Rank of Nation's Top High Schools

Parents Forum
81

<p>Sybbie said,</p>

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<p>Hey, Sybbie, Mini also said, "One can receive a superior education under a tree". I say that you can still receive a superior education under a tree or in a poor school WITHOUT SPENDING $14 BILLION. Good schools are not all about money, but about the culture and respect for learning from the students and their teachers. Washinfton DC spends the most on their schools and ranks at the BOTTOM in student academic achievement. Putting more money in this sink hole solves nothing.</p>

<p>Regarding NYC schools;</p>

<p>In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods with blacks and latinos, attending the same deficient ghetto k-12 schools, outperform many whites in more affluent neighborhoods. Asian Americans outperform blacks and latinos attending the very same ghetto schools. One can verify this on the web by reviewing the NYC Public Schools' Report Card, which breaks down academic performance, graduation rates and test scores for each racial and ethnic group in every public k-12 school in NYC, including the ones in the black and latino ghettos where Asian Americans also live and attend the poorest schools in these very same ghettos with blacks and latinos as neighbors and classmates. Facts don't lie. </p>

<p>That's the dark secret along with the facts, that the politically correct and flaming liberals who make a living wasting money by infusing it into these sink holes, refuse to acknowledge.</p>

<p>Good schools are not all about money, but about the culture and respect for learning of the students and their teachers. Certain students may have to change their culture in order to be successful. No amount of money will do this. </p>

<p>The crown jewels of the NYC public school system are the magnet exam schools, such as Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Hunter College HS and Townsend Harris in Queens, NY. They are unparalleled in the academic achievements and the success of its students. They are world renowned and the most diverse in the country with whites in the minority and Asian Americans as much as 51% of the students with 5% latino and 4% black. They used to be 90% Jewish, who were immigrants or children of immigrants from Europe who were discriminated against, because they were Jews pre WW II to the 1960s. These magnet schools in NYC are under the same budgetary constraints as the rest of NYC's schools, but there are the differences. First and mainly, it is the students whom they admit. They are the ones with the culture and the respect for learning, along with their teachers. These students are as much as 51% Asian American, mainly from the lower and middle classes of NYC who are the first in their families to attend college and children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, not unlike the previous majority group in these schools, the Jews. This did not occur by accident, but it is a result of hard work, perserverance, self-sacrifice and the overcoming of obstacles of economic disadvantage, cultural and language differences by these student who all attended the NYC public school system from k-8. These are the success stories that ALL New Yorkers and Americans of all races should be proud of and use as ROLE MODELS.</p>

<p>The most highly ranked public high school in the nation is the public magnet school, Hunter College High School, in NYC. This school graduates less than 200 students a year, and has over 60% of its class as National Merit Semi-Finalists. No other school, public or private, comes close with NMSFs in percentages. It also has a senior SAT I average of close to 1450, similar to the private Brearley School and the Collegiate School in NYC. These schools have the profile of an Ivy college. No other school, public or private, comes close. Hunter College High School is the most stellar academic public high school in America. It is also 40% Asian American. It ranks higher than the prestigious public NYC magnet, Stuyvesant HS which is 51% Asian American.</p>

82

<p>I think that when you are talking about the top private schools, you need to remember that those kids are preselected already. In order to get into those schools you need to go through a process very similar to that of getting into an elite college complete with exams (one called SSAT), teachers recs, essay, interviews, EC evaluation. And these top schools can cherry pick with all of the applicants they get. In a sense it is a wonder that not all of their students do not get into a very top college 4 years later.</p>

<p>The top public schools are a different story in that they have to take everyone who is in their district. There is some preselection by economics and the fact that you do not move into such districts without knowing about the excellence of the schools. I have seen sad cases where kids cannot make the mark at some of these schools but would have been fine in a less competitive environment. They really are not for everyone. My kids would have been the village idiots in such schools. But strangely. enough, the prep schools with their close attention can accomodate them and keep then in the midrange.</p>

83

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<p>In this sense, there has been a study that found that attending an "elite" high school, either private or public, may actually DECREASE one's chances of being admitted to an elite college. I forget the name of the authors of this study, but one was from the Graduate School of the City University of New York (CUNY). Jay Mathews of the Washington Post wrote one of his columns on this several years ago. It is more difficult to standout among your more stellar peers in the elite high school. In fact, the study even quantified the disadvantage by stating that a student from one of these "elite" high schools had to score 100 points higher on the SAT I than his non-elite high school counterpart, in order to be admitted to the same elite college. This is quite a disadvantage. Obviously, if this student had stayed at his local high school, his chances of being #1 is much higher than at his "elite" high school where he is only "average". If he had remained locally, he has much more of a chance to standout.</p>

<p>There are pluses and minuses to attending an elite private prep, especially a private boarding prep, which is an experience available to a very few students in the country. For many of these students, it is not about getting into an elite college, because they would do so, if they had gone elsewhere or remained at home. These prep students are indeed pre-selected and self-selected. They would do well ANYWHERE.</p>

<p>The boarding prep school experience is really about the experience itself for all the aforementioned reasons given in my previous posts. By en large, they produce students who are independent and who can critically think, write and speak, in addittion to the vast opportunities availabe to pursue their passions and extricurricular interests. This experience is similar to the collegiate experience for the preppie at an earlier stage. This student is WELL PREPARED FOR COLLEGE, hence the name "prep school" is given to these elite schools.</p>

<p>These schools are obviuosly not for everyone, but it is hard to refuse an opportunity to attend one of these elite boarding preps, if one had the choice, without the financial contraints of attending. We all wish we can only be so lucky!!</p>

84

<p>Jamimom, great point as always (although I doubt the part about village idiot). In our community, one of the biggest points of contention is that the school is accused of catering to the two ends of the spectrum and ignoring the vast middle segment of great kids who aren't destined for Ivies but are still intelligent, nice kids with talents and motivation; and as you noted many of the parents who express concern about this are ones who expressly moved into the district for the quality of the schools. Which shows that when selecting a school, it is important to look at more than just test scores and college placement.</p>

85

<p>I am now at the end of the road at our mediocre public high school with my D. She is a senior. I think that a good education can be found there. I do notice that my D and I seem to have to work harder at the education than some of her private school friends. I don't mean work harder academically, but work harder to make things happen. Our public high school seems very content to be mediocre. The administration and the faculty don't seem to expect much from their students. I honestly think that much of what we've learned we've learned on CC. The GC's are almost useless. We learned how to prepare for the SAT's and when to take them right here! There is no hand holding at all at our high school (I think there is some at private high schools) when it comes to the college application process. They expect most students will go to the local state school (and they do-cause or result?) EC's such as the math league are so poorly attended since it is not the cool place to be in a public high school.Again, maybe its the parents at home not encouraging participation.</p>

86

<p>Also check out the discussion on College Admissions, "Going to prep school makes chances harder?!"</p>

<p>Click on:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=2028%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=2028&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

87

<p>I had always thought I would move into an area with good public schools and send all of kids there, and happily be part of the community. Well, it did not work that way. But we are an unusual situation since many of our kids came to us with issues. The blow is that even our "natural" children were not best served by our public school.</p>

<p>Having said that, there is not necessarily a nirvana waiting for anyone at the private schools either. I have dealt with some crazy issues there as well. There seems to be a party line at every school and if you and your kids can toe it, life is good, but my kids cross it every time.</p>

88

<p>Burlmom-</p>

<p>The handholding is real and so is incredible guidance. I really can't say enough about the job the GCs do in steering the kids and I really think the kids who don't have solid relationships with GCs are at a severe disadvantage if they don't have parents to help them through. </p>

<p>Last year, after the GC assignments were made at son's school (10 kids per GC), the GC meets with student to discuss interests and performance. About a month later the GC meet with parents and student. At that point, the GC handed us a list of colleges (maybe 50 in all) with notations next to most of them on how they would fit son's intesests.....comments about their Art History Department, etc showing that the GC had put much thought and care into how son might enjoy each school. How else do kids know? I sure don't know (except what I read on here - like you). Son sure doesn't know sepcifics about the schools. And how about the RUMORS these kids pass around? Son decided he didn't want to visit one LAC becasue "the girls there don't shave their legs".........What?! Thank goodness for the GC and the handholding (and the GC's little reminders about deadlines, essays, etc).</p>

89

<p>jamimom-</p>

<p>are your kids adopted, foster or just relatives taken in? I've often heard that public schools are often much better equipped to handle kids with learning and/or emotional differences because of the vastness of their resources....which I guess goes back to the earlier point about the kids in the middle being the lost souls in publics. </p>

<p>I'm currently concerned that my younger is dyslexic and need to get her tested. Of course, I'll have to arrange this on my own since we aren't in a public.... and if she is....who knows.</p>

90

<p>All that being said-for those of us who <em>can't</em> send three kids to private hs then on to college- I do think ( and I'll let you know in a month) that a kid can do well in a public hs. My D has done incredibly well both academically and in terms of sports and ec's. She is very motivated. A less motivated kid with less motivated parents would certainly need much more hand holding.</p>

91

<p>I'm all for public school and wish our were much better so that I could send mine to publics. I've been called a hypocrite for being on the school committee for our publics while senidng mine to private......but that's why I'm on the committee...to try to help.</p>

92

<p>Hey, we have had public school principals in our district who sent their kids to private school.
When we moved to the area we didn't really consider schools. Both when my husband and I were in school, they were decent even though not spectacular and we moved within a few blocks of an elementary school.
My oldest ultimately has never attended a public school, however her sister attended a K-12 public school through 8th grade, and is now in an innercity public high school, just a few blocks ironically from where her sister attended her prep school.
Public school is so much more work, perhaps not for the students but for the parents.
I was on the board of the private school, attended meetings and work parties, but in the public school I am also attending district board meetings, just more meetings in general & spending a lot of time tracking down resources for the school .
We did consider briefly private school for this daughter, but we decided that this public school offers a lot, especially since her friends attend. For this daughter, that is very important. If we were not able to get her into this school however, we may have given the private schools a try, especially as we would rather live in teh city and send to private, than to move and hope that the education improves.</p>

93

<p>burlmom--we were in the same boat with you about the financial issue. Although we have a good income, we are in that netherland where we make too much to qualify for aid, and too little to be able to afford $90,000 a year in tuition (what it would be, with no frills, for our 3) and still be able to have any money for enrichment in the summer, family trips, etc. Still, if I had unlimited resources, I would still probably go for public school over the privates that are available in our area, as they are all extremely uppercrust (or not good, take your pick). </p>

<p>In our district, we have teachers at the private schools whose children are in public school and vice versa, and not, I think, for financial reasons. We also have teachers going back and forth between the public and private, and some preferring each. Which kind of illustrates the point that our public schools can easily compete with the private schools for the top students in our area. Our "GC" ratio and quality rivals that described by momsdream, only our kids have theirs for 3 years (sophomore through senior year) and so they become friends and mentors to the kids as well as GCs (we use a different name for them but the concept is the same). We also have college counselors, but the GCs write the recommendations for the school, monitor and help with course selection, review testing requirements and scores, meet weekly or bi-weekly with the kids throughout the 3 years. I know we're spoiled.</p>

94

<p>Burl, I hear you loud and clear, as I am another one for public school. I remember when D was in going to kindergarten and I wanted her to go to private school. After much shopping around, many test and interviews later, she was accepted to serval really good private schools. At the time my younger sister was a grad student at Columbia and was shocked and appalled that we were going to spend more for kindergarten then she was paying for grad school. I had an ah-ha moment when I felt that no matter how much we paid , we sould still have to support the public school system so I began shopping for the best public school that I could find. </p>

<p>With variance in hand, daughter ended up going to school in what was district 2 (Battery park City/Tribeca)that was also one of the top schools in the city. It was for me a win-win because she was less than 5 minutes from work, so I had the best of both worlds- A working parent with a schedule that allowed for school trips, reading in the class room and 13 years of PTA, class parents and fund raising. I know that D's public school experience was not the norm because we raised close to $250K per year (since kindergarten) for enrichment programs, libraries and teacher supplies. Many of the parents were investment bankers, doctors, lawyers, resturant owners who gave of their resources. </p>

<p>A lot of the kids traveled from Elementary School to Middle School/High School. One of the biggest H.S. fundraisers is the one-shot campaign where they ask each family for $250 (There is close to 100% participation, and you can pay ti all at one time or get a payment plan for the 10 month school year)</p>

<p>I remember when the H.S. population grew thePTA added a $50K line item to the budget for the college office to hire help with the application process. So even in public school, all are not created equal.</p>

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<p>More than 50% of public schools in the U.S. are like those I described (including a bunch within 15 miles of Patient!) They don't look anything like the schools being described. Imagine being expected to take a math SAT coming from a school where they don't teach past Algebra I. Or a science SAT II where there isn't a lab. </p>

<p>Surprisingly, kids do all the time (with help from their teachers) and get into college. Now THAT'S what I call a good school!</p>

96

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<p>To Mini, of Olympia, Washington,</p>

<p>Good schools are not all about money, but about the culture and respect for learning of the students, their parents and their teachers. Certain students may have to change their culture in order to be successful. No amount of money will do this, no matter how rich the school is.</p>

<p>I say that you can still receive a superior education under a tree or in a poor school </p>

<p>Arthur Hu, of Kirkland, Washington, said</p>

<p>[The Seattle Times annually slams Seattle's math scores (just the 50th-percentile for Washington as a whole) compared to suburban Bellevue's 67th-percentile performance, and highlights the race gap as an urban problem. But broken down by race, whites score at about 67 in either city, but blacks score worse in Bellevue, at 34 compared to 40 for Seattle. Seattle has an "African-American Academy,'' but its test scores are virtually indistinguishable from the city average. Suburban inequality is much the same at nearby Issaquah (41) and Redmond (35), even though there are no minority ghettos in the suburbs, and there has never been any news coverage of racial differences in performance there.]</p>

<p>"Seattle is one of the few cities where Asians are so poor and white parents so highly educated that white students score better even in math. But Asians still have the highest grade-point average in the city. In the suburbs, Asian 8th-graders score 74 in 59th-percentile blue-collar Renton, hopping rungs over whites in 67th-percentile Bellevue. Asians in Bellevue score 82, equal to top-ranked Mercer Island's 83. Asians in Mercer Island score an astounding 90, not far below the average at the best Lakeside private school." </p>

<p>"In short, predominantly minority schools have low test scores because minorities have lower test scores regardless of the segregation factor, not the other way around. And American schools would match Asian schools if they were dominated by Asian students. Perhaps that chilling reality is the reason that every newspaper I have contacted has chosen to ignore these data." </p>

<p>"Economic and race-based interventions have never been shown to achieve the equality that was set as their justification in the first place. After all, the numbers that matter are not the percentage of blacks on the staff or in the classroom, but grade point average, reading and math test scores, and hours spent on homework and attendance. As Thomas Sowell and Lawrence Steinberg observe, if students of all races worked equally hard, their disparate rates of success and failure would plausibly lead to explanations based on, on the one hand, racism and poverty, or, on the other hand, innate superiority or inferiority. When they differ on every measure of effort, what else would you expect?"</p>

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<p>Mini said, </p>

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<p>The POOREST Asian Americans from families incomes of less than 20k/year with parents with a high school diploma or less outperform on the SAT I and achieve higher GPAs, and take more difficult courses than the richest blacks from family incomes of 100k/year and parents with college and graduate degrees. In fact, the poorest Asian Americans living in the poorest neighborhoods outperform whites in more affluent neighborhoods. </p>

<p>That's the well known secret that the politically correct flaming liberals refuse to acknowledge.</p>

<p>Source; The College Board</p>

<p>Fact #1</p>

<p>Black children from the wealthiest families have mean SAT scores lower than white children and Asian Americans from families below the poverty line.</p>

<p>Fact #2 </p>

<p>Black children of parents with graduate degrees have lower SAT scores than white or Asian children of parents with a high-school diploma or less. </p>

<p>From the College Board data, you will discover that Asians mostly sit on top of the heap; that whites, Mexican Americans and blacks follow in that order. Some details prove interesting. For example, whites enjoy a verbal advantage over Asians that disappears at high levels of income and social advantage. Regrettably, the College Board no longer discloses these data. In 1996, they stopped publishing performance by income and parental education disaggregated by race and ethnicity.</p>

<p>Check out;</p>

<p><a href="http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/testing.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>See APPENDIX B. SAT 1995 DATA AND GRAPHS</p>

<p>for the actual data to verify the facts above.</p>

<p>The solution for closing these racial gaps of lower average achievement among ALL blacks and latinos is not the Band-Aid approach of race-based affirmative action.
It is solved by improving the K-12 schools for the lower economic classes which are disproportionately Black and Latino.</p>

98

<p>Those rankings are stupid. Every year about 50% of the graduating class of my school (of about 120) go to Ivies or Ivy-caliber schools (Williams, Amherst, etc.). SInce we have so few people in each class, however, it's impossible to send more than say 15-20 kids each year to HYP.</p>

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<p>"Those rankings are stupid. Every year about 50% of the graduating class of my school (of about 120) go to Ivies or Ivy-caliber schools (Williams, Amherst, etc.). SInce we have so few people in each class, however, it's impossible to send more than say 15-20 kids each year to HYP."</p>

<p>the ranking by worth magazine is based on percentages, not numbers.</p>

100

<p>Mini....we could certainly start a new thread on how many kids are being left out of opportunities because of the mixed-up priorities in my state and our country in terms of per capita spending on public education. It is such a mess it is hard to know where to start, to fix it. I say re-examine Prop. 13 and increase property taxes and give it to the schools (perhaps granting an exemption to elderly/disabled homeowners on fixed incomes), but you can imagine how far that would get in Sacramento. I believe that there was a long thread or two about this last summer when I wasn't reading or posting much. The documentary "From First to Worst" attempted to incite public outcry, I believe, but there has not been much discussion recently, unfortunately.</p>