<p>And let the complaining begin. Post any type of rankings and people automatically become upset.</p>
<p>True, rankings rankle some people unnecessarily. But these rankings just plain suck (and I’m the guy who’s first in line when U.S. News & World Report releases their annual college rankings). At least the U.S. News methodology is balanced. The Newsweek methodology for high schools is so myopic as to be laughable. Anyone who ranks anything based on a single, narrow criterion is asking to be laughed at.</p>
<p>Lol, not on the list. Unsurprising.</p>
<p>Yay top 100! lol</p>
<p>Quote: “Does it strike anyone else as strange that so many of the top 100 are in the South?”</p>
<p>That is an interesting observation, but I think I know the reason. Public schools are generally weak in the South, and so there has been more demand for special schools for the really bright kids.</p>
<p>When we lived in the suburbs of a major Northern city, there was an abundance of good public schools, so no one was demanding magnet schools, math and science schools, etc. In the South, however, even many of the “better” schools are really not that good by national standards, and so there has been a bigger push for special public schools. It’s the same reason that such schools exist in major cities like New York and Chicago as well.</p>
<p>AP-focused curriculum is agood way to manage internal staffing issues at struggling schools. A school board can not identify and layoff a poor teacher - the losers are protected by law and the unions. But a school can institute a new, improved academic approach, with much PR and political hoopla. Teachers who can not or will not teach at that level can gracefully be transferred to traditional schools, while the school brings in teacher who can teach at the accelerated level. Therefore no particular individual teacher is targeted; the criteria and curriculum are externally driven. Local administrators are shielded from teacher backlash - “its college boards’ fault.”</p>