Grading and Ranking of WHS Seniors

[wantaghmom]

Maybe I am missing something but the following doesn't make sense. The GPA/Rankings were distributed to WHS senior students this past week. A student with a GPA of 97 doesn't make the top 25 percentile, GPA of 90 is in the 44 percentile, GPA of 86 in the 31 percentile. These grades/rankings seem to be off the charts, perhaps an indicator of over inflated grades in WHS? Isn't this doing injustice to our students? A student who had WHS English grades in the mid 80's (now in college) has been asked by college professors why they weren't placed in remedial HS English classes, apparently the student doesn't have the ability to write and has to attend remedial classes in college. How did this student get English grades in the mid 80's while in our HS and can't write their way through college, our system failed this student. Students shouldn't be passed through the system just to get them through, a great injustice has been done and is continuing in our school system.

[Chris_Wendt]

Interesting post.

Thought-provoking, with the first thought being about process or redress. To wit: what should be done about this, and by whom?

Better still, to whom should you take this issue and in what forum or format?

Suggestions include finding out if other parents and students, or especially alumni share your perspective and your concern about this. If there are a number of people, but especially recent alumni who are of a similar mind and agree with your conclusion, then you should approach the administration directly, with your findings.

Let me know if I can help...I am in the phone book.

Regards

Chris Wendt (Wantagh)

[backintheday]

wantaghmom :you have a great insight here and if possible try to gather more info. I have a couple of graduates and they had an extremely difficult time writing their essays in college. My third boy no longer goes to WHS.

[lilly]

I think it is symptomatic of a large problem.

When most of us parents were growing up, there was no curving on Regents or state assessments. There was no submitting tests to Albany for them to decide which q&a should be ignored/excluded from the score after the test was taken. If you got 100% on an exam, you truly got 100%. Not so today... I think Newsday did an article a while ago that said you only needed to get something like 2/3 of the answers correct on one of the science Regents pass or get a high grade.

And then there is NY claiming improved performance on state assessments when the national data showed NY had lowered the performance criteria of the tests.

This has nothing to do with "over testing" of kids today and everything to do with the "adults" who run it, gaming the system.

And it all ties into why the U.S. is #1 in spending per pupil but dropped to 25 or 40 rank globally in terms of academics as well as English professors' common complaint that freshman do not have college ready writing skills.

I too was surprised by the WMS honor society inductions. I sat in one ceremony and mentally calculated that the majority - over 1/2 maybe 2/3 - of the 8th graders were inducted. Honor society is based on 90%+ average, community service and extracurricular participation and maybe teacher recommendation.

Also, I hate the stats Wantagh spews out about "scholar athlete teams". I don't want to take anything away from the kids but c'mon, how surprising/valuable is that given how many 90%+ students we seem to turn out? What is the real value of that 90%?

Chris, I doubt this will be something that the administration will be quick to address, if at all. There is simply no motivation for them to do so.

One of my kids is no longer attending WHS, in part due to this. My kid totally knew how to game this system.

[Chris_Wendt]

Lily wrote:
"I too was surprised by the WMS honor society inductions. I sat in one ceremony and mentally calculated that the majority - over 1/2 maybe 2/3 - of the 8th graders were inducted. Honor society is based on 90%+ average, community service and extracurricular participation and maybe teacher recommendation."

I attended the National Junior Honor Society induction ceremony at Seaford Middle School on Tuesday. There were about 25 inductees.

If our respective estimations of the Wantagh and Seaford Junior Honor Society inductions are correct, then that is a huge and signficant difference, percentage-wise.

Each week I deal with 7th graders and with 8th graders from Wantagh, Salk, and Seaford Middle Schools. I find them pretty much indistinguishable in terms of the qualities and attributes evaluated for selection into the Junior Honor Society. In other words, if Wantagh's MS students are supposedly 10 times more likely than Seaford MS students to make the Junior Honor Socitey, then I just don't see that.

Interesting situation.

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

Found my documents. My estimate was off although the #'s are still high.

101 of 325 or 31% of WMS 8th graders were inducted (HS class of 2013).

I hope no one reads this as make the requirements harder for the kids as is typical, rather administration take a closer look at the academic rigor of our offerings. (I don't think the district can change NHS requirements anyway.) But it does kinda correlate to wantaghmom's original comments on HS rankings.

[Chris_Wendt]

...and I counted noses in the photos I took at Seaford MS and compared them to the NJHS Induction program.

Twenty Five (25) Junior Vikings...on the nose!

Wantagh had FOUR TIMES the number of NJHS inductees that Seaford has? And we use a term like ""RIGOR"" over here?

Sorry to be so cynical about this one, but something is just not right on the face of it.

Incredulous.

Chris Wendt

[wantagh4life]

New to the board, and I could not agree with you more. I think that many members of our community need to take a hard look at how their "involvement" in the schools has negatively impacted the academic programs. I have stood by and listened to more than my fair share of people complain about how they needed to call the school "to get" their son or daughter into this honors class or that AP course or some organization like the JNHS. Not to mention how many clubs and teams have boys and girls who were "too good" to be cut.

What's bothered me even more is how members of many of the parent-run organizations, including the school board, have used their standing in Wantagh to win placement in courses and programs that their child did not place into fairly. Their kids have been awarded positions on executive boards in clubs when they weren't elected... not too mention the scholarships that some students seem to be entitled to simply because they have the right last name.

I've put three children through the schools, not to mention my niece and nephew, and I can't believe how the district has caved in time and time again to people who have a ridiculous sense of entitlement.