Newsweek's Not-so-meaningful List of America's Top 100 High Schools
This week's Newsweek cover story claims to rank America's top 100 public high schools. Curiously, its only criterion for rating these schools is:
"Newsweek's Best High School List uses a ratio, the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors." (My boldface.)
Newsweek describes its tests-taken-over-grads statistic as "one of the best measures available to compare a wide range of students' readiness for higher-level work" but does not, to my satisfaction, explain why. The magazine also fails to explain why it did not take into consideration extracurricular offerings, after-school study programs, parent-teacher networks, use of technology, vocational offerings for non-college-bound students, and so forth. Newsweek's statistic is also driven only by the number of AP/IB exams taken and does not reflect how students actually performed on these tests. Moreover, because the ratio's denominator is the number of graduates, a school's score rises if students who are not performing at an AP/IB level drop out before graduation.
I would suggest that Newsweek's study says less about the schools themselves and more about whether schools' incoming freshmen enter high school prepared to take advanced-level courses. Magnets and other specialty schools have an obvious advantage in Newsweek's ratings, because these schools have admissions standards and curriculae geared toward college-bound students. A student at one of Newsweek's top-rated schools (School A) could possibly get a better education at a school that scored much lower according to the magazine's sole indicator (School B). School B could have excellent offerings for high-performing, academically minded students, while also making an effort to address the needs of students interested in trades or vocational education or lower-performing students who are willing to work their way into college, but who may never take an AP or IB course. But, because School B is committed to educating a more diverse student body, it would not make Newsweek's list.
A top high school, in my mind, will challenge and meet the needs of all students regardless of their backgrounds, gifts, or interests.
"Newsweek's Best High School List uses a ratio, the number of Advanced Placement (AP) and/or International Baccalaureate (IB) tests taken by all students at a school in 2004, divided by the number of graduating seniors." (My boldface.)
Newsweek describes its tests-taken-over-grads statistic as "one of the best measures available to compare a wide range of students' readiness for higher-level work" but does not, to my satisfaction, explain why. The magazine also fails to explain why it did not take into consideration extracurricular offerings, after-school study programs, parent-teacher networks, use of technology, vocational offerings for non-college-bound students, and so forth. Newsweek's statistic is also driven only by the number of AP/IB exams taken and does not reflect how students actually performed on these tests. Moreover, because the ratio's denominator is the number of graduates, a school's score rises if students who are not performing at an AP/IB level drop out before graduation.
I would suggest that Newsweek's study says less about the schools themselves and more about whether schools' incoming freshmen enter high school prepared to take advanced-level courses. Magnets and other specialty schools have an obvious advantage in Newsweek's ratings, because these schools have admissions standards and curriculae geared toward college-bound students. A student at one of Newsweek's top-rated schools (School A) could possibly get a better education at a school that scored much lower according to the magazine's sole indicator (School B). School B could have excellent offerings for high-performing, academically minded students, while also making an effort to address the needs of students interested in trades or vocational education or lower-performing students who are willing to work their way into college, but who may never take an AP or IB course. But, because School B is committed to educating a more diverse student body, it would not make Newsweek's list.
A top high school, in my mind, will challenge and meet the needs of all students regardless of their backgrounds, gifts, or interests.
posted by Tinley | 7:25 PM
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