03/03/2022
RANKINGS : There has been a lot of talk about declining rankings in the SAU. We should all be concerned about the quality of education our children are receiving. But, let's evaluate education in a meaningful way - which is a lot more work. Children are more than standardized tests - perhaps this is why many colleges are now "test optional", meaning they do not require SAT or ACT scores, in the admissions process.
Did you know some of these rankings use the number of students who took AP exams (took - not passed) compared to number of seniors to impact ranking. So if you had 30 more students take and fail the AP exam, a school could be ranked higher.
In all reality, rankings tell us very little about the quality of education our children are receiving. Don't get me wrong - no one wants their high school rankings to be low. and there may be ways to use rankings as a a tool, but not as an indicator of education quality. Rankings may tell us about the type of instruction at the school - how well are we teaching to the test. They may help us ask questions about long term trends. They show a snapshot in time on student performance. Don't get me wrong - standardized tests can be a useful tool, but not to attack a school for how they rank against other high schools (apples to oranges).
Teaching to the test instead of teaching our children the competencies they need to succeed is outdated. It is the way I was educated many years ago; memorize and regurgitate.
Thankfully, education today has progressed. Today's education standards demand our students perform and demonstrate competencies, like critical thinking. And yes, there are plenty of ways we can and SHOULD evaluate the quality of our district's education (attendance, drop out rates, graduation rates, internships, and other indicators the community deems important using the Balanced Scorecard). All kids deserve a candid assessment of academic rigor and a high quality public education.
As you are doing your research on rankings, you may want to read this article "Why High-School Rankings Are Meaningless—and Harmful" by John Tierney in The Atlantic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/why-high-school-rankings-are-meaningless-and-harmful/276122/
Here is are two excerpts: "...the Mathews ranking -- and, to a lesser extent, the others -- amplifies the absurdity that pervades contemporary public education in the United States, where cramming students' heads with information and then subjecting those students to standardized tests seems to have supplanted helping students to learn as the preferred modus operandi of many education officials, and where the behavior of school officials is shaped more by perverse incentives than by educational common sense."
"...The ranking itself is meaningless. But the harm it and other lists of its kind do to public education and the role they play in driving the College Board's revenues can't be overlooked. These lists may sell papers and draw readers to websites, but for those of us outside of that business, we've a duty to push back against this kind of reductionism wherever we see it."
How much value can there be in an index that rates thousands of schools? When it reinforces the worst tendencies in our education system, not much.
