Board debates ending student ranking
The Spring-Ford Area School Board has asked the administration to study the variables involved in listing a student’s high school ranking on a college application, following a lengthy discussion over whether including a rank does more harmthan good.
Many on the board believe ranking was a necessary aspect of the competitive college admission process and said Tuesday that doing away with it was inappropriate.
“I think it’s a mistake by colleges to eliminate measures to make it subjective as to who gets in,” said board member Mark Dehnert. “I think it’s part of the dumbing down of America.”
Others weren’t quite as convinced.
“You must also take a look at the fact that there are some very high ranking schools in this region, higher ranking than our school, who are doing away with it,” said board member Ed Dressler. “You have to ask yourself why are they doing that? Are they stupid? I don’t think so.”
The request comes after high school Principal Patrick Nugent, Theresa Weidenbaugh, 9th grade principal, and Kimberly Bast, director of curriculum and instruction, expressed a desire to do away with the system during the last curriculum and technology committee meeting.
Board member Dawn Heine explained in her report that they feared students were being put at a disadvantage by including a rank on their college applications compared to those students whose schools do not have a ranking system. They suggested forming a taskforce composed of students, parents, teachers, administrators and school board members to further discuss the issue.
“I agree with Mr. Dehnert,” board Vice President Tom DiBello said. “I don’t support doing away with competitive levels. I think that’s happening too much across the board the way it is.”
Before a taskforce could be formed, he said, a number of unanswered questions needed to be researched.
“It’s the old thing that everybody gets a ribbon for participating,” said board President Joe Ciresi, “and unfortunately when you get into the real world, you don’t get a ribbon for participating.”
A taskforce could be better spent trying to determine how to make the curriculum more rigorous, he said.
Dressler said he felt the issue was worthy enough of some real investigation.
“There are issues to be looked at here,” he said. “To just say we’re wasting our time is just inappropriate. This is an important issue and requires some time to investigate this.”