which school is the "best." What's more, lists are rarely qualified with appropriate cautions or even reservations.

With that in mind, we think that people seeking school rankings should get them from Our Kids. We are the only source for rich information on hundreds of data points, collected directly from the schools themselves. We present these to you, parents and families, in easy-to-use tables, based on what's important to you.

We urge you to focus instead on a well-advised, holistic-minded school search process, fully research every aspect of schools, and be sure to meet with schools face-to face at school expos, open houses and/or school tours.