Some districts drop class ranks to improve students' college chances

Erin Richards:

At Brookfield East High School, Laura Turner is the kind of student who shouldn't have to worry about getting into the college of her choice.

She's articulate, mature and enthusiastic, a hard worker with high marks -- a 3.88 grade-point average -- who organized hundreds of students last year in Waukesha County to sleep in a parking lot and raise thousands of dollars for displaced Ugandan citizens.

But ranked against her peers in terms of GPA, Turner isn't in the top 25% of her senior class.

The stratification caused by class rank, which arguably makes a student such as Turner appear less accomplished, compelled the Elmbrook School District last week to start looking at whether its two high schools should quit tracking the data. It's a move that's been implemented within the past five years at Whitefish Bay and Shorewood high schools, where administrators say they've seen more seniors being accepted into the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 28, 2008 7:54 AM
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