Professor Elam

Wed Jan 15, 2019

https://therivardreport.com/north-east-isd-to-end-class-rankings-for-students-not-in-top-10/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter-daily&utm_content=editorial&utm_term=education&utm_source=Rivard+Report&utm_campaign=ce7de9f0f2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_21_07_19_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1576c62124-ce7de9f0f2-84736689&mc_cid=ce7de9f0f2&mc_eid=b3fa08cd6c

Excerpt from article

Citing a desire to strike the right balance between rigorous academics and students’ stress levels, North East Independent School District trustees voted Monday night to end calculating class rank for students below the top 10 percent. The policy will take effect when the district’s current class of seventh graders enters high school.

“It is really important we have just the right tension on social-emotional learning when we think about rank,” said Colleen Bohrmann, NEISD’s executive director of Learning Support Services, at a December meeting. “We want to be sure that we are pushing the students to a rigorous coursework, but when is it too much?”

With no discussion and no district residents speaking on the matter, trustees unanimously approved the second and final reading of the policy Monday night. The approved changes to the policy can be viewed here in red.

Dear Colleen

Apparently the right tension is not tension!  If you are now in the  89th percentile, what will be the incentive to work or try if an observer cannot distinguish you from the one percentile, ie bottom of the class?

And here is a comment from a Chief Academic Officer

“We’ve found over time that labeling all students with an exact rank feeds a culture of unhealthy competition, stress, and pressure,” Katy ISD Chief Academic Officer Christine Caskey told the Houston Chronicle at the time of the policy change.

There’s no one rule that mandates how class rank should be calculated in Texas, Hardcastle told trustees. This often leads to districts calculating grade point averages and rank differently, he add

Dear Christine

Well if it's good for the goose, how about the gander?  If this is a good idea in class, can it be long  before say Clemson wants the same deal given its loss to LSU?  No doubt that was a as you put it ' culture of unheallthy competiition' and on national tv no less, how embarrassing, what a blow to self esteem!

Oh and now that one thru 89 percent is the same percent, what does the Chief Academic Officer do all day I wonder, well there is that pesky ten percent to worry about but gee surely they are not in need of much help, but someone does need to calculate that in  fact they are tenth and not eleventh.

As I recall TAMUSA admits the top 25% with no questions asked, hm how are we to measure the lost 15 percentile I wonder?

sigh….