By Kim Siebert MacPhail
Following up on last spring’s Boston Magazine ranking of the top 50 high schools that showed Bedford High School 10th best in 2012, Superintendent Jon Sills reported to the School Committee that the publication has recently released another set of district rankings in which Bedford is 36th, down from a previous district score of 18th.
“I just want to make a couple of comments about this,” Sills explained. “Number one—and I said this when we boasted about our strong rankings—we have to take these rankings with a grain of salt. . .It’s hard to quantify and measure educational outcomes.
“That being said,” Sills continued, “we are beginning to dig into the data to try to understand why our rankings slipped. What seems to be the case—and I’ll probably know more about this by the next [School Committee] meeting—is that in 2012, a couple of our elementary grade MCAS scores took a hit. What we need to understand is why. They have rebounded tremendously in 2013 but this [lower Boston Magazine district] ranking was based on 2012 figures.
“For example, our third grade combined “Proficient/Advanced” score went from 68% in 2012 to 89% in 2013—a huge rebound. But was that an anomaly? We just don’t know for sure. I do want to express to the community that we don’t think [the low rankings] are a fair representation of the excellence of our system,” Sills concluded.
More information about the most recent rankings will be presented as it is gathered and analyzed.
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I would certainly hope so. Compare our per pupil costs and our results with other towns and we don’t fair very well.