NORTH ANDOVER - Sixty-five percent of North Andover Middle School students made honor roll last fall. More than 60 percent also earned that distinction in the fall of 2005 and the fall of 2004.
And School Committee member Charles C. Ormsby isn't happy about it.
Ormsby, who compiled the statistics, says some students made the honor roll only because middle school teachers are inflating grades, "giving pats on the back to students that are not doing exceptional work."
"It's like if you have a track team and say an 18-second 100-yard dash is good," he said. "You could practically walk it in 18 seconds."
North Andover Middle School Joan McQuade disagrees.
"We are a high-performing middle school, we set standards in our school and we expect our kids to meet them," she said. "Our kids meet them and therefore we have a lot of A's and B's. We call it grade consistency; that's what we strive for."
But Ormsby's analysis has renewed at the local level the long-running national debate over the phenomenon known as "grade inflation" - the awarding of higher grades than students deserve.
Like inflated dollars, critics say, "A's" are more common but worth less when grades are inflated, giving students and their parents a false sense of achievement.
Andover and Haverhill
North Andover isn't the only community where the great majority of students earn above-average grades.
In Andover, 73 percent of middle school students were on the honor roll last fall, according to an Eagle-Tribune review of the honor roll lists.
"I know that we have a lot of students that are on the honor roll," said Andover School Superintendent Claudia Bach, adding she wasn't aware of the exact percentage.
Bach said middle schools are designed to help kids earn good grades, without stressing competition for those grades. But the high level of achievement in Andover is real, she said.
"When more students feel successful, we actually have more students being successful," she said. "The bar has really been raised, and more and more kids are going over that bar. ... We are putting in programs that make these kids succeed, not just succeed but succeed at a really high rate."
High school teachers have not complained about poorly prepared students coming out of Andover's three middle schools, as they would if grades were inflated, Bach said.
And School Committee member Charles C. Ormsby isn't happy about it.
Ormsby, who compiled the statistics, says some students made the honor roll only because middle school teachers are inflating grades, "giving pats on the back to students that are not doing exceptional work."
"It's like if you have a track team and say an 18-second 100-yard dash is good," he said. "You could practically walk it in 18 seconds."
North Andover Middle School Joan McQuade disagrees.
"We are a high-performing middle school, we set standards in our school and we expect our kids to meet them," she said. "Our kids meet them and therefore we have a lot of A's and B's. We call it grade consistency; that's what we strive for."
But Ormsby's analysis has renewed at the local level the long-running national debate over the phenomenon known as "grade inflation" - the awarding of higher grades than students deserve.
Like inflated dollars, critics say, "A's" are more common but worth less when grades are inflated, giving students and their parents a false sense of achievement.
Andover and Haverhill
North Andover isn't the only community where the great majority of students earn above-average grades.
In Andover, 73 percent of middle school students were on the honor roll last fall, according to an Eagle-Tribune review of the honor roll lists.
"I know that we have a lot of students that are on the honor roll," said Andover School Superintendent Claudia Bach, adding she wasn't aware of the exact percentage.
Bach said middle schools are designed to help kids earn good grades, without stressing competition for those grades. But the high level of achievement in Andover is real, she said.
"When more students feel successful, we actually have more students being successful," she said. "The bar has really been raised, and more and more kids are going over that bar. ... We are putting in programs that make these kids succeed, not just succeed but succeed at a really high rate."
High school teachers have not complained about poorly prepared students coming out of Andover's three middle schools, as they would if grades were inflated, Bach said.
Far fewer middle schoolers make the honor roll at Haverhill's Nettle Middle School - 31 percent last fall. Statistics were not available for the city's other middle schools, Consentino, Whittier and Hunking.
Robert Gilman, Haverhill School Committee chairman and retired associate principal and curriculum supervisor at Haverhill High, said honor roll inflation is nothing new.
It started decades ago, he said, when educators began giving students grades based on effort as much as performance. He said the honor roll was a way to reward students, and "certainly some people would see it as good public relations."
Ormsby study
In North Andover, the School Committee has called a meeting on Ormsby's analysis of grade inflation at the middle school.
"If in fact his assertion is proven out, then we go from there," School Committee Chairman William Kelly said.
The meeting will be April 25 at 7 p.m. at the middle school. The town's only middle school has about 1,100 students.
Ormsby broke down the grades awarded last fall by subject. He found that, on average, 43 percent of students received A's in algebra, English language arts and science. About 37 percent received B's in those subjects and about 21 percent C's, D's or F's.
McQuade does not dispute Ormsby's data but argues his interpretation is "skewed."
"The question is, why is this a bad thing?" she said. "Our kids are bright kids and they work very hard. ... We have a school culture where getting A's is important."
The problem, Ormsby said, is that inflated grades make parents think their children are performing at an above-average level when they really aren't.
At North Andover Middle school, "if you get straight B's, you're well below average," he said.
Ormsby said the school should send a letter home with report cards that breaks down the number of A's, B's, C's, D's and F's so parents know where their children stand.
Ormsby also argues that students who get straight B's shouldn't be on the honor roll.
"Why should you be below average in every class you take and be on the honor roll?" he asked. "We're lulling them to sleep with some false sense of accomplishment, and that's leading to much lower academic performance at our school."
Ormsby said reality sets in when students reach high school and find the work is more difficult.
"That's where the shock occurs," he said. "They show up in ninth grade and they're told they can't get on the honors track."
Teacher's view
Liz Sharp is a seventh-grade math teacher at the middle school and the parent of three students, one of them a junior at the high school.
Daughter Jenn Sharp, 17, achieved high honors throughout middle school and went on to enter top-tier Level 1 classes at the high school.
"She did not have any adjustment issues being in the high level at the high school," Sharp said. "She continued to do well and actually right now, she's taking classes at Northern Essex (Community College) for dual enrollment."
As a teacher, Sharp sees the effort kids make to earn good grades.
"Some days, I have 20 kids after school working really hard to bring their grades up," she said.
Sharp said the "nature of the community" also drives kids. Many North Andover parents won't tolerate C's or below, she said..
Sharp encourages students in danger of failing to seek extra help. But if students refuse to do the work, Sharp won't sugar-coat their grades.
"I literally had three students last term - I tried everything I could to encourage them to come for extra help ... Whatever it was, it didn't work, and they did fail," she said.
Alex Kumar, 18, a North Andover High senior and National Honor Society member, said teachers at the middle school do a good job preparing kids for high school.
He said there might be "a little bit" of grade inflation when teachers assign projects that are easy. "But I'd say it's not that big of a problem," he said.
"For most kids, you work hard to get the grades you deserve," he said. "If you work hard, you can get an A pretty easily in middle school. I think that's the way it should be."
Letter to parents
McQuade, the middle school principal, sent a letter to parents earlier this month informing them of the controversy over grade inflation.
McQuade said the school follows federal and state guidelines in grading students, assigning them the grades they've earned rather than grades that show where they strand in comparison to their class as a whole.
"We do not grade students against each other," she wrote.
McQuade said 70 percent of students consistently make the honor roll. Any combination of A's and B's qualifies a student for honors; straight A's earn high honors.
McQuade said students' scores on the statewide MCAS tests show they are high achievers.
Last spring, 20 percent of seventh-graders scored "advanced or above proficient" on the MCAS English Language Arts, test and 60 percent were rated "proficient."
Twenty-three percent of seventh graders were "advanced or above proficient" in math, and 39 percent "proficient."
If "advanced" is the equivalent of an A and "proficient" the equivalent of a B, students' MCAS scores are comparable to their grades, McQuade said.
But Ormsby pointed to the number of seventh-graders who fell into the "needs improvement" category: 26 percent in math and 16 percent in English Language Arts.
"We should have very few children in the needs improvement category," Ormsby said. "We're not an average town in terms of wealth and poverty and English as a second language."
