August 20, 2008 - Board of Education Meeting - 8 AM

Dear Dobbs Ferry Community Member,

 

Each year, Newsweek Magazine publishes its annual edition of “Americas Best High Schools,” in addition to other premier national publications that run similar stories.  While Dobbs Ferry High School has consistently received favorable rankings in these reports, our District in conjunction with 40+ other school districts representing a cross section of some of the finest public schools in the country, have unanimously decided not to actively participate in these types of subjective news stories.

 

Many Superintendents, including myself, believe that the schools, communities and readers are poorly served by Newsweek’s persistent efforts to use a single statistic to rank schools, effectively the number of students who sit for AP or IB exams. The inventor of this flawed methodology, Jay Mathews, is right that there are few consistent measures of school quality, state-to-state, but that does not justify inappropriate use of the data that does exist. In reality, it is impossible to assess which high schools are “the best,” and no one formula can support such a designation. Students and school communities deserve better than simplistic and misleading rating systems to accurately determine the “value” of education.

 

Student achievement is measured by student performance and progress over time, and takes into account a variety of factors including clearly articulated standards, practices and outcomes that reflect student learning. While obtaining a copy of a district’s state “report card” is easy enough to do, there are many other more valuable ways to appraise a community’s school district. Our soon to graduate class of 2008, for example, boasts an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist, one of the most prestigious science honors given in the nation. Another senior was just awarded the merit-based Hodson Trust Scholarship at Johns Hopkins University. Approximately 25% of our 105 graduates will receive International Baccalaureate (IB) Diplomas this June. All of these accomplishments, to name just a few, speak volumes about academic achievement, but they are omitted in Mathew’s pre-determined “formula” for success.

 

According to research, the most highly effective schools provide a challenging and rigorous curriculum, and provide an atmosphere where ALL students can learn. Factors such as maintaining small class size, hiring excellent teachers with advanced degrees and gaining acceptances to the nation’s top-tier private and public colleges are also important benchmarks for success. Student achievement is clearly a complex recipe with many ingredients and has to be looked at on a continuum, and cannot be derived from a finite set of statistics.

 

To this end, I have joined with other like-minded school superintendents nationwide and have asked Newsweek Magazine to omit our schools from their rankings, no matter how well we score. However, the data that the magazine is seeking is public information and can readily be obtained through a FOIL request.  Since the school district is obligated by law to provide these statistics, in exchange, Mr. Mathews has agreed to write a column quoting the superintendents’ letter and Newsweek (in the full online version) will list the schools protesting the Challenge Index and state our concerns about this means of assessment.  We steadfastly refuse to endorse any “index” that uses such a superficial approach to measure the “quality” of our schools.

 

Sincerely,

Debra Kaplan
Superintendent of Schools