<p>Newsweek has a new way of ranking high schools that is more comprehensive. I'll be surprised if our school, that was in the top 100 last year, is anywhere on the list now. </p>
<p>Dallas</a> Schools Top Newsweek High School Rankings - High School Notes (usnews.com)</p>
<p>I actually like this new methodology better than some others I’ve seen. Many excellent schools believe that AP syllabi are too restrictive and so offer comparable courses with a slightly different syllabus. My understanding is a course cannot be called an AP course unless the College Board decides that the course’s syllabus covers the same material as theirs. My high school refused to offer AP US History or AP English courses for that reason, while Exeter doesn’t offer AP courses at all (to the best of my knowledge), but most people would agree it’s an excellent school. Students at these schools still take AP exams on their own, though, so these rankings don’t particularly punish these schools, as long as the students still demonstrate excellence on the exams. I wonder why TJ dropped so far on the rankings, though. It’s quite an exceptional school.</p>
<p>Yeah! Newsweek is finally becoming aware that a homogenous school that offers a restrictive curriculum doesn’t necessarily make an excellent school. Sadly our HS is still not on that list, but it has a surprising diverse population and along with tons of AP courses, offers extensive art (theatre/music/art) courses as well. Don’t get me wrong: I think lots of AP courses are great for some students, but I don’t think that should be the primary measure of excellence.</p>
<p>What if they compiled a list of schools according to their cost-per-pupil? That’s just as inaccurate.</p>
<p>I noticed that the school I attended was in the 50’s by this new method, while not a single school in the county where I live (and send my kids to school) made the top 500. Not even the ones that are usually high on the area rankings using the old Jay Mathews “challenge index” method.</p>
<p>This may explain the frequent disconnect between my expectations of what a high school should be delivering and what my children were experiencing.</p>
<p>^^The methodology weights AP courses offered at only 5% - I’m saying that this is a good thing, since many excellent schools don’t offer AP exams on principle. But AP exams taken and scores on AP exams are 10% each, which should quell some contention that people on this board have expressed before - AP exams still show some baseline of competence, and taking into account scores ensures that these courses that aren’t officially AP courses still provide some comparable level of knowledge. I doubt I’m the only one here who believes that AP courses following the College Board’s syllabus may not be the best way pedagogically to cover advanced canonical material.</p>
<p>Well our HS dropped like a stone (down about 200 places.) I SO HOPE that this will make the school stop pushing AP classes so much. My son took 11, my daughter took 10…I bet my rising sophomore won’t even take 5.</p>
<p>Our high school dropped from being in the fifties to not being anywhere on the list, as did a number of other schools in our area that were consistently on the list. All of these schools were schools with top-notch magnet programs “hosted” at schools where the non-magnet students struggle to graduate. The only school I could find on the list from our large district was a high school that is purely a magnet program which is not at all surprising. I’m glad that our district can no longer boast of having numerous schools on the list. They shouldn’t be able to boast when they are failing so many students.</p>
<p>It was about time! I was so frustrated every year that the only school in our area to top the list was certainly not considered one of the “best” within our huge district of 20+ high schools. It was one school that considered having kids take AP courses (and the school district paying for the exam fee) a good thing; stats showed that their scores on the AP exams were far lower than many of the other schools in the area. I always had a very difficult time with only measuring the # of AP exams alone. While still not at a stellar level, I am happy to see that other more highly-regarded high schools ranked much higher; the school that has been in the rankings for the past 5 years is no where to be found on the list now.</p>
<p>Our district IB-magnet school (previously in top 200) dropped off the list. I’ll tell my son it is because he graduated 
</p>
<p>Seriously… ratings are tough to do. There probably is not right way to do them fairly. Regardless of whether hs or college ratings lists, they just give one data point.</p>