Spring Branch Board Explores the Class Rank Issue

Last Fall, the Board authorized the creation of a task force to explore the issue of class rank in our high schools.  Over half of the high schools in the United States no longer report class rank, and many people, including me, believe that class rank is damaging to many if not most of our students.  I will present the data supporting this position below.

The Class Rank Task Force met six times this Spring, and at this time has turned the discussion back to the Board without a recommendation.  At the end of this post, I have downloaded the Task Force's Report and all of the documents the Task Force reviewed.

Tomorrow night (April 25), the Board will have the first reading of a revised policy that would eliminate class rank beyond the top 10%.  The draft policy that the Board will consider is available by clicking here. 

Three cutting-edge districts in Texas - Highland Park, Coppell, and Eanes - have dropped class rank beyond the top 10% and report increased college acceptance rates for their students.  (Click  here to read Highland Park's full report on why they eliminated class rank).  The main reason for doing so, and the reason most private schools and KIPP Academy's Houston High School have dropped class rank is that the strong academic competition and student success and college preparedness are not acurately reflected in the single data point of individual student class rank.

As with the other Texas Districts, private schools, and high schools nationally, I believe the academic strength of our Spring Branch high schools and the academic performance of our students present the clear case for doing away with class rank beyond the State-mandated top 10%.

Extremely Tight GPA Ranges: The data shows that students at all 5 Spring Branch high schools are very tightly bunched in grade point average (GPA).  As shown immediately below, an "A" student at Memorial and Stratford, and a solid "B" student at Spring Woods, Northbrook, and Westchester Academy, will find himself in the bottom half of the class.  Indeed, a "B" student at Memorial and Stratford will potentially find himself in the bottom quarter.  (Our Board discussed this issue for the first time at our meeting on April 19, 2011.  Click  here for the PowerPoint I used that night that includes detailed GPA data for each Spring Branch high school).

The table below shows the GPA at the 11th, 25th, 51st, and 75th percentiles in each high school:

There are a number of additional reasons why schools across the country have eliminated class rank.  I believe these reasons apply with equal force in Spring Branch:

1.      Students avoid the courses they are interested in to take courses that advance their  rank.  In 2009, Spring Branch lead the argument at the State Legislature to provide additional freedom for our students to take electives during high school.  This change has allowed students to take athletics and band, or multiple foreign languages, or theater and athletics, etc., all of which is in alignment with the Board's view of the importance of student choice.  However, these classes are not "weighted" for GPA purposes.  As a result, these classes, and all non-required (i.e., anything other than math, science, English, and social studies) are a “hit” to the student’s GPA and thus class rank.  The current system is therefore disincentive to students who want to take electives, contrary to the articulated position of the Board.

2.    Single data point.  A student's class rank, as a single data point, fails to reflect anything else about a student, including the student's activities, interests, non-academic successes in fine arts, athletics, etc.

3.    Class ranking may eliminate holistic application review of students by college admissions offices.  Most colleges report that they utilize a holistic approach to reviewing student applications if a class rank is not presented.  A holistic review always presents a more complete picture of a student's individual successes, academic and non-academic.

As stated recently by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), "A system of class rank should not carry with it an underlying assumption that academic success is a scarce commodity available only to a select few students." 

In addition, the College Board website states that while "class rank was once a major component in admissions decisions, according to a recent report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) over half of all high schools no longer report student rankings."  The College Board also states that "Most small, private and/or competitive high schools have done away with it because they feel it penalizes many excellent students who are squeezed out of the top 10 percent of the class and then overlooked by elite schools.

I couldn't agree with the NASSP and the College Board more.  And that is why I believe Spring Branch should follow the thoughtful lead of over half the high schools in the United States, and our sister districts in Texas, and adopt a policy limited to ranking only the top 10%.

Finally, for those who might worry that eliminating class rank will hurt students, I recommend reading this article that summarizes the admission factors are typically considered important by colleges according to The National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC).  The article reports that the NACAC found as follows:

Class rank. Class rank shows where you place numerically in your class, based on your GPA. Colleges that use this factor want to see how much competition you had to face to achieve your rank. However, fewer and fewer colleges are giving class rank much importance. In fact, fewer than half of high schools now track class rank.

This finding is supported by the chart below that shows the decreasing value college admissions offices place on class rank.

 

The draft policy that the Board will consider is available by clicking here. 

As the Board considers this policy, I have suggested the following questions should guide the decision:

• Does class rank damage the District's overarching goal for its students:

Students who start ninth grade in the district will graduate and earn a Bachelor’s degree within five years or an Associate’s degree or technical certification within three years.

• Does class rank accurately represent the level of achievement of SBISD students?
• Does class rank hurt students in the college application process?
• Do all students deserve to be positioned in the best way possible to maximize the opportunity for success?
• Should all students be best-positioned in a way that most accurately represents their secondary school successes in the college application process?
• Should all students have the best opportunity to go to college?
• Should all students be able to explore their areas of interest by taking electives? (athletics, fine arts, foreign languages, etc.)

Here are the Task Force documents:

Task Force Report

The materials reviewed by the Task Force are as follows:

• Literature Review
• GPA Decile Report
• Student Survey
• Phone Interviews with Universities
• Poll of Texas Districts, Poll of Comparison Schools and Poll of Private High Schools
  
• Studies from Highland Park and Round Rock
• SBISD High School Profiles
• SBISD College Enrollment Data
• Applications
• Current Class Rank Policy
• Task Force Agenda and Minutes
• Request for Approval of Charge for the Class Rank Task Force
  

 

Comments

[A Walker]

At first glance I thought this was a great thing. My child is not top 10 but does take AP and ECP classes, so I thought this was going to benefit her greatly. I contacted the college she would like to attend and found out that it can really go against her. With class rank, they look at that and her ACT scores to determine entrance. Without class rank, the application goes under immediate review resulting many times in a much slower response time. It will also penalize those who don't do well on the SAT/ACT tests.
I do not think this is a good thing to do at all.

[Bob King]

I could not disagree more.

Bit by bit we are removing competition from our high schools. In this drive to convince ourselves that all of our babies are special, we are removing the incentives to compete and achieve something. And in the long run, this does not do our kids any favors.

The bunching of GPAs at the schools is not an indicator of unfairness -- it's an indicator of grade inflation! Stratford this year has something like 35 valedictorians. 35! It's absurd on so many levels. Once a kid is on the "valedictorian track", it takes an enormous amount of courage for any teacher to give them a B and knock them off the pedestal. So guess what? They usually don't. That's where the grade inflation is coming from.

My son is one of those 35 this year -- but he knows he's not the true valedictorian, and he feels it's a crime that the TRUE VALEDICTORIAN is not being recognized by the school. Stratford has the data, but refuses to crunch it so that they can continue to pretend there are 35 co-equal valedictorians.

As a result, our son has no idea whether he's #2, #10, or #35 in the class. It's ridiculous. And he deserves to know.

And if a kid is 240th out of 500, he or she should know that, also. It's an incentive to continue to perform in the classroom all four years.

So, let's recap. We have four football teams in each district that go to the playoffs. We have 35 valedictorians. And now we're getting rid of class rank altogether. Outcome-based education concepts, all of them. No doubt there are countless more examples of this kind of thinking. High school is becoming the equivalent of Fun Fair Positive Soccer.

To dismantle class rank because some some affluent parents don't like their baby's results is a real commentary on what's happened to the world. And this notion, lurking unspoken beneath the surface, that our kids somehow have a right to attend UT or A&M because their parents did is what's truly fueling this. (Note to parents: any kid in the top 25% can get an automatic admit with a high enough SAT score. So stop griping about the fairness of the top 10% rule.)

We don't do these kids a favor by raising them in an environment with reduced competition. They will be entering a job market that is going to be ruthless, and my greatest fear is that this generation of parents have not prepared them adequately for what they are going to face.

[Brandon]

Eliminating class rank beyond 10% will only help everyone. It would be great for people who have a straight A average yet are not top 25% at MHS and SHS.

[Terry Rooney]

Thank you for bringing attention to this. Until reading this information I hadn't considered that doing away with the ranking was an option. Except for the exceptional students fortunate enough to make the top, it is a de-motivator for students. You have my support.

[Buy Essay]

Yeah I agree with you that class rank is really causing damage to students.

[Charles Breaux]

This sounds good on the surface, but I am not convinced that it has merit. Competition is part of the process that conditions students and prepares them for the university or work beyond HS. As a retired military officer, I can assure you that the military still depends very greatly on ranking of personnel during evaluations. Has anyone thought of the motivation generated by students who do wish to compete? Perhaps ranking is a true motivator, and without it students might approach their studies passively. This reminds me of the self-esteem issues propagated some years ago that blended everyone into a mediocre herd.

[Keith Little]

Mike - Thank you for posting all the documents reviewed by the task force. It would be great if the District would routinely post such documents from its task forces and also to provide community updates on the progress of such task forces and the Board's deliberations on the related subjects.

[Kris Vallee]

I support eliminating class rank. My daughter is an SHS class of 2012 prospective grad. Thank you!

[Janet Kelly]

I agree. Eliminating class rank beyond the top 10% is a fabulous idea - wholeheartedly support this move in SBISD.

[Antoinette Beale]

It appears that eliminating class rank is in the best interest of the students. Please proceed! My daughter is in the 2012 Class of Stratford High School.

Thank you!

[Ken Arthur]

Eliminating class rank will mitigate some of the unfairness that the 10% rule has caused for students attending schools with high academic achievement.