<p>Cary Academy and NC School for Math & Science are the best in NC.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
doctorb - You might want to see Early College at Guilford in Greensboro,NC under the “Public Elite” category.</p>
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<p>Wow! Wasn’t the movie Stand and Deliver all about PASSING the AP Calculus exam? </p>
<p>By the way, welcome to this forum. Please stick around. There is a wealth of information available to people who need it.</p>
<p>xiggi:</p>
<p>I was responding to someone else’s comments, but that’s okay. The Challenge Index was inspired by Escalante’s work at Garfield high. The lesson Escalante taught everyone was about access to AP as much as it was about passing AP. (No one thought those kids even belonged in those classes.)</p>
<p>How do you know kids can or cannot pass an AP course if you ‘gate-keep’ them out of it. To say that only students who we know can pass an AP exam should be ‘allowed’ to take a course pre-cludes a ‘I know better’ attitude about individuals. There are many, many intangibles such as maturity, work ethic etc. and kids often surprise us. </p>
<p>To deny students who you are judging ahead of time cannot handle AP also runs counter to the University of Texas studies that show that even students who get a ‘2’ on the exam are 3-4 times more likely to graduate from college than ‘like’ students who did not take an AP course. The Adelman study in 2004 also showed that academic rigor of a student’s coursework is the biggest predictor of college success. (Bigger than test scores or GPA.) </p>
<p>Certainly, I am not a proponent of ‘AP for all’ because that’s just as inappropriate as gate-keeping is. We do a disservice to force kids who aren’t ready into AP and there have been no studies that show that kids who get a ‘1’ on the exam benefit. However, and this is a big however, there is still a TON of gate-keeping going on in this country and this is what the Challenge Index is all about. It’s all about incentivising schools to do something that research shows is good for kids. If the list creates that incentive, so be it. It’s sad that only 6% of our school’s can meet the modest standards of the Challenge Index, but the number of schools making the list has grown dramatically which is a good thing for education in this country.</p>
<p>What is really ridiculous is that every year, when the list comes out, you get some elitist private school parents get all hacked off that their local high school made the list. They should be happy for their local schools. It helps their property values. Instead, their petty little egos are bruised and that’s all they care about. They don’t want anyone to think that the local public school is doing something well. In my experience, these are the type of people who don’t want their kid to go to the local public school because of the, let’s say, ‘diversity’ there. It’s kind of hard to stomach.</p>
<p>[Of the 4 schools in our area on the list, one is a fantastic, nationally known college prep school (have to test to get into it), and the other 3 are…good to very good.
[/quote]
I thought schools requiring entrance exams weren’t allowed on the list? Did that criterion change?</p>
<p>Good point. I was not aware of that but it seems to be the case.</p>
<p>This school is touted (and rightly so) as the gem in the city’s public school system. But competing area high schools that do not have entrance exams do just as well (or better) in many areas, and when compared, have to point out that they must accept all students.</p>
<p>Deja, schools requiring entrance exams are allowed on the list unless they are one of the 20+ “public elite” schools.</p>
<p>Here is a list and description of the “public elite” schools:</p>
<p>[Top</a> High Schools: The Public Elites - Newsweek](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/2009/06/07/in-a-different-class.html]Top”>Top High Schools: The Public Elites)</p>
<p>I have always been puzzled by this list. I’d have no objections at all if Newsweek touted it under another name, but it quite obviously is not a list of the best high schools unless one applies that lone criterion. How many parents, looking for a great school district, even consider the accessibility of AP tests among the top 5 factors?</p>
<p>Four schools in our county, including the one our kids attended, made the list. One, in a small rural-ish district that draws from a large geographic area, was listed in the 700-range; another, a smallish suburban school, was in the 900s; ours and the last school, in large suburban districts, were in the 1100s. These schools are far more similar, in terms of the academic experience they provide, than they are different. And all districts are considered affluent, with pockets of less well-off areas.</p>
<p>Our school’s SAT scores were almost 150 points higher than the highest-ranked local school. I realize that SAT scores are tied in to parental income, but the schools I’ve mentioned are all similar in economic background. Our school also offers more APs, including those considered more challenging, and an extensive program of college-level courses through Syracuse University and SUNY Oswego (which apparently don’t count in the study). And our school has been recognized for high performance on APs in a recent report. More of our school’s students go on to 4-year colleges (which I realize may also be a reflection of parental income, but again, these are very similar schools).</p>
<p>So it befuddles me. I figure the whole list is open to skepticism if the 4 schools I know well are too similar to be separated by such large gaps. (And if, by any reasonable measure, our hs is really the best. 
Kidding, kidding.)</p>
<p>@jonri:
“they really DO differentiate between AP BC Calculus or AP Foreign Language and AP environmental science”</p>
<p>I’m probably way behind the discussion here, but can you elaborate on this?</p>
<p>Frazzled1:</p>
<p>You should read the FAQs attached to the article, it addresses much of what you’re talking about. Jay Mathews, the creator of the list basically says don’t worry about the rank of your school. </p>
<p>The main reason he ranks is to generate interest for the list. The list has created an incentive for more schools to open up AP to more kids. This is something that research has backed up as a best practice, yet the vast majority of schools still only allow their very top students to attempt these classes.</p>
<p>^definitely agree, I wanted to take AP Calculus BC senior year but since I only had an A-, I was not allowed to take the class (and was also rejected when I asked to take AP French). If you think you can handle the demanding AP course load, you should be able to try it.</p>
<p>
I can’t say that I’m worried about our school’s rank - my kids have all graduated. 
I don’t mind Mathews creating any list he wants - I do mind Newsweek calling it “America’s Best High Schools.” (Maybe, but that’s a pretty big asterisk.) I’m sympathetic to the idea of opening up challenging classes to more students, provided the students are prepared. But because I am so familiar with the 4 local schools included on the list, I can see how very similar they are, in terms of student performance and economic environment. There’s just no way a reasonable system would rank them hundreds of slots apart.</p>
<p>Wisc, </p>
<p>If anyone needs to lose the attitude, it’s you. </p>
<p>If the idea is that you want to encourage regular old US high schools to offer AP courses to lots of kids, then why not exclude ALL selective admissions high schools from the list? The kids who attend the selective high schools on the list aren’t regular students. I think a conservative estimate would be that at least 20% of the schools on this list have selective admissions and/or have magnet high schools within them which do. </p>
<p>Look at one such school–Boston Latin. In order to qualify you must take a 3 hour exam, which is one generally used for admission to private schools. You must ALSO have a specified gpa in math and science in the year prior to enrollment. It is HARD to get into Boston Latin; it doesn’t take average students. Why is it on this list? </p>
<p>A good friend of my kid’s went to one of the high schools on the list. She was in an IB program which drew from the entire county. ONLY kids in that program were allowed to take IB courses. It was physically located in the same building as a regular high school. The only classes she and her IB classmates took with the “regular” kids were gym classes. So, if the point of the list is to do what you say, why say this is one of the “best” high schools in America? It didn’t even OFFER AP or IB classes to those regular students you claim Matthews is trying to help. </p>
<p>AT least the little E&E column lets you see what percentage of the class took AP tests At one of the schools (Herron, IN), 5 per cent did. At anothe (East Chapel Hill)r, 10% did.There are LOTS of high schools on the list at which less than 25% of the class did. </p>
<p>Bartow High School in Florida makes the list. 13.3% of its students take AP or IB classes. Those would be the ones that attend the county-wide IB program in the high school, which has selective admissions. See [International</a> Baccalaureate School at Bartow High - Considerations for Interested Students](<a href=“http://ib-bhs.com/process4.shtml]International”>http://ib-bhs.com/process4.shtml). Again, just exactly how is this high school getting away from “gate keeping?” </p>
<p>Why not rank by the percentage of kids who take any AP classes rather than the median # of tests per kid if the rationale is what you claim? And why not limit the list to high schools which have open enrollment? </p>
<p>The list is a joke. It does NOT rank the schools in terms of the percentage of regular old students who take AP and IB classes. So, it doesn’t even do what you say it is aimed at fostering.</p>
<p>You say
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<p>No, it doesn’t. It encourages gate keeping. It encourages the creation of charter schools with selective admissions. It encourages the creation of IB programs whiere a small percentage of the class takes IB courses but the number of ib TESTS that small group takes enables the high school to make the list. At MANY of the IB programs schools, you have to take the ENTIRE program, so kids who aren’t good enough to hack one particular subject area, e.g., math, are shut out from the entire program. The quickest way to guarantee your high school a spot on this list is to create an IB program and limit it to your top students–who have to take LOTS of IB tests and thus will put you on the list, even if, as at Bartow, only 13.3% of the class is in the program.</p>
<p>Weird how on one list my public high school is Top 30 and on this one it falls to 100 something. These rankings aren’t always consistent with one another – guess it’s based on each ranker’s criteria of what IS a good high school.</p>
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<p>@jonri: There is another way in which gaming of the system occurs. At our D’s school, courses such as AP chem used to get two course blocks. For some time, the principal talked about giving just one course block (i.e., cutting the amount of class time in half). Now he has apparently made the switch. As a result, a student can now take a watered-down AP chem class and an AP Microeconomics class in place of a rigorous AP chem class. Sadly, this was the last straw for a terrific AP chem teacher, who has decided to take early retirement. </p>
<p>The word among the students is that the school used to care about the number of students who score a 5 on the AP exam; now the focus is on the number who score a 3 or above. It is not clear that this is wise. There has been mention in this thread of studies showing the benefits of taking AP courses. For instance, WISCBadger22 mentioned University of Texas studies showing that “students who get a ‘2’ on the exam are 3-4 times more likely to graduate from college than ‘like’ students who did not take an AP course.” I have not read the studies but I advise reading them with a jaundiced eye because education studies are typically not randomized experiments. Suppose that Dick and Jane both have a 1700 SAT and a 3.0 GPA. Along the way, Jane decided to take AP classes while Dick did not. Later, Jane graduated from college while Dick dropped out. Should the AP experience be given credit for the different outcomes? Perhaps the answer actually lies in why Jane decided to take the courses and Dick did not. It is possible that their decisions resulted from differences in confidence, diligence and motivation. Under this interpretation, Jane did better in college because she was different from Dick, not because she took a particular class. This is a classic “selection bias” problem. I do not doubt that the AP experience can be transformative for some, but the Challenge Index may do more harm that good.</p>
<p>^if a high school principal is more concerned about moving up in some rankings list (and manipulating the rankings by making it possible for students to take more AP classes etc…) than doing everything he can to improve his school in the best way that affects students/faculty/staff in a positive manner (focusing on getting everyone to a level that they can succeed and get A’s in challenging AP classes for example), he should be fired.</p>
<p>(And yes, I’ll extend this to my college too, stop worrying about the rankings and if you focus on what really matters, the rankings will come by themselves)</p>
<p>Well, Matthew’s list was successful years ago in pressuring our high school to allow kids to self-select AP or IB courses. It just makes me cringe when I read postings like the one upthread where a student with an A- in a prerequisite course wasn’t allowed to take the AP course.</p>
<p>The major changed I’d like to see him make are:
- Weight the AP courses by whether they cover a semester or a year of college material. It still doesn’t deal with the reality that Calculus AB is likely to be a lot more work than AP Psychology, but the reality is also that in many colleges the equivalent calculus course and the equivalent into psych course both are given the same unit value.
- Drop schools that have entry test requirements.</p>
<p>He has a different equity index which does look at pass rate, particularly in schools with a significant free and reduced lunch rate.</p>
<p>Oh! My homeschool high school didn’t make the list. Drat! </p>
<p>But I bet I had the lowest per pupil cost: final year with 3 (siblings) in my homeschool high school: $128, for all. :)</p>
<p>fencersmother:</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing. Who did they take to the Prom and Homecoming? </p>
<p>I can only imagine someday when out their ole’ yearbook (a family photo) with their own kids and tell them the stories about how nervous they were when they were a freshman, etc. </p>
<p>(Relax, I’m joking. But what’s the purpose of saying you only spent $128 for 3 kids? You still paid property taxes the entire time, I’m assuming.)</p>