From: stank@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Stan Krieger)
Subject: Class rankings, etc (was: Branding kids, IQ tests, smart vs dumb (Was: Re: Seminar Program)
Organization: Summit NJ
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 17:14:57 GMT

In an area to branding children as smart, dumb, etc., my pet peeve is
with the class ranking system used in high school; especially in my
district.  When I explained this system (details to follow) to a cousin
who is an elementary school teacher in an urban district, her first
question was "Does the curriculum include a stress reduction course?"

Anyway to begin, grading is from "F" to "A+", where F is 0 and A+
is 4.5 (A is 4, etc).  But, to "encourage" students to take courses
to their ability, courses are assigned a weight of from 1 to 5, where
AP courses are "5", and "standard" courses are 3.  Now, to get the
actual grade, for Grade Point Average and for class standing, the
grade is multiplied by the course weight and divided by 3.

Now, when I was in high school in the early 60's, we never got a "premium"
for being in an advanced class.  It would show on our transcript that
we took an advanced class, and our grades were skewed upwards so that
we weren't penalized for taking a harder course, but we didn't get
a statutory adder or statutory multiplier.  As an extreme case under
the current system, after the fact, I told my daughter that she should've
taken "yearbook" as a pass/fail course instead of as a letter grade.  Sure,
she got an "A" in the course, but it was a one weight, thus the "A"
was equivalent to a D+ for GPA, and thus class standing, computation.

Of course, just to make sure that the students don't have enough to
worry about, there are 7 instructional periods each day, but to graduate
all that is needed is to take physical education (i.e., "gym") and
5 other courses (including the required stuff, like 4 years of
English, 2 years of American History, 1 year of World Cultures, and
others things that I forgot about), meaning that one period a day can
be in "study hall".  But, to discourage study halls, a flat 2 points
(that is, effectively raising a "C" to an "A" in one 3 weight course)
will be added to the total for any student taking 7 courses instead
of just the minimum 6.

Despite the fact that this forces marginal students in way over their
heads just to try to stay even, here are a few more inequities and
stupidities that this system has-

     1.	First year of a foreign language is a 2 weight, 2nd and 3rd years
	are 3 weights, 4th year is a 4, and "5th" year (a college level
	course) is a 5 weight.  Our Junior High, over the 7th and
	8th grades, teaches the equivalent of 1 year of a foreign
	language; thus most 9th graders start high school taking the
	2nd year of a language.  Of course, suppose the child who took
	French in Junior High wants to switch to Spanish.  This means
	losing ground because the grade in Spanish I is worth only
	67% of what a grade in French II is worth.   (An additional
	argument against this is that, while its intent is to get
	encourage students to continue with a foreign language,
	is French IV any harder than French III?   I'm sure the
	incremental amount of knowledge over the previous year is
	the same, so why should the grade in one be worth 33% more
	than the grade in the other?

     2.	To make sure that the child prodigies get enough of a jump
	on the rest of the world, roughly the top 10% 6th grade math
	students will be put into an accelerated program in Junior
	High, with the result being that they'll finish the equivalent
	of Algebra I in the 8th grade.  Of course, because this means
	that their 12th grade math course is a 5 weight (college calculus);
	their grades in the 4 years of math they take are worth
	more than the grades of the other 90% of the students.  I mean,
	isn't it enough that their transcripts show the higher level
	math courses?  Do they also need bonus points on their GPA?

     3. I've heard stories of the very intelligent students trying to
	get permanent medical gym excuses just so they could take yet
	another 4 or 5 weight subject to boost their GPA.

Any comments, or any other equally disasterous high school ranking systems?
-- 
Stan Krieger                 All opinions, advice, or suggestions, even
UNIX System Laboratories     if related to my employment, are my own.
Summit, NJ
smk@usl.com