School Rankings’ Lessons

As we pause on this Super Bowl Sunday to reflect on California’s latest round of school rankings, we recall a line from longtime pro football coach Bum Phillips:

“If you can get your poor players to play mediocre, your mediocre players to play good and your good players to play great, you’re a winner--and I don’t care what the scoreboard says.”

Hence the close attention not only to how Ventura County schools stacked up against all other schools but, more significantly, to how they compared with those in communities of similar income, education and English-language proficiency.

Best in Ventura County by that yardstick was Hueneme Elementary District. Although 10 of its 11 schools rated among California’s underachieving campuses when the state released its first set of rankings last week, four of the district’s campuses--including both of its junior high schools--received the state’s top ranking of 10 when compared to similar schools. Four more earned rankings of 8 or 9 on the 10-point scale.

Hueneme is far from Ventura County’s wealthiest or most ethnically homogenous district. So how do Supt. Robert Fraisse and his team manage to follow Coach Phillips’ advice?

The superintendent is quick to credit good, well-paid teachers and extensive after-school English instruction for the successes of the predominantly Latino district. He also cites strict discipline, a policy of requiring students to wear uniforms, and extensive use of computers.

Meanwhile, in Thousand Oaks, officials scurry to explain why their high-performing schools compared so poorly with schools in other well-educated, affluent communities. They blame the embarrassing results on incomplete data and vow that recalculating the rankings would produce more encouraging results.

Such contradictory signals, appropriately, underscore both the value and the danger of this exercise.

It’s helpful for parents and school officials alike to see which of the local districts are getting their students to exceed expectations, and to look at what strategies seem to be accomplishing this success. But there’s peril in focusing so intently on the numbers that the larger mission of education is eclipsed.

Show us teachers who are genuinely excited about their subject matter and can convey that passion to their students. Show us school districts in which learning is viewed as an adventure to be enjoyed around the clock--and for a lifetime. Show us programs that challenge students to think critically and creatively, not just to fill in the right bubble on a multiple-choice exam.

Those are the winners--and we don’t care what the scoreboard says.