Since the 1980s, when it became commonplace to rank our schools, there have been deep disagreements about the relative value and validity of such endeavors.

Though the most common example is college rankings—best exemplified by the infamous U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” issue—our schools are ranked at the elementary and secondary school levels as well, first with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and more recently with Race to the Top. These K-12 programs are designed to improve public school performance, using federal money as an incentive.

All of these systems seek to create definitive and quantitative measures by which to determine school caliber. This is an admirable goal. After all, who wouldn’t want to know once and for all where his or her school falls? However, none of the ranking systems succeed, primarily because no system can find a fair, objective way to categorically rate educational institutions.

At the high school level, government programs designed to improve school quality have been met with much criticism. For one, relying on standardized testing to measure performance has created an environment in which students are taught to the test, neglecting other valuable aspects of education that do not show up on an exam. Economic woes compound these problems: As city and state education budgets are slashed, schools turn more and more to federal funding, thus increasing pressure on teachers and students to conform to the standards required by national education reform laws.

In college, rankings cause different problems. Schools attempt to “game” the system to climb higher, thus improving their reputations, which allows them to rise again. For instance, because admissions rate is a significant factor in many rankings, the University of Pennsylvania fills nearly 40% of its class with early decision applicants, allowing it to lower the acceptance rate of the regular decision round—the more significant round. And this is only one example among many. A pattern of decisions—admissions and otherwise—based on rankings may prevent real academic improvement among schools not listed at the top of the rankings, as the most talented students continue to primarily seek out colleges located near the apex, and not those that will actually educate them well.

I put forward two propositions: Either create a more holistic approach to rankings, or abandon them all together. Given a natural human inclination to compete and define impartially what is “better” or “worse,” however, it is unlikely that the latter will ever come to fruition.

But steps toward a better ranking system have already been taken. In 2007, the Annapolis Group, a consortium of about 130 liberal arts colleges, announced its intent to stop participating in the U.S. News & World Report survey, instead collaborating with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities to develop an alternative process of ranking schools.

Much more recently, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a new system, one based around an evaluation of each school’s core required curriculum. Under this methodology, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford—the top five schools in U.S. News & World Report—received a D, C, F, B, and C, respectively (Columbia, with a B, is known for its core curriculum). These rankings are likely to be disregarded and scoffed at—true, they are incomplete—but they suggest that alternative systems for valuing a college education are on the rise.

These measures bode well, but are not satisfactory. The issues surrounding the rankings systems are unlikely to be resolved in the near future, as colleges at the top of the processes will wish to keep their position, while colleges on the bottom will arguing for different evaluations. But further action must be taken to ensure that rankings—if they must exist—are enacted in a fairer fashion.