Basil Jarrett | Good news: The rankings are back

A few weeks ago, I was forced to publicly eat a bitter slice of humble pie in the form of a mea culpa to Educate Jamaica over the unfortunate cancellation of its annual high-school academic rankings. In that article, I acknowledged that my criticism of the rankings was never an attempt to kill the publication altogether, but rather, it was an effort to strengthen what I thought was an extremely valuable and worthwhile endeavour.

Since reaching out initially to Ainsworth Darby, founder of Educate Jamaica, I have maintained dialogue with him, not just to correct that misunderstanding, but to also convince him to bring back the publication and continue his important work.

I am delighted to report today that Educate Jamaica has agreed to not only bring back the annual rankings, but to also adopt some of the suggestions that we believe could improve the publication and make it substantially more robust as a reflection of the true state of our schools.

CLEARING UP THE CONFUSION

During the dialogue, some of the public misunderstandings regarding the rankings were highlighted. One of the most glaring was the myth that the rankings only included grades one and two, and not grade three, which is recognised as a pass by the Caribbean Examinations Council. According to Darby, the rankings have always included grades one, two and three, but somehow that information got lost in translation. Darby also addressed the confusion that only passes in grade 11 counted in the rankings. For years, he complained, some principals actively pushed this falsehood that the passes at grade 10 are not included. He showed evidence, however, that each year, his organisation asks schools to provide statistics on all external exams taken, whether at grades eight, nine, 10 or 11. One more bitter slice of humble pie, please. Yum.

The contentious ‘value-added’ score and its importance in ranking high schools also came up. ‘Value-added’ was the term used to capture the value that a school or teacher adds to the achievement, growth and academic performance of their students over the five years of high school. For example, a school that moves a student from 55 per cent to 75 per cent, has added more value than one that moves him from 90 per cent to 95 per cent.

While Darby did agree that value-added was not a consideration in his system, he challenged its relevance, questioning the wisdom of compromising our education standards by settling for mediocrity, especially when we wouldn’t accept such compromises in other areas of life. I guess he’s right. After all, if you were about to board a plane and found out that the pilot had achieved a 75 per cent pass in pilot school after entering with a 55 per cent average, would you choose to fly with him over one who had entered with 90 per cent and graduated with 95 per cent? Exactly.

Darby‘s point is clear: While we do recognise that there are gaps in the educational system that create different levels of competence among students coming out of primary school, we should not overly celebrate or fixate on the value that we can add to these underperforming students, but rather, focus on correcting the issues that caused the poor performance in the first place. I tend to agree with him. Education is our most valuable tool for escaping poverty and moving our people forward. It is a dangerous path to pursue when we start to compromise and accept mediocrity in such a foundational area of life.

Darby also pointed out that several principals were not in favour of the rankings, since it exposed their true performance. He conceded that these principals may very well have been given a basket to carry water, but argued that it is still important that we have transparency and accountability in examining said baskets. In any event, the inclusion of high-school rankings in the Ministry of Education and Youth-sponsored Patterson Report suggests that the ministry and educators have become more and more comfortable with the idea of annual rankings as a yardstick of their performance. This is encouraging.

In my opinion, this issue of accountability extends beyond our teachers and principals and also looks pointedly at our school boards. I am buoyed by the education minister’s recent declaration to start examining the matter of term limits for persons who sit on school boards, presumably for life, with no key performance indicators or track record of achievement or performance. Well done, minister.

I am also moved by Prime Minister Holness’ recent declaration at the Edward Phillip George Seaga Inaugural Development Lecture, that our education system continues to fail our students in much the same way that it did 40 years ago. The PM’s statement was a signal to all of us that we need to do more to help educate our children.

KEEPING SCORE

In my opinion, any attempt to improve our classrooms must include a metric to measure our performance. How else do we know if we’re coming, going or standing still? Academic rankings are our classroom’s balanced scorecards, gauging our progress while ensuring accountability and transparency. They keep our educators’ feet to the fire. They encourage competition and excellence among schools and student, and give us real targets to aim for. To some extent, academic rankings actually help the Ministry of Education by motivating past students and other stakeholders to help bolster teaching and learning in the classroom. After all, the alumni of any school worth its salt must have ambitions to be excellent and competitive in academics and not just running, jumping, skipping or whatever else their alma mater is famous for.

Perhaps, as Darby joked, we should start to mandate that a certain percentage of persons who sit on school boards must have a ward or child at the school. Or as Minister Williams mused, we should start ranking school boards as well. Maybe then we’ll start to see alignment, across all stakeholders, of the importance of academics as the single most definitive yardstick to measure a school’s performance.

Major Basil Jarrett is a communications strategist and CEO of Artemis Consulting, a communications consulting firm specialising in crisis communications and crisis management.