Seven Toronto elementary schools have been given perfect scores and another has been named as one of the fastest improving in the province in an annual report put out by a Canadian think-tank.

The Fraser Institute ranked 3,037 public and Catholic schools from across Ontario based on their performance in province-wide reading, writing and math tests and Toronto’s Arbor Glen Public School, Kennedy Public School, Avondale Alternative Elementary School, Cherokee Public School, Hollywood Public School, Sathya Sai School and the Islamic Foundation School were among 13 schools to receive a perfect score of 10. Mississauga’s St Edmund Separate School, Olive Grove School, Khalsa School Malton and the IQRA Islamic School also received perfect marks.

Meanwhile, St. Charles Garnier Catholic School near Jane Street and Finch Avenue was included among a list of the 10 fastest improving schools in the province after seeing its score jump to 3.8 after averaging out to 2.7 over the previous five years. Madoc Township School was ranked as the fastest improving school in the province after it scored a 7.7, up from 1.2 in 2010.

“I think there is one terrific thing and that is that out of these 3,037 schools, 180 of them have shown real statistically significant improvement in their overall rating over the last five years,” report co-author Peter Cowley told CP24 on Sunday morning. “What the (education) minister should be asking is what have these done schools to enable their kids to acquire greater skills and how we can we apply that not in 180 schools but 3,000 schools?”

Math scores take a hit

While the average score in both the Grade 3 and 6 reading and writings tests was up slightly in Ontario during the 2013-2014 school year, Crowley noted that the data revealed that scores are starting to slip in math.

Crowley, however, said that more and more kids are at least meeting the provincial standard in math, despite a drop overall.

“When we look at the overall picture, certainly math is the one that would be the concern because it is slowly going down. That said one of the indicators we look at is the percentage of the tests that were written by the kids that didn’t meet the provincial standard and that continues to drop,” he said. “More and more kids are meeting the provincial standard but we still have some work to do with regards to math.”

In addition to provincial test scores, the Fraser Institute also considered the gender gap between scores and average parental income in compiling its rankings.

Remember for instant breaking news follow @cp24 on Twitter.