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These are challenging times for secondary education. Cash-strapped school districts are cutting back; No Child Left Behind mandates test results; parents and students stress unabated. NEWSWEEK, which has been ranking the top public high schools in America for more than a decade, revamped its methodology this year in hopes of highlighting solutions.
These are challenging times for secondary education. Cash-strapped school districts are cutting back; No Child Left Behind mandates test results; parents and students stress unabated. NEWSWEEK, which has been ranking the top public high schools in America for more than a decade, revamped its methodology this year in hopes of highlighting solutions.
In general, I don't believe these lists are very accurate or very helpful. The criteria are heavily weighted toward things like ACT and SAT scores and the numbers of IB, AP, etc. offered. They also weighted the average scores on the IB and AP exams, but they may offer many and kids may not take the exams for lots of reasons.
At any rate, many of the schools that came in high on the list are magnet schools and thus have a selective enrollment.
At least this year they looked at, and weighted more, things like graduation rates, college acceptances, etc. I agree though, the "top" schools on the list are not true public schools and are mostly selective prep schools.
WTG!!! The school I teach at made the list but nowhere near the top 25.
My school has never broken top 25 though we have gotten top 50 twice because our theme means there are few AP courses for our students to take. All of our seniors graduate with between 12 to 24 college credits due to accreditation agreements but none of the ranking systems count those. Oh well.
We do have the sixth highest publication rate per capita for any undergraduate course offering school in our state which is pretty nifty. Actually puts us ahead of a bunch of actual universities.
My school has never broken top 25 though we have gotten top 50 twice because our theme means there are few AP courses for our students to take. All of our seniors graduate with between 12 to 24 college credits due to accreditation agreements but none of the ranking systems count those. Oh well.
We do have the sixth highest publication rate per capita for any undergraduate course offering school in our state which is pretty nifty. Actually puts us ahead of a bunch of actual universities.
Cool!
I'd love to teach some college level courses. I'm legal but our school is small so there are few students to take them. We do have AP classes offered on a rotating schecule and quite a few kids take those. Half of my classes were half empty during AP exam week.
I'd love to teach some college level courses. I'm legal but our school is small so there are few students to take them. We do have AP classes offered on a rotating schecule and quite a few kids take those. Half of my classes were half empty during AP exam week.
How small? Our school only has 65 or so kids per grade. They get college course but there is only one elective for their whole high school career (besides language).
How small? Our school only has 65 or so kids per grade. They get college course but there is only one elective for their whole high school career (besides language).
Wow. We're bigger than that but I can't imagine being able to fill a class that was offered for college credit. Although, I would love to take the top 5 students out of each of my chemistry classes and put them in one class. THAT would be one interesting class. I had a few kids this year who gave me a run for my money. Which is really cool.
Wow. We're bigger than that but I can't imagine being able to fill a class that was offered for college credit. Although, I would love to take the top 5 students out of each of my chemistry classes and put them in one class. THAT would be one interesting class. I had a few kids this year who gave me a run for my money. Which is really cool.
We had 12 sections of AB Biology for the sophomores at our school this year (580 kids in that class so about 420 of those kids took AP Bio). There are about 2000 kids in our high school 9-12 and we have 30 AP class offerings and 15 or so college in the school classes (college classes taught by professors from the State University in the high school) plus the unlimited classes kids can take at the state university and some of the private colleges around here.
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I had a few kids this year who gave me a run for my money. Which is really cool.
