The fight to be head of the class could be replaced with a less competitive, but some say more fair, system as the Waunakee School District — like others in Dane County — considers doing away with class rank.

Of the 19 Dane County high schools that responded to a State Journal survey, five are considering or have plans to do away with class rank in coming years.

Opponents of the ranking system say it forces unneeded competition and stress on students, while encouraging others to take less-challenging classes for the easy A.

“The idea is not to be reporting out who is No. 1 and No. 2,” said Lori Ott, Director of Instruction for the Marshall School District, which changed its policy last school year. “We know that some students take an easier path through school and in doing so may not challenge themselves to grow,” she said.

That’s what Waunakee senior Patty McDonough sees.

“The kids that are really competitive ... they’re smart, they work the system,” she said.

Although she’s 10th in her class, McDonough said the current ranking system misrepresents a student’s achievement and doesn’t reward students like her, who have “taken almost every (advanced placement) class at school.”

Waunakee, which has studied the issue for much of the school year — surveying high school students, teachers and some parents — could eliminate class rank and replace it with another form of recognition starting next school year, said Brian Kersten, principal at Waunakee High School.

The school board is expected to vote on the issue Monday, said Mike Hensgen, Waunakee’s director of curriculum and instruction.

If approved, the class of 2010 would still have a valedictorian and salutatorian, he said.

One option the board is considering is a “laude” system, similar to the program Marshall has implemented, he said. The earliest that would start would be with the class of 2011.

Under the system — which applies to this year’s ninth- and 10th-graders at Marshall High School — students can earn the distinction of summa cum laude, magna cum laude or cum laude by multiplying their grade point average at the end of the first semester of their senior year by the total number of advanced classes taken during their four years of high school.

The staff decided to include in the list of advanced courses classes such as advanced painting and drawing, assistant child care teacher, accounting 2, and Spanish 3.

Ott said students were surprisingly enthusiastic about the change when they realized an unlimited number of students could be recognized at graduation, not just one valedictorian and one salutatorian.

“All of a sudden we had students ask if they could change their schedules for the following year,” to take more advanced classes, Ott said. “The fear was gone about taking that risk.”

Other Dane County high schools considering doing away with class rank include Cambridge, DeForest and Oregon.

Districts that no longer report class rank on students’ transcripts do still score students internally because it’s required for some college admission or scholarship applications.

Also, parents can and do request the information from time to time, said Denise Herrmann, principal at Middleton High School, which stopped reporting class rank about three years ago.

“Many colleges that we’ve spoken to understand this (class rank) is an outmoded model,” she said, adding it’s not reliable to predict a student’s success in college. “We wanted it to not be comparing one student against another (but instead) just let their talents shine individually.”

Tom Reason, associate director of admissions for UW-Madison, said while the university — and all of the UW System — has moved toward a more comprehensive view of applications, class rank “is still pretty meaningful.”

“When we don’t have it, it means other things become that much more important,” he said, such as standardized test scores.

“From my perspective, more information is better than less. And when we don’t have class rank, we have less,” he said.

Reason said he does notice fewer high school reporting class rank, however “in my opinion (class rank) is a significant factor in arriving at a fair and thoughtful admission decision.”

Belleville High School ranks its students, but unlike many districts, it doesn’t determine its valedictorian or salutatorian until the last test is taken on the last day of school.

The top three students are told in May to prepare a speech to give at graduation and the top two students ultimately speak at the event, said principal Rick Conroy.

While the district hasn’t opted to do away with class rank, officials there have begun discussing weighting grades — where a B in an advanced class would be worth more than the same grade in a lower-level class.

If a student takes a heavy course load with many advanced classes, that should be considered when evaluating his or her score, Conroy said.

Not everyone in Waunakee is keen on doing way with ranking graduates, including Charles Facktor, whose daughter, a junior at Waunakee, is very high in her class.

“I think it creates an incentive for people to compete, to become the best at academics that they want to become,” he said. “I’m not a fan of unbridled competition,” he said.

However, “at the end of the day there should be some sort of measurement.”

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IF YOU GO
WHAT: The Waunakee School Board is expected to decide Monday whether to eliminate class rank at its high school.
WHEN: 7 p.m. at the Teaching and Learning Center, 101 School Drive, Waunakee

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CLASS RANK IN DANE COUNTY HIGH SCHOOLS
Schools that use class rank: Belleville, Cambridge, Deerfield, DeForest, La Follette, Madison East, Marshall*, McFarland, Memorial, Mount Horeb, Stoughton, Sun Prairie, Oregon, Waunakee, Wisconsin Heights
Schools that don’t publicize class rank: (although available for college admission and scholarship applications):
Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona Grove, Madison West and Verona
Schools that are considering changing their policy: Cambridge, DeForest, Oregon and Waunakee. Officials in Belleville and Wisconsin Heights are informally discussing a change.

* Marshall will switch to laude system for 2010-2011 school year.