Our society is made up of near-constant comparisons. We want to know whos doing better in the polls. We want to know which car gets the best gas mileage. We want to know what team is superior in football, basketball, soccer, baseball and so on. We want to know which town is the most family-friendly, which one has the highest average income, and we want to know what kind of ice cream has the lowest amount of carbs without losing the taste. We even compare our bodies to those on TV and in the movies. Are we thin enough? Is our hair long enough? Do we drive the fastest car; have the biggest house, the nicest lawn? Even newborns are compared to others at birth to determine how good their color is! And of course, we want to know how great the school is that our kids are going to. After all, we rank everything else; why not have public school rankings as well?
Some schools systems, a handful, at best, are moving away from public school rankings or eliminating them altogether. The reasoning behind this is simple. These districts believe, and can prove, that the schools with their boundaries are ALL excellent. Refusing to put public school rankings into use in their districts,...