In August, the IHS Student Services Department accidentally calculated senior students’ decile rankings using their unweighted grade point averages (GPAs), resulting in incorrect rankings for many students. Deciles are supposed to be calculated using a weighted GPA, which takes into account the level of difficulty of each class taken; for example, an ‘A’ in an Advanced Placement class is given more weight than the same grade in an Honors class.

To calculate deciles, data on students’ course levels and grades received is entered into a spreadsheet that contains formulas to calculate the students’ rankings. The spreadsheet can be used to organize students into deciles using either their weighted or unweighted GPAs; when deciles were originally calculated and sent to families in late August, the unweighted GPAs were mistakenly used. “In essence,” explained IHS Principal Joe Wilson at a Board of Education meeting on September 25, “our staff member hit the wrong button.”

Deciles were recalculated after the Student Services Department recognized the error in late August, and correction letters were sent to families in mid-September. College and Career Services Director Debra Walker said she was not permitted to comment on the situation and directed The Tattler’s inquiries to Wilson. He responded by email to The Tattler’s questions, sending his replies also to district administrators and the IHS staff. After deciles were recalculated, 123 of the students’ decile rankings went up while 91 students’ went down (some by more than one rank), and 201 students’ remained the same. The IHS administration decided to notify all senior families of the error, so correction letters were sent to all students regardless of whether their deciles changed.

Wilson stated that the Student Services Department is putting together a plan to ensure that this problem will not happen again. This plan requires that multiple people check the data entries and consistency of the course weights before sending the rankings to students. The department would like to find a way to avoid entering the data by hand, thus decreasing the possibility of human error.

Wilson would also like to improve the process by reviewing in detail the course weights now being used before ranking another class. No such review has been conducted in the past.

Many seniors were inconvenienced by this miscalculation, because deciles can be a deciding factor in a college’s choice to accept or reject a student. Matt C. ’08 commented, “My decile ended up going up one, which is pretty cool, but for all the people’s deciles that go up there’s going to be those that go down, and some people’s probably went down a lot, and that really sucks for them. Guidance ended up sending me three decile letters-the initial letter in August, a correction two weeks or so later, and then the final correction in September. In the first two my decile didn’t change, but in the last one it did.”

Seniors’ parents have also voiced their concerns about the situation. These concerns include whether IHS should report the higher of the two calculations (as proponents view it, giving students the benefit of the doubt), whether course weights were entered correctly, and whether IHS should act on behalf of students who unknowingly gave incorrect ranking information to colleges before they were notified of the error. These concerns were discussed at a Board of Education meeting on September 25, and were referred to a committee.

Beyond the recent miscalculations, parents and other members of the Ithaca community have recently criticized the decile system itself. Last year, the IHS Site-Based Council discussed the decile system and whether ranking of any kind should occur at IHS. So far, no changes have been made to the system. Parents of IHS students have also asked the district to address whether the weights given to specific courses are appropriate and whether students should have the option to have their ranking withheld from colleges.

An IHS parent, who wished to remain anonymous due to involvement with the school, said that the biggest problem with the decile system is its lack of transparency, since there is no way for students or parents to check that decile calculations are done correctly. The parent suggested that the exact class weights and calculations should be sent to families along with the final calculated ranking. The parent also commented that deciles should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis; currently, students do not receive any special distinction for taking classes outside of IHS, which are usually given Regents credit (the second-lowest degree of difficulty); or for taking math classes one or two years early.

Wilson commented on the possibility of eliminating the decile system altogether at IHS: “A number of schools with a high number of high achieving students have stopped ranking altogether.… The reasons for taking that course of action have some merit, so I believe it is time to ... decide whether ranking still serves enough good purposes that we should continue to do it.”