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I was surprised by the top 100 nationally. Only one MA high school made the cut. The top 7 feature one high school in Maine, but most were in the South.
That school in Maine is a public residential school magnet school that focuses on STEM. There are less than 140 students and they live on campus. It's pretty much a boarding school with free tuition and the families are responsible for room and board. All the teachers have at least a Master's and many have Doctorates and the ratio is something like 9:1.
It's a great model but not one that is easily replicated.
I looked at the national rankings and saw a lot of schools in Georgia ranked very high. I don't completely understand their methodology, but can say, in my experience, that there is NO way these schools in the South are better than schools in Mass.
I can't take these rankings seriously when they include charter/magnet school and exam schools. Sure, you can have great scores when you pick and choose your students.
Also, socioeconomic profile is more telling than racial makeup of a district. It's not necessarily the money but areas/towns with more affordable housing and social services usually have a much higher number of high needs students(i.e. learning disabilities, behavior issues, interrupted education from moving around a lot). In contrast, solidly middle class and wealthy areas have kids who attended good preschools, get tutoring if needed, are usually involved in enrichment activities outside of school, etc. Students with disabilities that come from a family with financial resources are also more likely to receive private services in speech/language, OT/PT, ABA, etc. so there may be much more progress due to reinforcement and practice of skills outside of school.
Now here comes the non-PC part. Would I send my kids to the lower performing districts or those with troubled schools? No. Because their resources are stretched to the limit. The "regular" students often get less attention and enrichment which limits their learning opportunities. Bear in mind, I am NOT talking about the "average" schools that actually quite good but don't have the hype like Grafton, Reading, Ashland, Franklin, Bellingham, etc
This is just my opinion but it is what I have experienced being in the educational psychology & teaching field for over 16 years in Mass,
Last edited by OtterTrees; 04-30-2019 at 05:50 PM..
I looked at the national rankings and saw a lot of schools in Georgia ranked very high. I don't completely understand their methodology, but can say, in my experience, that there is NO way these schools in the South are better than schools in Mass.
I would take this list with a grain of salt. US News does not even consider SAT scores for its national ranking of public high schools. How can you rank "college readiness" without looking at SAT scores? Massachusetts has the highest average SAT scores in the Nation. US News looks primarily at pass rates on state-wide exams like MCAS (with some consideration to AP and IB). State exams and state standards are not consistent across the Nation. I'd venture to guess that MCAS is a more stringent exam than the standardized tests in most other states and also tougher to pass.
IMO, this ^^^ explains why MA schools don't rank higher. Only completely removing SAT scores from the data altogether and factoring in tougher MCAS standards could explain why a school like Acton-Boxborough, with the highest SAT scores in MA (non-charter), ranks only 765th in the nation and 30th in MA according to US News.
I looked at the national rankings and saw a lot of schools in Georgia ranked very high. I don't completely understand their methodology, but can say, in my experience, that there is NO way these schools in the South are better than schools in Mass.
Some of the schools in the Atlanta suburbs are pretty good. Probably not so good in other areas in Georgia.
Some of the schools in the Atlanta suburbs are pretty good. Probably not so good in other areas in Georgia.
I am from metro Atlanta and went to one of these high ranking schools. My nieces and nephews go to these schools and NO way are they better than the average Mass school.
Amazing to see Hopkinton so high. I'm wondering how they have made that happen.
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