As the 2021-2022 school year comes to a close I want to thank the entire community for your ongoing support of our schools. This year brought some "normalcy" back and I fully anticipate we will reinstate our usual programs and operations in September. This blog post will touch upon the new elementary school project, the next Special Town Meeting, our new strategic plan, website/app refresh, and my thoughts about school rankings.
Reflecting on the past year, one can't help but think about the school vote in November. Thousands of residents attended the Special Town Meeting (STM) and 62% of them supported our proposed new elementary school project. Unfortunately, the project needed the super majority of 66% and it was defeated. As we move forward, the Medfield School Committee and I are energized to get back to the process, establish a new School Building Committee (SBC) and find a solution for our students and staff that the community can support. We look forward to working together with town officials and committees to make a new school or a renovated school a reality for our students and staff. We submitted a Statement of Interest (SOI) to Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) in April and anticipate we will also explore a process outside of the MSBA program. Stay tuned!
The next STM in Medfield will take place on June 21, 2022, at MHS. Medfield will finally get an opportunity to vote on the use/development of the Medfield State Hospital. This STM also has implications for the Medfield Public Schools. The project will provide $20 million for infrastructure that will eliminate this huge liability to town, and hopefully free up funds to advance our new/renovated school project. Although the project may increase our student enrollment by 60 students, the developer has pledged $1 million to the Medfield Public Schools to mitigate any costs associated will an enrollment increase.
Next year we will begin the strategic planning process to replace our “Medfield 2021” plan. The strategic planning process will provide many opportunities for parent and community input that will help shape the direction of the Medfield Public Schools for the next five years. Please watch for participation opportunities in the fall. Also, watch for a "refresh" of our website and app. Please remember to download the Medfield Public Schools app in the Apple Store and Google Play.
Lastly, I'd like to share some thoughts on the school rankings debate that happens each year. In April, U.S. News & World Report released its annual High School Rankings, comparing nearly 2,400 public high schools across the country and ranking them nationally and within each state. We are very proud of another impressive ranking this year for Medfield High School: #20 among all public high schools in Massachusetts and #640 nationally. That success is a tribute to the hard work of our students and the families, teachers, and other staff who support them – not only at the high school but at all levels of the Medfield Public Schools.
When lists like these are published, most notably by USN&WR and Boston Magazine, we often hear a range of comments from members of the community. Some celebrate the honor for our school. Others raise concerns about how much our high school’s ranking has fluctuated over the years, and question whether those increases or decreases reflect changes in the performance of the school itself.
It’s important to understand some context about these lists – including how they are similar or different from each other, and what they do and don’t tell us about student outcomes:
The magazines use different lists of schools in their ranking system. While Boston Magazine reviews Massachusetts public high schools only within Route 495, not including charter schools, USN&WR includes a broader geographic reach across the Commonwealth and does include charter and exam schools.
In calculating their rankings, the magazines also use different methodologies. The two formulas include different sets of indicators and assign different “weights” to each indicator. For example, the most significant factor in the USN&WR ranking is Advanced Placement (AP) exams. This scale weighs not only the number of seniors taking AP exams but also provides additional weighting for students earning a passing score (3+) and those who earn passing scores on multiple AP exams. Boston Magazine takes a more simple approach, ranking the school’s overall AP passage rate in comparison to the overall passage rate of peer institutions across the state.
Both ranking systems sometimes change their methodology from one year to the next, adding or removing certain indicators, or changing the relative weight of each. For example, Boston Magazine’s rankings used to factor in per-pupil expenditures, the number of sports and clubs offered at the school, and the number of college advisors, none of which are included today. These variations make it far less relevant to compare any school’s ranking in years that used different calculations.
These factors alone contribute significantly to why, even in the same year, MHS may have a very different ranking on the two scales. In 2015, MHS earned one of its highest-ever ranking in Boston Magazine (#12) and its lowest-ever ranking in USN&WR (#52). Of course, very slight variations in student performance data – both here in Medfield and in every other community – also can contribute to changes in ranking from one year to the next. In most years, high schools are separated on the lists by a fractional difference in the ranking systems’ scores. It is worth noting that AP scores contribute significantly to both of these rating scales, and the approach that each high school takes to these national exams – including which courses are offered, which students take the exams, and when they take them – also can have a significant influence on the rankings.
To help the community understand more about these ranking systems, Director of Instruction & Innovation Christine Power made a presentation to the School Committee. I encourage anyone who is interested in a more detailed analysis to watch a video of the meeting (this agenda item begins at 1:06) and review the accompanying slide deck. As Dr. Power notes in her presentation, we can be encouraged by trend lines (see below) that show that overall, MHS’s rankings on both scales have remained fairly consistent over the past decade or more. Even when the ranking changes significantly in a single year – whether upward or downward on the lists – our analysis suggests that shift does not indicate a significant shift in the academic performance of MHS students or in the overall quality of the school.
At the school and district level, we use these ranking systems as yet another set of data points to monitor progress, and we continue to track the comparison of MHS to neighboring high schools over time. However, given the limitations I outlined above, we also do not overemphasize the significance of our high school’s relative ranking in a particular year. Instead, we conduct our own internal analyses that include an even broader set of indicators than those used in the ranking systems – including SAT, MCAS, graduation rates, AP participation and performance, college-going rates, and the degree to which our curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices are aligned with state and district expectations. We review the data and are always considering changes in our approach to teaching and learning based on what we learn. Ultimately, these internal measures will drive our decision-making far more than any magazine article.
In keeping with our core work of developing “the whole child”, we also focus deeply on other measures of school and student success beyond academic performance. In recent years, we have prioritized students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) and overall wellness, recognizing that students must be physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to learn and thrive. Our progress in this critical area was recognized by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) in its letter earlier this year continuing the accreditation of MHS. The report commended a “concerted effort on the part of faculty and administrators to promote school-wide habits, skills, and mindsets that build students' social, emotional, and academic competencies through social-emotional learning (SEL) and other related personalized learning programs (e.g., advisory, RISE) to foster strong relationships between students and staff.” We take great pride in this feedback, even though it is one that no magazine ranking system takes into account.
A little healthy competition between neighboring school districts and communities is always motivating and clearly a good conversation piece. We can all consider the consistent ranking of MHS as one of the top public high schools in Massachusetts as a source of community pride. But I caution us all against focusing solely on these rankings. To do so would be a disservice to the hard work and success of the students and the PreK-12 educators behind those rankings.
Thank you again and I hope you have a great summer!
Best,
Jeff Marsden
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