Best High Schools in America

[augiedogie]

There are some differences between Texas schools, for example, and Wisconsin schools, which makes it difficult to compare. First, Texas has a far more diverse population, lots more minorities, and immigrants, not just from Mexico, but all over the world. It also has a large low income population, but from recent studies, the schools are doing a pretty good job of educating these populations. Keep in mind that many of the Hispanic immigrants not only don't speak English, but they and their parents are likely not even to read or write in Spanish. They also don't put a high priority on education, which makes them a difficult group to motivate to excel in school.

Also Wisconsin's HS are mostly general public education schools for all the students in the community. Some of those Texas schools are specialty HS, that are intended to give gifted and talented students, especially from low income homes, a place to go to school where they can excel, but most on the list are public schools.

Finally, many of the HS is Texas are excellent. My son's HS did not make the list, but was listed from many years as one of the best public HS in the Dallas area, JJ Pierce HS in Richardson. And it was an exceptionally good school. In an average year they had 10 National Merit Scholars from a class of only about 500 seniors. So Wisconsin residents should be very careful about looking down their noses at other school systems in other states.

[goodbyesnow]

Originally Posted by Hotbug

One should be very wary of any such ratings because teachers unions allow for the passing of below grade students on to the next grade level for a variety of reasons. I forget what it's called, but it was something like "social promotion". Also, a lot of high school graduates are at a pretty low level when it comes to mathematics, science, english. But they sure do know a lot about the theory of global warming, gay rights and of course, slavery in the US......

And people wonder why the rest of the world is pulling away from us in technologies.....

It's not teacher's unions that allow for social promotions-hello!!??
There are laws that say if a kid is at a certain age, they cannot be retained anymore. Parents can also sign a waiver saying they refuse to have their child retained even though they are not meeting promotion requirements. Teachers' hands are often tied-it's laws, principals, and mainly parents that don't want their kids retained.