<p>U.S. News & World Report recently released its first ranking of Americas Best High Schools, in apparent competition with the annual ratings published by Newsweek and Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews. We can be sure the latest Top 100 will compel some communities, parents, students or political leaders to claim bragging rightsand others to begin questioning local leaders about the ranking of their hometown high school. </p>
<p>No matter where your school shakes out on the scale, you can be sure of two things. First, U.S. News & World Report has already generated the coveted buzz and will sell a lot of magazines toand gain a lot of visits to their ad-laden website from parents and leaders who must know who has won the Super Bowl of Education. And second, this newest rank order (read that however you like) will begin to affect what goes on in high schools across the countryadding one more hurdle to the marathon we call public schooling.</p>
<p>A bit skeptical about that last claim? Witness the effect of the five-year-old Newsweek rankings on the school nearest you. Mathews rankings formula leans heavily on a schools involvement in the College Boards Advanced Placement program. As a result, thousands of local dollars are now being spent on AP curriculum and tests so that Any Local High School will make an appearance somewhere in Newsweeks list. The College Board, in essence, is now writing the curriculum for many of Americas secondary schoolswith little debate among educators and parents about what we hope our children will know and be able to do at the end of their high school years. These days, we just hope were on the list.</p>
<p>Interesting thoughts, although I think the ranking mania may be a regional thing. Yes, the metro DC area (Jay Matthew's home turf) takes this stuff seriously. But the Boston area does not, at least not yet. And some areas, like the whole state of Florida, seem to have embraced wholesale AP participation years ago!</p>
<p>another curious question is what the impact on IB programs will be, since these rankings don't, as I recall, look at IB participation.</p>
<p>It is also curious how these "rankings" become institutionalized. I came across an academic paper last week that used the Matthews Newsweek rankings (being in the top 100) as a proxy variable in a logistic regression about the relationship between student background (parent income, kind of HS attended and such) and certain performance measures among college grads. Needless to say, he found no impact from the "school quality" variable. (and it was a great example of how bad much ed research is...)</p>
<p>Jay DOES include IB classes in his ranking. I concur with you, however, in the (possible) regionality of the effect. I haven't really sense any groundswell of support for more AB/IB classes in our neck of the woods, but perhaps that's bcos its relatively easy to take a similar class at a nearby community college.</p>
Magazine's list of best high schools is overrated</p>
<p>Monday, July 9, 2007</p>
<p>I know this column will be misunderstood, so let me be clear from the start: Dallas' School for the Talented and Gifted is a terrific school. TAG, as it's known, is the school system's bright shining star. If I had kids, I'd be happy to send them there. Great teachers, great students – the whole nine. Don't interpret anything that follows as a criticism of the school. </p>
<p>But to claim, as Newsweek did recently, that it's the best high school in America is silly. It stretches the boundaries of reason. </p>
<p>This year – for the second year in a row – TAG finished No. 1 overall. And right behind it was Dallas' Science and Engineering Magnet, which shares a building with TAG. District officials were understandably proud to lay claim to the two best high schools in the country. </p>
<p>But here are five reasons why Newsweek's list isn't worth the glossy paper it's printed on. </p>
<ol>
<li>Newsweek's rankings are based entirely on one unreliable number. </li>
<li>A well-intended incentive program artificially increases the number of AP tests given at TAG and SEM. </li>
<li>Kids at TAG take a lot of AP tests – but they don't do amazingly well on them. </li>
<li>Newsweek's methodology is supposed to eliminate schools like TAG from the rankings. But TAG slips through because its SAT scores aren't high enough. </li>
<li>Ranking America's high schools may be fun, but it's a pointless exercise meant to sell magazines.
[/quote]
</li>
</ol>
<p>Reads like a "deja vu all over again" of my posts on dear Jay!</p>
<p>It is easy to forget that Jay Matthews decided himself that having lots of kids take APs is a laudable goal, and a way to improve education, in the absence of any validation of his hypothesis, at least as far as I know. (If anyone has evidence to support his hypothesis, I'd love to see it. Always good to learn). Matthews has even stated this. He uses the rankings to put pressure on the schools to conform to his views. Wat is sad is how this has been embraced by the medial.</p>
<p>Indeed the impact of HS rankings is far worse than college rankings. Individuals have far more flexibility and choice among colleges than among HS Whereas we can try (at least!) to fit colleges to the kid, this is tough to do with our kids - should we move to get the best fit as they come along? what if they're less than four years apart?</p>
<p>So we have an individual, a magazine and the media pushing a ranking system that may have little to do with quality of education, and may lead parents to make decisions not in the best interest of their children.</p>
<p>As usual great analysis, in Washington we already knew the two International Schools and Newport were the gold standard. What these rankings miss is the numbers of schools that do a very good job of preparing their college abound students. </p>
<p>What will be humorous is reaction south of me in the Portland suburbs. There are some pretty pretentious schools left completely off the list.</p>