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My kids attend an international IB/French BAC school in the U.S. where students are not ranked, grades are not weighted, and student GPAs are not calculated. Transcripts show all course descriptions and grades on a 100-point scale and teachers give predicted scores for the IB exams taken in May of senior year. (IB results are not known until July, after graduation.) College admissions officers cannot use simple screening metrics to evaluate these applications but it hasn't hurt the students, 100% of whom matriculate at excellent universities in the U.S. and around the world.
The kids do not compete with each other that I observe; rather everyone is encouraged to do their best in an environment which fosters excellence from all. Sounds hokey, I know, but it really exists.
I was with you until the bold. I find that hard to believe. That just sounds too Pollyannaish. See Momma_Bear's post, just after yours. Kids still compete! They always find things to compete about, and some are more competitive than others.
My kids attend an international IB/French BAC school in the U.S. where students are not ranked, grades are not weighted, and student GPAs are not calculated. Transcripts show all course descriptions and grades on a 100-point scale and teachers give predicted scores for the IB exams taken in May of senior year. (IB results are not known until July, after graduation.) College admissions officers cannot use simple screening metrics to evaluate these applications but it hasn't hurt the students, 100% of whom matriculate at excellent universities in the U.S. and around the world.
The kids do not compete with each other that I observe; rather everyone is encouraged to do their best in an environment which fosters excellence from all. Sounds hokey, I know, but it really exists.
The thing is, if you will, the school, at least as you've described, is full of students who would probably be in the top 10% to 20% of most other schools. And that is the problem -- it's so different from the typical school and student body that lessons' learned don't transfer well. And note I used "typical" rather than "average" intentionally because I don't believe schools are normally distributed. Rather most schools are below average since the top schools, such as lkb describes, are so far above average they skew the distribution.
Which is why we need to look beyond schools where students are fighting over a thousandth of a GPA point. If they are that close, they are essentially equal since the grading system can't differentiate that finely. Most places don't have that problem. Therein is the key problem with Kohn's article. He conflates students who have insignificant GPA differences with groups of students that have significant differences.
Public schools were established so manufacturers would not have to spend the time and money to teach their future employees the "three R's". These schools also helped determine who would work on the concrete floors of the factory or the carpeted offices of middle management. Competition and grades were very helpful to making these determinations. Upper management kids were trained at private schools and universities and outside of these schools.
This changes as science became more important to our Military Sector and factory jobs decreased in importance. AS increasingly complex technology is replacing both 'blue and white' collar work the education systems have to provide appropriately trained potential, but not guaranteed, workers. Grades and ranking are less important to current and future careers.
How does your response add anything to this discussion?
How does your attempt to take a discussion about the value of class ranking in high school and use it to paint broad, meaningless strokes about everyone in academia add anything to the discussion?
My kids attend an international IB/French BAC school in the U.S. where students are not ranked, grades are not weighted, and student GPAs are not calculated. Transcripts show all course descriptions and grades on a 100-point scale and teachers give predicted scores for the IB exams taken in May of senior year. (IB results are not known until July, after graduation.) College admissions officers cannot use simple screening metrics to evaluate these applications but it hasn't hurt the students, 100% of whom matriculate at excellent universities in the U.S. and around the world.
The kids do not compete with each other that I observe; rather everyone is encouraged to do their best in an environment which fosters excellence from all. Sounds hokey, I know, but it really exists.
I teach at a similar school (public STEM magnet, no ranks, no weighting, 100% college, etc.) and kids still compete. They all know who the top kids are, they share their grades, they still compete for awards, etc.
And yes they absolutely compete for college acceptances. Friday was a big day at school with MIT admissions coming out...the results of the "competition" were in, and some "won" and some "lost". It is the nature of those who excel to compare themselves to some bar. A subset may use internal motivators, but the vast majority will use external ones, namely their peers.
And I am not sure why you think college admissions don't use simple screenings for these kids. A 100 pt scale grade, even if just "predicted" by the teachers, is calculated to GPA by a program, combined with SAT scores, and so on.
I thought I qualified the statement about competition by including "that I observe". I know it sounds too good to be true and trust me, the school isn't perfect (no school is), but unhealthy competition among the students is something I can honestly say I haven't witnessed or heard about in my decade of experience. I do regularly witness students working collaboratively and cheering each other's successes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
The thing is, if you will, the school, at least as you've described, is full of students who would probably be in the top 10% to 20% of most other schools. And that is the problem -- it's so different from the typical school and student body that lessons' learned don't transfer well.
Fair statement, plus we have a manageable senior class size of ~120 (a third do the French BAC separately). But I will also add that, being an international school, the school is not and cannot be as selective as an American private school. It has to accommodate international transfers wherever they are academically, so there is greater variability than at a typical private school. Plus, there are students in the upper school who entered at age 3, when it is impossible to predict later academic prowess. Weak students can opt to remain as long as they do not literally fail out. (I recognize the public schools must accommodate all students.)
Of course the college admissions officers deconstruct the transcripts and generate their own 'ranking' of the students. But by the school not doing that work for them, the colleges have to take a closer look at the students' transcripts which include detailed information about our school. Half the students speak English as a second or third language, many do not take the SAT as they will attend college abroad, ALL first year IB students (juniors) are taught to HL standards with HLs and SLs designated in the second (senior) year... Predicted scores are for the IB exam results and students are not privy to them. I just attended a meeting on this topic this week so it is fresh in my mind.
At this meeting our upper school headmaster told the story of how years ago he had a conversation with the headmaster at THE top private school in our city, who was bemoaning the fact that so many of their creme-de-la-creme students weren't gaining admission to the state's flagship university after it implemented a "top 10%" rule. Suddenly only a handful of their students were getting in with the new arbitrary standard, despite all of their students being really excellent. Our headmaster advised them to stop ranking students. Don't you have to rank them? No, no you don't. Voila, they stopped ranking their students soon after.
It would be ideal for all students to have similar holistic review but I realize it may not be scalable. It is slower, certainly, demanding greater discernment from the college admissions officers who are crushed by the sheer volume of applications. But that is another problem...
Yeah - everyone should be valedictorian.
And let's get rid of those inconvenient exams too. I mean, they just cause anxiety.
lets just do away with grading....
its not fair some kids get A's while others get d's or fail..
you mean the A student studied and takes pride in his grade and wants to learn??? while the fail student chose not to study,,,,or partied all weekend..
seriously
top performance and achievement should be rewarded...
you make everyone the same no matter the effort then its socialism,,or redistribution,,,pretty much what democrats do with taxing.
whats the incentive to try hard/work hard if you don't get rewarded for it??
that's why I don't like unions,,,,you get rewarded for longevity not merit/performance
There is no case. If Mexicans and African-Americans didn't rank below whites it wouldn't even be an issue.
Obvious troll is obvious.
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