<p>I think part of why Hidalgo is rated so highly is due to the performance of native Spanish speakers on the two AP Spanish exams. There was a side article about Hidalgo which mentions this (along with how the students are taught formal Spanish grammar and writing skills) but also that they are not up to the state standard for math performance.</p>
<p>This should have been titled America's Best PUBLIC High schools.</p>
<p>On this list I see my own high school, the school my sister's kids went to, and schools that friends' children attend or have attended. There's no doubt that they're excellent schools with much to offer the students whose parents are fortunate enough to be able to live in the right districts. But ranking high schools? What do we truly learn from this national obsession?</p>
<p>We are really excited; my school has only been open 6 years and we made the list! Yes at 93rd but not bad for only two full senior classes. I have to agree that this is magnet heavy (we aren't, just a regular public with a lot of drive), but that is of course the point of such schools.</p>
<p>Harriet</p>
<p>The Westchester ratings appear to be arbitrary in that it appears only 10 schools were even considered. (Scarsdale, Greeley, Edgemont, Rye, Blind Brook, Briarcliff, Byram, Irvington....and Yonkers and Saunders)</p>
<p>Most were not - including the two that led the county in acceptances into Harvard last year and many others that clearly would have been at least "silver medal" winners.</p>
<p>(No Mamaroneck, No John Jay, No Bronxville, No Ossinning, No Rye Neck, No Harrison, No Dobbs Ferry, No Hastings, No White Plains, No Fox Lane, ...etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)</p>
<p>It was noted above that many private high schools were not considered. This appears to be true for many publics as well. What criteria was used by US News in creating the pool of schools they looked at?</p>
<p>OT,</p>
<p>I'm sure your favorites were CONSIDERED. They just did not make the cut. See my quotes on their methodology in post 7 and you might then understand how good schools might not make the list at all.</p>
<p>Yes, this is really crazy. But the only thing really new is having a national list. There have been articles in regional publications (Chicago magazine, Boston magazine et al) for years ranking the local public and private schools all sorts of ways.</p>
<p>As long as we as a nation obsess about knowing what "the best" is, we'll have things like these rankings to feed our obsession. but I'm quite certain the impact of this particular ranking will be minimal (at least to us. TO USNWR, more magazines will be sold...) since families are much less mobile than their kids.</p>
<p>I took one whiz through the list noticed that no schools in my state were included, took a closer look at what schools were on the list of 100 Best, looked at the criteria for judging and totally dismissed the results.</p>
<p>I think it's worth noting that "minority" means "black or Hispanic" in this study -- which is probably a good idea, in my opinion.</p>
<p>It does not include Asians. If it did, Thomas S. Wootton would count as 45% minority.</p>
<p>Okay, clearly I hadn't had enough coffee when I first posted on this thread this morning. I was overreacting (positively) to the fact that the USNWR list was not simply AP-based, like Newsweek's.</p>
<p>That alone is an improvement, but it sure doesn't make it a good list.</p>
<p>I also posted hastily about the Westchester schools. </p>
<p>OT, are you also in Westchester? I'm very, very curious about some of the schools you listed as those that should have been considered. Some of them have individually outstanding programs (e.g., several of those you named have extremely strong science research programs), but aren't, overall, outstanding schools.</p>
<p>"It was noted above that many private high schools were not considered."</p>
<p>Yes. If many = all.</p>
<p>Lists are a funny thing. Our high school was highlighted one year in a local magazine and the next year they hated us. Oh well!</p>
<p>"This should have been titled America's Best PUBLIC High schools."</p>
<p>Some of the most well-known public magnet schools (math and science academies) are also missing.</p>
<p>Those kinds of stats are crap. A big fat high school with a prison-style campus who's students score well on tests does not constitute as the "best" high school. </p>
<p>I've visited public high schools, many of them, actually. You know what they all have in common? The teachers are afraid of the students, the students are afraid of the students, and the state is afraid to put a little extra funding into something that doesn't promote partisan agenda (tolerance campaign, sex education, intelligence design, blah blah blah). </p>
<p>AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL'S ARE THE WORST! Homeschool and charter ftw.</p>
<p>^^Don't you mean that schools are afraid to fund programs that promote partisan agendas? All the things you list are partisan issues.</p>
<p>Anyway, this rating system is much better than Newsweek's, in which a school's value is measured by the number of AP tests a student takes. </p>
<p>I think these ratings are not necessary though and counterproductive. If anything, they should be rated in blocks like top 100, top 200, etc.</p>
<p>I find this ranks not only counterproductive, but completely false. Ranking high schools solely based on AP and test scores is bad.</p>
<p>I wish they go the more unconventional route: Best food, most happy students, t/s ratio, clubs, specialties, in addition to api score, sat average, gpa average etc. They neglected to include the schools/institution that surpass both public and many private schools, CHARTER and HOMESCHOOL.</p>
<p>Yes charter is funded by the state, but the scores projected are much...so much higher than the average million student schools. Why you might ask? Charter's off an environment public schools wish about; one on one attention, small class size, strong relationship with faculty without the use of police protection, flexible schedules and accommodations for those who cannot deal with the stressing and unnecessary demanding environment of the ordinary public school. School is about LEARNING, not TESTING.</p>
<p>On second thought, the ranking methodology seems pretty lame. Their measure of performance is getting a "3" on at least one AP exam--pretty easy.</p>
<p>i am so confused and shocked.. I have reason to beleive that that list is wrong.. how can the top hs in CA come in at a lower ranking than the #2 school in CA?</p>
<p>HSisOverrated, you might want to read some studies of charter schools. While some are good, many are not. On average charter school students don't perform significantly better than public school students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In five case study states, charter schools are less likely to meet state performance standards than traditional public schools. It is impossible to know from this study whether that is because of the performance of the schools, the prior achievement of the students, or some other factor. The study design does not allow us to determine whether or not traditional public schools are more effective than charter schools.
[/quote]
from Executive</a> Summary--Evaluation of the Public Charter Schools Program: Final Report</p>
<p>or
[quote]
Critical Results</p>
<p>The most comprehensive study to date[13] found that students attending charter schools tied to school boards do not fare any better or worse statistically than students attending public schools on reading and math scores. But students attending charter schools not tied to school boards fared worse in reading and math.[14] This study was conducted as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2003.[15] The study included a sample of 6000 4th grade pupils and was the first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools.</p>
<p>A second study released on August 22, 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education also found that students in charter schools performed several points worse than students in traditional public schools in both reading and math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test.[16]</p>
<p>[edit] Supportive Results</p>
<p>There are also some studies that claim charter school students do better than public school students. A 2000 paper by Caroline Hoxby[17] found that charter school students do better than public school students. This paper was the subject of controversy in 2005 when another researcher was unable to replicate her results. Hoxby released a follow up paper in 2004 claiming to have again found that charter school students do better than public school students[18] This second study compared charter school students "to the schools that their students would most likely otherwise attend: the nearest regular public school with a similar racial composition."[18] It reported that the students in charter schools performed better in both math and reading. It also reported that the longer the charter school had been in operation, the more favorably its students compared. Hoxby's methodology in this study has also been criticized, arguing that Hoxby's "assessment of school outcomes is based on the share of students who are proficient at reading or math but not the average test score of the students. That’s like knowing the poverty rate but not the average income of a community -- useful but incomplete."[19]</p>
<p>A report issued by a pro-charter school group,[20] released in July 2005, looks at twenty-six studies that make some attempt to look at change over time in charter school student or school performance. Twelve of these find that overall gains in charter schools were larger than other public schools; four find charter schools’ gains higher in certain significant categories of schools, such as elementary schools, high schools, or schools serving at risk students; six find comparable gains in charter and traditional public schools; and, four find that charter schools’ overall gains lagged behind. The study also looks at whether individual charter schools improve their performance with age (e.g. after overcoming start-up challenges). Of these, five of seven studies find that as charter schools mature, they improve. The other two find no significant differences between older and younger charter schools.
[/quote]
from Charter</a> school - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Lucky you that *your *charter school is apparently better than the local public schools.</p>
<p>Charter school differs on a state levels. California, for example, will not release funding to charter schools unless they score significantly above the competing district in STAR testings.</p>
<p>You might want to consider reading the last paragraph of your quoted post...</p>
<p>If you have the guts to stand by public education, well then by all means. I cannot comprehend how people are so defensive. What's so great about these huge schools?!</p>
<p>edit: /Is CA</p>
<p>Hmmmm. Maggie Walker Governor's, a newsweek elite public high school, was left off the USNWR top 100 list and top Virginia list. It does not appear on the schoolmatters.com web site, which it seems was the source of USNWR's data. A glaring omission IMO.</p>
<p>1389/1600 avg. SAT
57% Nat. Merit commended or higher</p>