Travis Anderson, director of federal schools on Six Nations, says the methodology is flawed for a 2025 report by conservative think tank The Fraser Institute placing Six Nations schools near the bottom of its list for education quality.
Anderson presented parts of the report to Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council last week and said the low rankings for Six Nations Schools do not accurately reflect the quality of education or learning at Six Nations federal schools.
The 2025 provincial school Fraser Report ranked thousands of Ontario schools from zero to 10 based on the EQAO test results from the 2023-2024 school year. Emily C. General received the lowest score for all Six Nations schools, at 0.8 out of 10 on the Fraser Report of school rankings. It came in 3,036th place out of 3,053 schools. J.C. Hill ranked 2,969 on the list and I.L. Thomas ranked 2,963. OMSK ranked 2,913 out of 3,053.
The Fraser Institute arrived at its rankings by extrapolating data from the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) tests on numeracy and literacy for the 2023-2024 school year. The EQAO tests are standardized tests in reading, writing and mathematics for grades three and six. Schools are given test results that rank their students’ achievements on levels from one to four. Level one means below the provincial standard, level two means approaching the provincial standard, level three means meets the provincial standard and level four means exceeds the provincial standard.
However, when looking at provincial test results for grade 6 reading at Oliver M. Smith Kawennio (OMSK) for 2023-2024, the school showed it was meeting or exceeding the provincial standard (level 3 or 4). That is a “perfect example” of not focusing on the Fraser Report to determine school success, said Anderson. “The data tells us a little bit different.”
Numerous factors affected Six Nations’ scores, including the lower number of students taking the EQAO tests, as well as just coming out of the pandemic that year, which was the first full year back in class after two years of virtual learning. “Coming out of the pandemic was quite the task,” said Anderson, who oversees operations for all five Six Nations federal schools, including Emily C. General, OMSK, I.L. Thomas, J.C. Hill, and Jamieson Elementary.
Anderson said there were issues with the Fraser Report methodology, including the pandemic and the fact that if one or two students opt out of the test, that hurts the whole school’s EQAO results. “We’re a small cohort,” Anderson said of Six Nations schools. “Anything under 20 is not ideal and results are unreliable and federal schools do have those small cohorts. Those are the things that aren’t taken into consideration and this misleads parents about school quality.”
EQAO results are based off a one-day, 40-minute test for literacy and numeracy. Comparing provincial schools against each other using EQAO results without context is misleading, said Anderson. The report also failed to take into account special education needs, consideration for test-taking errors, and student participation numbers. “Using any single test to judge a school is oversimplification,” he said.
Anderson said even the EQAO objected to the use of its data by the Fraser Institute to compile its report. Despite the issues with the Fraser Institute’s reporting methodology, Six Nations schools will be using EQAO results to focus on student improvement where needed, said Anderson, with grade three reading being a priority. He said large-scale reform takes about three years.
