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Old 05-09-2018, 06:01 PM
 
5,989 posts, read 6,750,246 times
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These Are The 10 Best Public High Schools In CT, According To U.S. News - Hartford Courant

Really? Seems strange to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have both public high schools in my town be named, but in my opinion, these aren't the top 10 high schools in the state. So then I looked at how US News evaluated them - and boy, it was more confusing than trying to do my income taxes!

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...d-the-rankings

Near as I can tell, they used a very complex formula that rewarded schools whose Black, Hispanic, and low-income students performed better than what was expected for that demographic overall. So, say you have a school that first of all HAS Black, Hispanic, and low-income students. And they performed better on standardized math and reading tests than was expected for Black, Hispanic, and low-income students overall (but the school overall was not in the BOTTOM TENTH PERCENTILE of the state) - they could qualify to be ranked highly. The school had to have an at least 80% graduation rate - not that being graduated in this era of social promotion means much. They also evaluated schools on the percentage of students who attempted an AP or IB course, and who scored at least a 3.

So, if you have a high school with few Black, Hispanic, or low-income students, and very high standardized test scores, and lots of kids who took AP exams and scored 5 s on them, and has a 99% graduation rate, it could rank lower than a school with low test scores, a graduation rate of 80%, and not a single kid who got higher than a 3 on an AP exam, but has a high percentage of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students who are achieving at a higher than expected rate for that demographic!
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Old 05-09-2018, 06:13 PM
 
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I think you have to do something along those lines, otherwise you're just asking what school has the smartest kids. Which is not really the same thing is it?
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Old 05-09-2018, 06:28 PM
 
Location: Connecticut
34,808 posts, read 56,697,113 times
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We have talked about this rating in the past. It is questionable at best. First a large number of the top rated schools are magnet or charter schools that pick and choose the students they want. How hard is it to have high test scores when you only take the top students.

Also I do not believe that the number of AP classes offered means as much as they claim. Connecticut schools tend to have very high curriculum standards so the number of kids eligible for AP classes is less because the kids do not have the grades.

Finally I looked at the Connecticut list and question how some of the questionable schools rated higher than others that known to be good. Makes me highly question the validity of this ranking. Jay
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Old 05-09-2018, 06:40 PM
 
5,989 posts, read 6,750,246 times
Reputation: 18485
I think it's the same rationale that rated Manchester as a top town in the country.
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