FSU Got Scammed

Why Should Ingraham Care?

          On Sunday December 3rd, the College Football Playoff (CFP) Committee released the top 25 college football teams in the nation. Unlike the AP poll or the USA Today poll, the rankings for the CFP are decided by 13 people at 1:30am. According to Sports Illustrated writer James Parks, “The selection committee members elected to snub an undefeated conference champion Florida State.” For context, The CFP only lets the top 4 teams into the playoffs, Florida State went undefeated and did not get in for a few reasons, the biggest being an injury to their star quarterback Jordan Travis. Ingraham is the 24th best high school in the Seattle area and the 3rd best high school in Seattle Public Schools (SPS), according to ratings on niche.com. This article was supposed to show how Ingraham also gets snubbed against schools around like Ballard, Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Garfield. But are they actually more like the FSU SPS?

              The CFP held their official selection on air at 9am PST the next morning, this was on ESPN for the entire world to see with all college football teams joining in. The lead up was to who got spot #4. It was between Alabama (12-1) and Florida State (13-0). Bama had just beat the reigning #1, Georgia Bulldogs, who had been on a 29-game winning streak before. Now they were hoping that had punched their ticket in. Alabama eventually got the #4 spot playing Michigan on New Year’s to see who makes the championship. Ingraham is not Florida State, they are Alabama, whether people like it or not.

             On Niche’s rankings, they give every school a grade and an official rank. This put Ingraham at #26. Also, on this list ahead of them were Roosevelt and Garfield, respectively at #16 and #18. This puts in the claim that Roosevelt is the top school in SPS with Garfield as a close 2nd. All three of these schools got an overall A as their grade. The reason Lincoln and Ballard were included is because of the rivalry Ingraham has created with those schools. Many students at Ingraham have as Mr. Rice would call them, “the homies and BFFs” at Lincoln and Ballard. These are anticipated games in every sport season not only for the athletes, but for spectators as well. In terms of Lincoln’s academic stats, they may be a little weighted because Lincoln has not been a full school continuously as long as Ingraham or Ballard. Ballard was ranked as the 36th bets high school in the Seattle area with a grade of an A-. This was behind the top 3 and Cleveland at #29. Lincoln on the other hand did not make the top 50 or 60. They were placed at #69 with an overall grade of a B+.

             To find the best NFL stats, pro-football-reference is helpful. The equivalent to this for school academic stats is greatschools.org. This website includes the graduation rate for every SPS school. It also includes test scores for Math, Science and English. These are found using Smart Balanced Assessments (SBAs) from 2021-2022 and Washington Comprehensive Assessment of Sciences (WCASs) from 2021-2022. The SBA is from 10th graders, now seniors. The WCAS is from 11th graders, now freshman in college.

To compare Ballard, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Garfield, and Ingraham, the academic stats from the above paragraph were used. In terms of 4-year graduation rate at every high school; all the high schools have a rate of above 92%, except Ingraham. By Niche, Ingraham was reported to have an 89% graduation rate and Great! schools claims them to have an 88%. It is also reported that the average in Washington is 83%, meaning that all 5 high schools have a higher graduation rate than average, yet Ingraham is still below even their overall grade and ranking is higher.

              Simple PSA: These test stats might be altered; these are from Great! schools, which is not a known website, meaning that the information is coming from an unknown place. This info can also be altered from the time period it was taken from. This was from the 2021-2022 school year, for those who remember, that was the year where for most of it, all students were required to wear a mask. Covid-19 affected the social and academic assessments of every student in SPS. However, given that every school went through these conditions, this can also show what schools/staff pushed through and helped their sophomores and juniors progress well on the tests.

             Great! schools not only posts each school’s test scores for 3 out of the 4 common core subjects, but it also shows the state average. These are low, all between .4 and .53, all considered failing for a class in SPS. All 5 schools looked at have above average test scores in every category. An interesting part about the stats is that each school has the same top class. All the schools have above a 75% score in English, this shows how SPS teaches English, hiring teachers that encourage kids, creating a fun environment in classes. Yet, in terms of overall scores for English, Ingraham has the second lowest score at 84%, with Garfield as the only lower one at 76%. To expand the test conversation further, school averages come into play. Ingraham is tied for third. What’s unusual about this is that the top two are Ballard and Lincoln; Ballard at 78%, Lincoln at 83%. They were both ranked way lower than the other 3 on niche, with these stats contradicting that info.

              Florida State got scammed out of a playoff spot with the argument being for a better matchup. There is no star quarterback injured for any of these schools. This article was planned to show how Ingraham got scammed. Yet after the stats are shown, assumptions can be made for other schools to be the Florida State. So, does this make Ingraham the Alabama?

              Overall, Ingraham is ranked third on niche, a website that seems to give random overall grades based on reviews from past students. This is very biased but once you look at the statistics do they deserve it? Do they deserve to be in the top four SPS schools or should they be lower? These are all questions that will never have an answer. Let’s pose a question: If you could choose any school in SPS to go to, where would you go?