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Again, this list measures NOTHING. All it measures is HOW MANY kids take a test-a school requires ALL students to take a test, boom, they are#1 in the nation. It measures NOTHING about the quality of the education in the school, as proven by Minneapolis schools with their 48% graduation rate out ranking Edina. How any anyone put any faith in a list that does that???
There are plenty of people on here that have a lot of experience with inner city schools and suburban schools and can speak to the quality differences between the two. When one school is measuring only their top MAYBE 1% of the students and the rest of the schools are measuring ALL of their students there can be no comparison. Now, lets compare the top 1% of ALL the schools and see who comes out on top, and it won't be a Minneapolis school that is for sure. Even that doesn't mean anything.
Taking graduation rates, percentages of kids going on to 4 year colleges, staff retention rates, community support through funding and overall education of the community will give you a better representation of how good a school is. Also, money means nothing-it is significantly less expensive for an inner city kid from a low income family to go to college than it is for a kid from an upper middle class family to go to college so money has no bearing on someone going to school or not.
Again, this list measures NOTHING. All it measures is HOW MANY kids take a test-a school requires ALL students to take a test, boom, they are#1 in the nation. It measures NOTHING about the quality of the education in the school, as proven by Minneapolis schools with their 48% graduation rate out ranking Edina. How any anyone put any faith in a list that does that???
"NEWSWEEK and The Washington Post, however, have added a new statistic developed by the College Board that indicates how well students are doing on the exams at each school while still recognizing the importance of increasing student participation. It is the Equity and Excellence rate, the percentage of ALL graduating seniors, including those who never got near an AP course, who had at least one score of 3 or above on at least one AP test sometime in high school. That is the "E&E" on our list."
I've looked at the numbers comparing Rosemount and Southwest, in case you're curious; they're actually very similar on most counts. Of course Southwest generally has far more National Merit scholars, but I don't think that means it's a better school. It does suggest that the top students are doing just fine, though.
And could we please, please stop with the "one percent of students" line? Newsweek is NOT measuring only the top students. Or provide evidence of where you are getting this number, as it doesn't match up with anything I've read or seen (if you're continuing to cite the Star Tribune article of a few years referring only to senior year IB diploma candidates, I think I've already explained several times where your interpretation was based on a misunderstanding of the terminology)? It's completely incorrect information, and I think we have an ethical obligation to try to use correct numbers or correct mistakes when they've been made. And how are you so sure that the top 1% of Minneapolis students at a school like Southwest won't come out high on a list? I have no idea if they would or not, but there's no reason to assume that "for sure" they won't.
And golfgal, you are not speaking about all of Minneapolis public schools; you have been discussing Southwest in particular, and based on your statements I think it is clear that you are not, in fact, familiar with the school. (for one thing, Southwest is not an "inner city" school, although inner city kids do attend the IB program; Southwest's regular attendance boundaries, meaning the non-IB kids, draw from some of the wealthiest parts of Minneapolis, and do you really think there's a massive difference when you step from SW Minneapolis into neighboring Edina or St. Louis Park, both acknowledged as top school districts by most people? It's the same demographics.)
And, for what it's worth, by the measures you're citing: staff retention rates, community support through funding, percentage of kids going to 4-year colleges, overall education of the community, etc., Southwest would still come out as a great school.
Obviously the Minneapolis Public Schools are facing some issues and not all kids are succeeding, but we're not talking about all schools or all students here, but we're also certainly not only talking about the top 1% of students in each school, either. And like it or not, Southwest is an excellent school however you look at it.
Now where I could see a potential problem is where people might take a list like this (or any other measure of the students who are doing well) and say "that's it, everyone has the potential to get a great education, so let's leave it at that." I don't think most people are doing that, though. (and that would be true of any high school, including those in the ritziest of suburbs) Schools can't and shouldn't focus only on their successful students, just as they shouldn't focus only on the failing students. In a district that does have kids who are dropping out and failing (although again, that rate does vary widely by school) parents should be reassured that if they have kids who are college-bound and need advanced course options, they will have that option. They won't be held back or have their academic potential limited for lack of opportunities or stunted by lack of peers who share those same goals. Obviously that's true of most of the suburban schools, too, but Edina doesn't battle the same stereotypes as do the city schools. (they have their own stereotypes to deal with, which was very much in evidence when discussing school options with a relative the other night; she noted that she wasn't worried that her white upper middle class kids was going to be influenced by possibly being within the same school building as a future high school drop out, a gang member, or any other "inner city" student stereotype; she thought the bigger danger would be from fellow college-bound privileged peers in some of the wealthier districts who might engage far more in drinking and drugs and some of the other issues that are sometimes more common in the wealthiest schools. That's a stereotype, too, of course, but I thought she had a valid point. My informal poll and experience did suggest that my friends from the wealthier schools like Wayzata and the private schools had a lot more of that permeating their school culture than we did at Southwest, although obviously it depends heavily on the individual student and group of friends.)
Last edited by uptown_urbanist; 07-06-2010 at 09:52 PM..
Taking graduation rates, percentages of kids going on to 4 year colleges, staff retention rates, community support through funding and overall education of the community will give you a better representation of how good a school is.
No, no, no they are NOT. Golfgal, I am with you on the fact that using AP or IB participation to rank high schools is hair-brained. But the ways that you are suggesting are just extensions of the same problem. As a staff member, your chances of getting or keeping a job are much higher at a wealthy (for purposes of this discussion, 'suburban') school if you either a.) have been there a significant amount of time already, or b.) have a significant amount of experience teaching elsewhere. The schools with lower budgets literally recycle through young teachers because it costs less than the raises those teachers would get in tenure.
The classic analogy of school economics is the "floating money bag" analogy. Every student in the public school system in Minnesota has a "floating money bag" over their head with a dollar amount on it-- how much it costs to educated the student. Generally higher for high-school students than for younger students, special needs students, ELL students, etc. It is assumed in education circles that there is a sort of "sweet spot" dollar amount that maximizes funding and gives the students a quality education, according to their needs. Districts pay several thousand dollars per head on their students; we'll say that the sweet spot is $5,000 universally per student. That is the number on our floating money bag.
If Hopkins spends $7,000 per head, and Minneapolis pays $3,000 per head, than Minneapolis can not, conceivably, compete with Hopkins so far as guaranteeing its students a quality education. That's the outline of the scenario, anyway. The reality is that Minneapolis does a lot to play catch-up in other areas so that the economic disparity doesn't hurt as much.
You seem to think that Minneapolis even-ing the playing field is as easy as them writing a new number on that floating money bag. The reality is that every district in this state gets some money from the state, and gets a lot of money from referenda that get passed by the taxpayers. This exacerbates the problems for two reasons:
1.) Incomes-- and property taxes-- are lower in Minneapolis than they are in many suburbs, so the pool of resources to draw from is a lot shallower. For instance, a 2% property tax hike for the schools wouldn't buy as much in Minneapolis as it would in Minnetonka.
2.) People are result-oriented. A referendum failed in the Hopkins district for the first time in something like 25 years a few years back, because it was revealed earlier in the fiscal year that the district was billions of dollars in debt. So, instead of helping the schools when they could have, voters essentially told them "not a penny until we see results."
It is easy for you to say that people (parents, in particular) should "fund" or "support" their schools, but there is not some magic pot of gold that they get to do that with. And, when you have two parents working 40+ hours a week-- and that is the norm-- it is a whole lot more difficult for the schools to engage the communities they serve than when they have one parent making 6 figures in a law firm, and the other staying home. It is just that simple. The resources are not there in some inner-city schools for them to be economically competitive with the big suburban schools. Ideally, the state helps level the playing field, and Minnesota has been better than most states about that in the past, but....
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Also, money means nothing-it is significantly less expensive for an inner city kid from a low income family to go to college than it is for a kid from an upper middle class family to go to college so money has no bearing on someone going to school or not.
I didn't touch this up there, because I was saving it for down here. Who in the world put you under this impression? I am assuming that you mean to say that inner-city, low-income kids are more likely to be approved for need-based financial aid than their wealthy counterparts. While that's true, it's pretty much irrelevant because:
1.) If a student does not apply for any need-based financial aid (or applies for very little), he or she is *much* more likely to receive "merit-based" aid at most institutions, and..
2.) when you look at college tuition costs (or any other cost, room-and-board, etc.) as a percentage of familial income, it tends to be much higher for low-income families sending their kids to college versus high-income families. In other words, the financial aid that low-income students receive usually doesn't "keep up with inflation," so to speak. So sure, somebody's bottom line for paying for college may be lower, but the financial burden it puts on their family is still higher.
You know, golfgal, I'm learning that you see the world as a pretty black-and-white place (suburbs>cities, to be precise). I wish that you would think a little bit more concertedly about these things and do some research on them. Until you do, I for one won't be entertaining any more of these discussions with you.
It measures NOTHING about the quality of the education in the school, as proven by Minneapolis schools with their 48% graduation rate out ranking Edina.
You are trying to make your point by selectively mixing up statistics. The ranking is not about the best "school districts", it's about the best "high schools". Southwest High School had a 96.89 graduation rate in 2008. It is an excellent school and it should be proud of it's successes.
No one is claiming that the entire Minneapolis school district and all of it's schools and students are all excellent, or even good. There are many challenges urban school districts face that suburban schools don't. But in Minnesota, we are very fortunate to have great urban schools in both Minneapolis and St Paul. You can dispute that all day long, but the facts (and many on this forum!) will back up the idea that you can get an excellent education in urban schools.
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Originally Posted by golfgal
Taking graduation rates, percentages of kids going on to 4 year colleges, staff retention rates, community support through funding and overall education of the community will give you a better representation of how good a school is.
The percentage of students going on to 4 year colleges is a self-reported stat and can't be verified. I have no doubt that Edina students will ALL report that they are going to a 4 yr college. Some school districts don't even break down the stat between 2 yr and 4 yr schools. (for instance Rosemount HS says that "90% of it's students go on to either 2 or 4 yr schools). If you add them together, St Paul Central has 94% of it's students going on to 2 or 4 year schools. Statistics can all be spun one way or the other to make points and at the end of the day, what does it prove?
A good educational experience can be had at many, many different schools in this state- both urban, suburban and rural.
Yup, a lot of schools inflate grades by putting honors/ap courses on a 5gpa scale. It is a silly and detrimental system...
I disagree. I think a B in Honors American Literature should be worth more on your GPA than if you got an A in Reading for Life (actually courses offered at my high school.) College admissions people can't possibly be expected to know the intricacies of courses at all high schools but they do understand a GPA.
Not really the point of the thread, I know, but felt the need to chime in on this because I feel strongly about it.
My kid goes to White Bear, her home district school. I almost sent her to St. Paul Johnson instead because she would have had more educational opportunities for higher level coursework at what some would call a lesser school because it is a city school. The only reason she isn't at Johnson is because I can't get her there and back every day. If she were at Johnson, she'd have the opportunity to take fun, interesting and well rounded electives in addition to arts/music, foreign language and AP coursework. She can only have the former or the latter at White Bear.
So, which one is the better school?
I admittedly did not read all the posts to this thread, so I don't know if this is still the way the rankings are done but it used to be measured simply by the number of students taking AP tests. To me, the rankings would be more helpful if it included the results of those tests. If half a class all take 3 AP tests, but score only 1's on the test, is that school really better than one where 40% of the class takes 3 AP tests and scores 3's or better?
I disagree. I think a B in Honors American Literature should be worth more on your GPA than if you got an A in Reading for Life (actually courses offered at my high school.) College admissions people can't possibly be expected to know the intricacies of courses at all high schools but they do understand a GPA.
Everybody has different opinions on this type of thing, of course. My experience was that when taken to its logical extreme, too many gpa's get inflated, at which point it is a meaningless standard to be considering at all.
I disagree. I think a B in Honors American Literature should be worth more on your GPA than if you got an A in Reading for Life (actually courses offered at my high school.) College admissions people can't possibly be expected to know the intricacies of courses at all high schools but they do understand a GPA.
It's not like the GPA the school puts out actually matters for anything. Every college recalculates GPA using their own weighted system that assigns different weights to AP, honors. standard level core classes, arts, electives, ect.
Location: Mableton, GA USA (NW Atlanta suburb, 4 miles OTP)
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Originally Posted by Kid Cann
All I know is that I am more intelligent than about 99% of the people I know, including people I don't know like users on this list!
Based on AP tests or IQ tests or what? I'm mostly just curious ... I do very well on such tests, but I think some of it is the fact that I've always been a very good test taker.
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I am assuming that you mean to say that inner-city, low-income kids are more likely to be approved for need-based financial aid than their wealthy counterparts. While that's true, it's pretty much irrelevant because:
