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Small and religious schools are the way to go
The Fraser Institute has published school rankings for Ontario elementary schools. The rankings take into consideration the students’ backgrounds, rating schools on the basis of how much value they add to their students’ learning. Only schools that administered the provincial grade 3 and grade 6 tests are included in the tables, meaning that few private schools are ranked (they can’t afford to pay the approximately $50 per student fee).
I looked at the 22 top-ranked schools (p. 208) to see if there were any common themes, and indeed there were! Almost every school had fewer than 400 students, and most had considerably less than that. Of the 22, 4 were private religious schools and 6 were publicly-funded Catholic schools. Only 12 (just over half) were public schools, but even some of them had extenuating circumstances - for example, French immersion or gifted programs that drew students from afar or the school that is 99.99% Chinese. Considering that two-thirds of Ontario schools are public schools, the public schools are definitely under-represented in the top ranks.
Of these 22 schools top ranked at a 10 point Fraser rating, an 81 % showing (18 schools) of publicly funded schools is quite commendable to the contrary. And if you look at further schools ranked in the 8-9 point range, the near majority of the schools are indeed public schools.
From when Ontario undertook provincial standard testing several years ago to the present, the incremental advances of students to the Level 3(provincial standard) point has been remarkable. 15% overall increases over time have surpassed most expectations. It is that the rate of those schools going from Level 3 to Level 4 that have been marginally lower for various reasons( at about a 10% increment). Nonetheless, the Ontario public school system should receive kudos for such advances.