Newsweek 2006 Best high schools

[roshke]

<p>Sorry, the link I posted was for this year’s FAQs</p>

<p>To read the one I was referring to you apparently have to click on the 2005 list and then go directly to the FAQs from that year. It’s not allowing the direct link anymore!</p>

[bananainpyjamas]

<p>

College board high quality research? Yea, like the milk board saying milk is good for us, or …(never mind)

</p>

<p>Tell me about it. I’ll believe student testimonials about the significant difference in rigor between college intro courses and AP courses over CB-sponsored research anyday. Heck I’ve experienced it first-hand myself.</p>

[system]

<p>Those of us at top privates just roll our eyes, but I woul;d think those at “elite” publics that Matthews chooses not to include would be really insulted. Schools like Stuy and Science have kids that have defied a lot of odds to be at those “elite” schools. They should be recognized as among the very best in this Country. Didn’y Matthews go to Harvard. Can they revoke a degree?</p>

[LearnMore]

<p>I hate Newsweek’s “Best High School” list. Historically, our high school has ranked high on it. And it has only served to create incredible administration created pressure (ranking on coercion) for students to take APs. For example, when you move from 10th to 11th grade, Accelerated English classes disappear–you either move up to AP or down to regular. And the social studies department offers NO accelerated classes–everything is regular or AP. And the new plan for next year is to push the majority of seniors into AP US Government. </p>

<p>There may be credible ways to identify the best high schools in our country–but in my opinion, Newsweek’s AP driven list isn’t one of them!</p>

[PrimetimeMom]

<p>Ah, they are public schools. This obviously does not apply to CA as sending your kid to public HS here is not an option for any parent except in very few select areas. Hence 25K tuition for private school :p</p>

[bananainpyjamas]

<p>

I woul;d think those at “elite” publics that Matthews chooses not to include would be really insulted.

</p>

<p>Speaking as an alum of an ‘elite’ public HS, I never felt insulted and I can’t imagine not being included really matters to other elite publics either. Obviously they were considered elite before this silly list, and I highly doubt their exclusion would affect that at all.</p>

[SBmom]

<p>Actually Primetime mom there were lots of Calif schools. Surprisingly!</p>

[audiophile]

<p>If my daughters’ school is any indication, the rankings are a joke. Their school is always top ranked in the Newsweek list, but typically graded C in the state. This is because there are really two tiers of education there. They have an IB diploma program with competitive admission. The students have to submit grades, standardized test scores and take a separate test to get in. However, the IB program is just a small component of the school. Many of the “traditional” kids are lucky to graduate, let alone go to college.</p>

[Allmusic]

<p>I found this list amusing, actually. The best high schools that I know of are way down on the list, if they are there at all.</p>

<p>Basing these rankings on something as arbitrary as number of AP courses just struck me as kind of odd, so the list isn’t terribly meaningful to me.</p>

[roshke]

<p><a href=“http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12553641/site/newsweek/[/url]”>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12553641/site/newsweek/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The authors of this are taking questions about it right now for a Live Talk at 12N today.</p>

[CTTC]

<p>There are two tiers of education in our zoned high school, also, audiophile. The IB’rs and The Rest. And the IB program is not open to everyone – applicants must take a standardized test, write an essay, and submit their transcripts and teacher recommendations.</p>

[NJres]

<p>I am going to submit a proposal to our local school board that will vault our high school to the top of this idiotic “ranking.” Forget about hiring qualified teachers, spending money on computers, equipment, buildings, don’t waste time on enrichment programs, here is the simple plan:</p>

<p>First of all we will have a simple entrance exam for the high school, just to screen out special ed students or anyone who can’t sit down and take a test. Then, require that every student in the high school take four AP tests every year, whether or not they take the AP course. If we have 100 students in each of four grades that will be 400 students times 4 tests each = 1600 divided by graduating seniors (100) will give us an index of 16. Will that be good enough for #1? </p>

<p>The Jay Matthews so-called Challenge index may have some validity, but to take the results of that specific, narrow measure and claim that this is the ranking of the nation’s best high schools is so bogus it drives me nuts! And even if it worked at all (which it doesn’t!) it would only work for the first year. After that, some school administrators would start to game the index as I show in my example.</p>

[ohio_mom]

<p>Has anyone read the Q’s and A’s yet?</p>

<p>

Question: One aspect not mentioned, as the AP program has grown so quickly, some colleges are now limiting how many credits it will give incoming Freshman. If this trend continues…how will that impact the popularity of the AP programs? </p>

<p>Answer (Jay Mathews): A smart question, but don’t worry. It is only a few very snotty and selective colleges that have decided to restrict credit…

</p>

<p>Of course, the folks most interested in snotty and selective league (aka frenzy + ivy) colleges could be a major part of his target market.</p>

[researchmaven]

<p>The H.S. Rankings are no more ridiculous than the U.S.News and other college rankings, it’s just that we’re all more familiar with the true details behind our high school’s rankings.</p>

[marite]

<p>NYT: Odd Math for ‘Best High Schools’ List</p>

<p>

A rating system that rewards quantity without measuring quality produces some truly bizarre results.</p>

<p>For example, Forshay Learning Center, a high-poverty school in Los Angeles, is ranked No. 414 on Newsweek’s list with a ratio of 1.888 AP tests per graduating senior; Lexington High in well-to-do suburban Boston is ranked No. 441, with a ratio of 1.831. For Newsweek, it does not matter that Forshay students failed 83 percent of their AP tests with scores of 1’s and 2’s; while at Lexington, 91 percent were 3’s, 4’s or the top grade of 5–qualifying those students for college credits."
“Shouldn’t results on the test count for something?” asked Michael Jones, Lexington High’s principal.

</p>

[marite]

<p>Oops. cross-posted with asteriskea who provided link.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>That’s fine - great minds think alike! :)</p>

[roshke]

<p>You have to understand, Jay Mathews is fully aware that these rankings are bogus. His straightforward agenda, and if you read what he says it’s obvious, is to promote the access of AP classes in poor neighborhoods. That’s the reason he gives for not counting the scores. From Newsweek’s FAQs of this year:</p>

<p>

Alameda, CA: Your ranking is amazingly one-dimensional, since anyone can take and fail the AP exams…why not at least include percentages of takers who get scores of 3 and 4-5?
Jay Mathews: Ah, great question, which gets to the heart of why I decided to rate schools by participation, not scores. Most schools restrict access to AP. I hope I have shown how bad that is. But when you ask them about their AP program, they say, We’re great! 90 percent of our kids passed the AP test! What they don’t tell you is that they only let about two dozen kids take AP, their A students, and so the results were foreordained. It is a scam, and the list is designed in part to expose it.

</p>

<p>Last year someone asked, then why call this list the Best High Schools, why not just say, a list of high schools that are providing access to higher level classes. His answer? Attention on the newstands!</p>

<p>The FAQs from last year was selectively “edited” just before this year’s list came out. In one Q, someone was reaming him out for the significance of the rankings and he comes out and actually says that he is “slightly ashamed” of the ranking aspect of the list. You’re apparently not supposed to make any distinction there but just to note that a particular school is on the list, period. </p>

<p>Again, though, his mission is to advocate for a model a la the movie Stand and Deliver, based on the successful experience of a superlative math teacher, Jaime Escalante with a group of inner city kids sent to summer school for remedial math. This model was Mathews inspiration, and he wrote a book about Garfield High and what they accomplished there. So his goal is to raise the standards of American education - from the bottom up. </p>

<p>Bottom line is I have no issue with Mathew’s ends , it’s his misleading means to which I object.</p>

<hr>

[garland]

<p>If the end were leading to better education, I would buy his justification. But filling AP classes full of kids who are getting 1s and 2s on the exam is not doing them any favors. Obviously, there is something seriously wrong with the quality of education in those classes. Calling them AP doesn’t automatically make them a place where students will learn more–I think it misleads them, so that the label becomes more important than the content. Escalante’s kids passed the AP in large numbers–that’s what made what he did so impressive, and important.</p>

[marite]

<p>I agree with Garland. It’s a case of humpty-dumpty to call classes AP classes when they are so bad and the students so unprepared that they result in 83% of test-takers (and that must be the more confident ones!) getting 1s and 2s. Calling something AP does not make it so. I wish Matthews would realize that. I’m sure he does. But he insists on using this bogus criterion which is disingenuous at best.</p>