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.