Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Educational Myth-busting: School Rankings


Educational Myth-busting: School Rankings


Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia


[Permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]


It isn’t often that I have the luxury of watching television, but, when I see Discovery Channel’s MythBusters I smile. The hosts use their knowledge of science to entertainingly debunk myths. I’ve often thought that, if the program did some education myth-busting, it would be doing a public service.  The problem with my idea is that busting educational myths depends on logic and evidence, topics that don’t have much visual appeal.

One persistent myth about Canadian schools that deserves to be busted is that you can tell a lot about a school from its rank among other schools. In fact, school rankings are, at best, misleading and, at worst, dishonest.

The methodology used to produce school rankings compares each school with every other school being ranked. Those comparisons are mathematically adjusted to distribute the results (school scores) so that half of the schools fall below the average school score and the other half of the schools above the average.  When I point that out to parents, someone correctly points out, “That means that, if all schools improved by 50%, there would still be half of the schools below the average score.” 

People who produce school rankings based on student achievement conveniently ignore some of the other flaws in the logic. For example, they ignore that student achievement is a product of all the prior in-school and out-of-school experiences that a student has had up to the point when achievement is assessed. One implication of a highly mobile society is that holding a school accountable for the achievement of the students currently enrolled in that school probably places too much weight on the school’s influence and understates other influences. 

What we know from the lengthy history of studying student achievement is that, while schools – and especially the quality of instruction that students receive in schools – matter, factors outside of school matter more! Parental influence is one of the factors affecting how and how well students achieve in school. The amount and quality of interaction between parents and their children makes a difference. The value that parents ascribe to school and the respect they have for teachers affect how their children view their school experience and their teachers. 

Family income affects student achievement in several ways. Families living in impoverished circumstances have children who are less healthy. Those children are typically less likely to have seen a dentist or a doctor than their more advantaged peers. One reason is that parents struggling to make ends meet often work multiple low-paying jobs. If they take time from work, they lose pay. If employers think they are taking too much unpaid time off, they risk being replaced. Under such circumstances, the necessity of a visit to the dentist or physician can become a luxury that they cannot afford. 

On the other hand, more advantaged parents have time and resources they can invest in their children. They can ensure that their children receive regular dental and medical checkups. They can afford more nutritious food. They can attend school meetings and meetings with their children’s teachers. In addition, they can afford experiences such as after school activities and summer camps that are beyond the reach of their less advantaged peers. All other things being equal, children whose parents are better off reap educational advantages and benefits. 

Children who live in more challenging circumstances sometimes struggle with school work. If they are in classes where the students come from varied backgrounds, they benefit from having peers who are not struggling – especially if the more advantaged peers are in the majority. If children live in impoverished communities and attend school with children who also live in impoverished circumstances, they are deprived of the positive peer influences of those youngsters who live in advantaged circumstances.

Although the truth behind school rankings is not as visually appealing as investigating the cause of an explosion or a failed missile launch, it should make everyone – especially parents – think twice about the conclusions they draw from school rankings.   


Enjoy your Spring break (blog will resume in a few weeks)