Tweet

() Comments

Report

On 4/16/14, Dave wrote:
> I am trying to create a culture of excellence among the
students of my
> school. My end-game is to motivate my students to aspire to
achieve
> more. We live in a culture of competition. Is it
appropriate to rank the top
> five students in Grades 6, 7, and 8? My feeling is that it
is alright as it has
> motivated some lower-ranked students to improve and receive
the
> distinction. I would like to hear others opinions on this
and have a
> dialogue. Thank you for your opinions and knowledge.

Based on what criteria? GPA? Test scores? Behavior?
Depending on the criteria you use... you'll probably have
more than five (such as more than five with a 4.0 GPA,
etc)... which I would consider a good thing. Instead
of "rank" I'd make it criteria-based (all students who meet
the criteria are recognized the same rather than ranked)
i.e., the criteria is that you have to have a GPA of ____,
and ___ number of students met that criteria. And then,
students know what they have to achieve to be recognized.
We've also recognized students who have made the most
improvement on standardized tests. These students may not
have the highest scores but they have shown the most growth
(i.e., they may have gone from Far Below Basic to Basic or
even Proficient... they are not Advanced but have made
impressive growth.)
We recognize students who excel in athletics, student
leadership, band, attainment of English proficiency for ELL
students, community service hours, etc. Recognition of each
of these come at various times of the year and in various
forms, so it is not "one big ceremony" but a few ceremonies,
announcements on the PA system, or on the website, or in the
newspaper, etc, etc.
Whatever criteria you had in mind for the "top five students"
may be one of the forms of recognition, but for a
real "culture of excellence" in my opinion it's best to
recognize excellence in all of its forms and to include more
than five students. If you use various criteria, sometimes it
will be five, sometimes thirty, sometimes just one or two....
and the goal is to increase that number the next year.

Posts on this thread, including this one