The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hello all,

I am working to revive the national high school poll. I plan to employ the methodology Matt Weiner introduced in 2015. Victor Prieto, who last coordinated the poll, gave me his blessing to take it over. I've emailed a geographically diverse group of coaches and tournament directors requesting nominations from their respective regions; once I have those, I'll ask each to submit a top-25 ranking, as well as a top-10 ranking of small schools. I may check in with voters if they make any unorthodox voting choices (e.g., omitting a team that all other voters ranked in their top 10), but will otherwise accept whatever rankings I receive. I hope to publish the results of this first, preseason poll in the next couple weeks. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, do let me know!

I've gotten a handful of ballots and plan to post results within the next few days. If anyone who has not heard from me directly is interested in contributing a ballot (excepting current high school players), let me know at g.brisontrezise AT gmail. Thanks!

RESULTS:

TOP 25 (seven voters)*:

1. Chattahoochee (Johns Creek, Ga.) — 167 (2)
2. Hunter (New York, N.Y.) — 165 (1)
3. Stevenson (Lincolnshire, Ill.) — 159 (2)
4. Detroit Catholic Central (Novi, Mich.) — 150 (2)
5. James E. Taylor (Katy, Texas) — 145
6. Darien (Darien, Conn.) — 125
7. Westview (San Diego, Calif.) — 108
8. Canyon Crest (San Diego, Calif.) — 102
9. Dorman (Roebuck, S.C.) — 100
10. Great Neck South (Lake Success, N.Y.) — 94
11. LASA (Austin, Texas) — 88
T-12. St. John's (Houston, Texas) — 87
T-12. Thomas Jefferson (Alexandria, Va.) — 87
T-14. Centennial (Ellicott City, Md.) — 72
T-14. Naperville North (Naperville, Ill.) — 72
T-16. Barrington (Barrington, Ill.) — 66
T-16. Ithaca (Ithaca, N.Y.) — 66
18. Dunbar (Lexington, Ky.) — 53
T-19. Cave Spring (Roanoke, Va.) — 43
T-19. High Tech (Lincroft, N.J.) — 43
21. Loyola Academy (Wilmette, Ill.) — 38
22. Lehigh Valley Academy (Bethlehem, Pa.) — 28
23. Hume-Fogg (Nashville, Tenn.) — 23
24. St. Mark's (Dallas, Texas) — 21
25. Rockford Auburn (Rockford, Ill.) — 16

Also receiving votes: Detroit Country Day 14, Johns Creek 14, Lexington 14, Maggie Walker 12, Bergen County Academies 11, Southside 11, Homestead 10, Richard Montgomery 10, IMSA 9, Harker 7, Washington (Mo.) 7, Davis 6, Hoover 6, La Jolla 6, Quince Orchard 6, Eden Prairie 5, Phillips Academy Andover 4, Early College at Guilford 2, Manheim Township 2, Hickman 1

SMALL SCHOOL TOP 10 (six voters):

1. Lehigh Valley Academy (Bethlehem, Pa.) — 54 (2)
2. Southside (Greenville, S.C.) — 48 (3)
3. Glasgow (Glasgow, Ky.) — 40
4. Southwestern (Piasa, Ill.) — 37 (1)
5. BASIS Scottsdale (Scottsdale, Ariz.) — 36
6. West Point (Cullman, Ala.) — 20
7. Middlebury Union (Middlebury, Vt.) — 19
T-8. Drummond (Drummond, Okla.) — 13
T-8. Hallsville (Hallsville, Mo.) — 13
10. Camp Hill (Camp Hill, Pa.) — 12

Also receiving votes: Alagar Homeschool 10, Danville 9, Raceland-Worthington 9, Cooperstown 5, Glasgow B 3, Lakeland 2

* first-place votes in parentheses

Thanks to Christopher Gismondi, Lee Henry, Jason Loy, Kevin Marshall, Brian Owen and Peter Schmidt for submitting ballots (I submitted one as well), and to David Jones, Patrick Liao, Betsy Newmark and Eric Seifter for sending in additional nominations. Some voters opted not to participate in this first poll.

Congrats to the teams that garnered votes, and good luck to all this season!

I would love to see a regional vote breakdown. I always wonder if people overrate or underrate teams they play regularly. There are interesting arguments in both sides.

I feel like teams that compete less will necessarily be underrated because there are just fewer data points (This is not because I'm bitter about our attenuated schedule last year. Really.)

It is going to pretty tough for anyone in the small school division that has to take on Lehigh Valley this year. Alex is an amazing player and is fun to watch play, despite the fact that he is usually burying your team all by himself. I really like how NAQT has changed the format for the SSNCT divisions, splitting charter schools and public schools into two categories and increasing the field size. It is now posted on the NAQT site if anyone hasn't seen it yet. Just curious, as a previous person had asked, what was the geographic distribution of those who contributed to the poll?

I'll pass along your kind words to Alex. However, I don't think we can come again to SSNCT this year (or any other year) even if want to. Under the new NAQT guidelines, Lehigh Valley Academy can't qualify as a traditional public school (virtually no charter can) and our 10-12 enrollment is probably over 350, the maximum population bar set by NAQT for highly selective private and magnet schools. The law says we're a public school... we don't turn away any applicants... over 30% of our students are financially disadvantaged... but NAQT knows better.

I agree with Jakob here, and feel that schools that are in smaller circuits and thus play less teams will have less exposure than teams in larger circuits. One example I am familiar with is Lisgar. While I didn't expect them to be in the Top 25, I was surprised that they didn't receive a single vote. I assume this was due to them being in a smaller Canadian league, and having less exposure than those in larger circuits such as Illinois. This is one of the reasons I prefer Fred Morlan's rankings as they seem to be less volatile to this sort of bias.

I was asked to vote in this. I decided that this would be better served by not being influenced by my rankings, which are already publicly available.

Peter13 wrote:I agree with Jakob here, and feel that schools that are in smaller circuits and thus play less teams will have less exposure than teams in larger circuits. One example I am familiar with is Lisgar. While I didn't expect them to be in the Top 25, I was surprised that they didn't receive a single vote. I assume this was due to them being in a smaller Canadian league, and having less exposure than those in larger circuits such as Illinois. This is one of the reasons I prefer Fred Morlan's rankings as they seem to be less volatile to this sort of bias.

Yes, but Morlan had us 70th(ish) in the pre-nationals poll when anyone could look at our results and see we hadn't lost to a single team outside the top 40 until HSNCT (Torrey Pines was ranked in the 50s), so there are good and bad sides to both polls. In fact, the reason we were ranked so low in Morlan was because we didn't field a full lineup at any point between ACF Fall and HSNCT, so we appeared to be stagnant or worsening while other teams improved their ppbs. Lisgar also didn't attend nationals last year, which doesn't help them (I'd assume our nationals result is the chief reason behind our ranking).

2013 in amusement parks wrote:

Peter13 wrote:I agree with Jakob here, and feel that schools that are in smaller circuits and thus play less teams will have less exposure than teams in larger circuits. One example I am familiar with is Lisgar. While I didn't expect them to be in the Top 25, I was surprised that they didn't receive a single vote. I assume this was due to them being in a smaller Canadian league, and having less exposure than those in larger circuits such as Illinois. This is one of the reasons I prefer Fred Morlan's rankings as they seem to be less volatile to this sort of bias.

Yes, but Morlan had us 70th(ish) in the pre-nationals poll when anyone could look at our results and see we hadn't lost to a single team outside the top 40 until HSNCT (Torrey Pines was ranked in the 50s), so there are good and bad sides to both polls. In fact, the reason we were ranked so low in Morlan was because we didn't field a full lineup at any point between ACF Fall and HSNCT, so we appeared to be stagnant or worsening while other teams improved their ppbs. Lisgar also didn't attend nationals last year, which doesn't help them (I'd assume our nationals result is the chief reason behind our ranking).

Michael is on the right track, at least for my ballot. When I was narrowing down the list for spots 21-25, I considered Lisgar but felt that without a nationals appearance I couldn't warrant giving them one. In Naperville North's case, I ranked them lower than I felt they are to avoid the "2013-14 Bellarmine Effect", due to a lack of certainty of the team's commitment to either HSNCT or NSC for this year (not trying to knock anyone).

To the comments above, I agree with both Michael and Brian in certain ways and differ in others. I think that both polls have their use, but think that in the high school circuit, where very few schools know about a substantial portion of (average) teams outside their circuit (compared with the collegiate circuit), this can (and does) lead to more bias. I feel teams who are unable to show up to regional and national tournaments are hurt more in team rankings than in a more calculated approach (i.e. Fred Morlan's Rankings). The one fault with Morlan's Rankings compared to the poll is that they may unfairly omit teams that were not a full strength (especially early in the season). But in my personal opinion, I feel that this is better than team polls, as many (including myself) regularly forget about good teams outside our local or regional circuit. I agree that it is harder to vote for a school that "looks good on paper" versus a good school that you have seen play (and I think there is nothing wrong with that) but I think voters should be aware of the bias or favour that they give to one school over the other and to look deeply over why that is.

Has anyone considered a statistical combination of both approaches? A weighted average of some sort, giving more weight to Fred's rankings when they include lots of full-roster games? (Not to unload even more work on Fred...)

UlyssesInvictus wrote:Has anyone considered a statistical combination of both approaches? A weighted average of some sort, giving more weight to Fred's rankings when they include lots of full-roster games? (Not to unload even more work on Fred...)

lol nah

Peter13 wrote:The one fault with Morlan's Rankings compared to the poll is that they may unfairly omit teams that were not a full strength (especially early in the season).

Yeah, there's not much I can do to get around this. I incorporate my preseason rankings for a couple of months, but that's about all I can do without completely abandoning the basis of the rankings.

After reading all the comments above and being fairly new to the scene, yet having brought a team to SSNCT and making the playoffs including a victory over one of the top 10 ranked small-school teams in the poll, I'm just curious what other things are you looking at to get new teams noticed? I would expect that the biggest factors are A-team record, quality of wins/losses, and points scored in matches, but do you also rate things like "points scored in matches against playoff teams", "points scored against ranked teams in comparison to other teams", "individual point distribution across the team", and "number of competitions attended?" We are really working to build a program that is competitive now and will continue to be for years to come at Plymouth Regional. Kids are going off to ACE Camps and we have competed in and plan to compete in many quality tournaments this year and greatly increased practices, but because there is no NAQT event in New Hampshire, we have to travel a lot and it gets pricey. The great thing is that we are seeing more kids than ever show up. Any suggestions of what else the program needs to do would be greatly appreciated. It has been fun watching these kids grow and really get excited to compete.

troyharris wrote:After reading all the comments above and being fairly new to the scene, yet having brought a team to SSNCT and making the playoffs including a victory over one of the top 10 ranked small-school teams in the poll, I'm just curious what other things are you looking at to get new teams noticed? I would expect that the biggest factors are A-team record, quality of wins/losses, and points scored in matches, but do you also rate things like "points scored in matches against playoff teams", "points scored against ranked teams in comparison to other teams", "individual point distribution across the team", and "number of competitions attended?" We are really working to build a program that is competitive now and will continue to be for years to come at Plymouth Regional. Kids are going off to ACE Camps and we have competed in and plan to compete in many quality tournaments this year and greatly increased practices, but because there is no NAQT event in New Hampshire, we have to travel a lot and it gets pricey. The great thing is that we are seeing more kids than ever show up. Any suggestions of what else the program needs to do would be greatly appreciated. It has been fun watching these kids grow and really get excited to compete.

there isn't really a stat that can be fairly compared across multiple fields except for PPB (which is considered for a tournament then adjusted accordingly as the primary stat)

To all-

Homeschools must compete in the regular NAQT nationals tournament, HSNCT, and are not allowed to compete as a 'Small School' even though we have very small team sizes.

Hey Rajan,

I feel your pain, but NAQT's new small school policy cut us out, too. So, we'll see you at HNSCT, NHBB, NASAT, wherever!

In the meantime, it looks like you're all studying hard and getting better. Say Hello to your dad, Jaya and the rest of your family. I look forward to seeing you all sometime in the spring.

For the record, Lehigh Valley (with an enrollment of 214 students 10-12 in 2015-16) is almost certainly eligible for the new charter-and-private division of the 2017 SSNCT.

According to the laws of our country, charter schools are public schools.
Maybe some charters are selective. Lehigh Valley Academy is not. It doesn't belong in a group with selective and/or wealthy private schools.
Our school is hoping to grow. If it ever grows past 350 kids, it will be entirely ineligible under your new policy.
Forgetting LVA for the moment (we have already decided not to go to SSNCT for the next two years), what about charters between 350-500 kids? Unless they are the "default" public school for their districts, they are not eligible at all for SSNCT, correct? You said that charter schools that are the default school of their district are rare but that they do exist. I still haven't heard of one. Examples?

Note: I am not speaking for NAQT in this post.

Antrobus63 wrote:According to the laws of our country, charter schools are public schools.

That depends on whom you ask. For instance, the NLRB decided (summary) that the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School is private. The Washington State Supreme Court determined that "the provisions of [a state law] that designate and treat charter schools as common schools violate…our state constitution" (page 2 of the PDF). The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Horizon Community Learning Center (a charter school) was not a state actor. This article from the Emory Law Journal explains how charter schools themselves argue that they are private when it suits them.

In some ways, charter schools resemble public schools; in other ways, they resemble private schools. I suggest that the putative dichotomy is the problem, and they are in fact in a category unto themselves. But regardless of how you or I prefer to label them, their categorization in terms of NAQT's Small School divisions is clear, and repeating "charter schools are public schools" doesn't seem likely to change that.

Antrobus63 wrote:what about charters between 350-500 kids? Unless they are the "default" public school for their districts, they are not eligible at all for SSNCT, correct? You said that charter schools that are the default school of their district are rare but that they do exist. I still haven't heard of one. Examples?

Most or all of the schools in the New Orleans district.

I'm going to move all of this over to a longer post on the SSNCT thread but, for now:

The articles you cite refer to the organizational, systemic advantages that charters have over traditional public schools. But changing some of the the rules for charters was the whole freaking point of the movement. That's no insidious secret. The concept was to give charters a freer hand to see if they could do a better job than some public schools or, through competition, to see if traditional schools would somehow change themselves for the better. I am not a conservative and am dubious about this theory.

But how does any of this give a charter school an advantage in producing academically superior students? The NLRB decision you cited is all about union protections. And I agree: being a teacher at a charter is a tough go: the pay is low and teachers can be fired at any time. But how does having lower-paid teachers help the kids' education? Also, most charters are cash poor, so they are very limited in their ability to provide athletics and other extra-curricular activities. In our own state, since most charters scrimp and save, their lawyers generally advise them not to recognize the Gifted IEP [Individualized education program] designation that traditional public schools do, so... no help there, either. My sons have gone to to charters with no gifted designation and almost no extracurricular activities, except what I and other parents carve out on our own. Any success we have had in quiz bowl has zero to do with the two charter schools that Alex has attended.

And aren't we talking about quiz bowl? Quiz bowl! You have no proof that the most charters (I should not have to defend corrupt corporate charters) have an unfair advantage within quiz bowl. Your previous model, to decide the disposition of charters on a case-by-case basis, was the correct, ethical way to handle this. Your new rule is either a way to free NAQT from the administrative hassle of having to sort through various charters, which I understand, or your own attempt to take a side in a culture war, which I do not.

Mr. Henry has evidently been arguing his case with you guys for a while but he is not just a QB coach; he is an employee at a traditional public school who has his own dog in this cultural fight. Traditional public school employees, admins and teachers, tend to, um, loathe charters. And part of his argument was that other public school QB folks agreed with him. OK then: where is that support? In the previous threads, other public school coaches regretted the new ruling.

As for the New Orleans example... that's all you've got? I was aware of this but never dreamed that you would use this as your exception that proves the rule. A city that was forced into a complete overhaul by the utter failure of its public school system?! The new, charter system hasn't worked, either, but again, I am not arguing for the superiority of charter schools. I am just trying to keep NAQT from unfairly discriminating against charter quiz bowl teams because it has decided to take a stand in a larger culture argument about the nature of American education.

Antrobus63 wrote: Mr. Henry has evidently been arguing his case with you guys for a while but he is not just a QB coach; he is an employee at a traditional public school who has his own dog in this cultural fight. Traditional public school employees, admins and teachers, tend to, um, loathe charters. And part of his argument was that other public school QB folks agreed with him. OK then: where is that support? In the previous threads, other public school coaches regretted the new ruling.

For what it's worth, I agree that others are keeping their voices silent and I'm actually pretty angry about it. I e-mailed R. at NAQT shortly after the new policy was announced, and he even said in reply that I was "far from the only person to express dissatisfaction" about this issue. That is a direct quote from his e-mail. I asked if perhaps NAQT might say as much publicly, but that never happened. I don't even necessarily want to call specific people out. But, I DO wish that it would be acknowledged that this wasn't just me - not even close. Frankly, if I had known the level of vitriol that would be directed at me, I probably wouldn't have even brought it up. What I expected was that I would begin the conversation and then other like-minded coaches would post their agreement with me. Instead, it APPEARS that I single-handedly convinced NAQT to make a major policy change simply for the benefit of my own team. That, of course, is ludicrous. I don't have that much pull. The very fact that they DID make such a drastic change should be evidence enough that I wasn't the only person to make a case for said change, but some people just want someone to vilify.

For the record, Lee is very much correct that a substantial number of other coaches expressed discontent to NAQT about our pre-2017 classification of charter schools. (It's worth keeping in mind that most high school coaches do not post on this forum.)

Speaking of which, another thing I'm consistently surprised by is that polls/HSQBRank regularly rank us slightly ahead of Barrington when we basically have the same lineups as last year and they won nearly all of our encounters then (we have not played this year yet). Can anyone explain this statistically?

EDIT: Sorry if I'm kinda late on this thread.

JakobeanEra wrote:Speaking of which, another thing I'm consistently surprised by is that polls/HSQBRank regularly rank us slightly ahead of Barrington when we basically have the same lineups as last year and they won nearly all of our encounters then (we have not played this year yet). Can anyone explain this statistically?

Morlan's ranks are based on adjusted points per bonus, so head-to-head records do not matter. Naperville North posted higher PPBs in tournaments then did Barrington (see 2016 IL NAQT State)

Morlan's ranks are based on adjusted points per bonus, so head-to-head records do not matter. Naperville North posted higher PPBs in tournaments then did Barrington (see 2016 IL NAQT State)

So my unnatural NAQT skills helped me again. Neato!

Quick question: Any idea when we can expect a mid-season poll update?

Chromica wrote:Quick question: Any idea when we can expect a mid-season poll update?

Within the first two weeks of January; I'm drafting an email to prospective voters right now. Thanks for your interest!

If anybody reading this (excepting current high school players) would like to participate in this poll, shoot me an email at g.brisontrezise AT gmail.