Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic elementary was ranked 147th, tied with 18 other Ontario elementary schools for the 13thhighest rating on the list compiled by the Fraser Institute.

It scored 8.7 out of 10 on the group’s 2010 report card. Five years ago the school had a 4.6 rating; last year it was 8.7.

The news didn’t come as a surprise to principal Catherine Van Balkom.

“I knew we’d score high,” she said, adding the school is up for a Garfield Weston award later this month for improvement in academics.

Van Balkom said her staff focuses on small, flexible group learning with its 266 full-time students and gives them “useful, useable” immediate feedback.

Topping the list, tied with 17 others across the province in the No. 1 spot, is another Hamilton Catholic school, St. Martin of Tours in Stoney Creek.

The top Hamilton public school was Rousseau in Ancaster, which scored 9.3, putting it in the seventh spot. The top public school on the Mountain was Norwood Park, which earned a 7.8 rating. Norwood’s rating is up from a 6.2 rating in 2005.

Ward 7 (central Mountain) trustee Lillian Orban said the public board is focusing resources on where a need is seen.

“The focus on student success is still very strong,” she said.

The authors of the study say the report “collects a variety of relevant, objective indicators of school performance into one, easily accessible public document so that anyone can analyze and compare the performance of individual schools.”

The ratings are based on results from standardized provincial tests for Grade 3 and 6 students and is designed to answer the question, “In general, how is the school doing academically?”

The lowest-ranked Mountain elementary school was Chedoke, which scored 2.6, down from a high of 4.1 two years ago. The lowest-ranked Catholic school was Sacred Heart at 3.9, down from a high of 4.8 in 2006.

The full report can be found at www.compareschoolrankings.org .