Best High Schools: Frequently Asked Questions

High Schools

There is a difference between "Public High Schools" and plain "High Schools" You seem to use the words interchangeably.

America's Best High Schools 2008

I'm a teacher at Eastern Sierra Academy, a small rural school in a remote town in Eastern California. I've read your methodology for ranking "America's Best High Schools 2008" and I believe our school should be ranked quite high on your list.

We serve a community that is almost exclusively middle to low income and is about 40% Hispanic. We consistently rank among the top 50 schools (out of almost 1000) in the state with our API scores. We also have a robust AP program in place at the school. 100% of our seniors have taken at least 4 AP exams and our AP pass rate is usually between 75% and 40%.

For the 2005-2006 school year, 100% of our seniors had taken AP exams and 60% of them had passed at least one test. So if I take the formula you provided for "College Readiness" we have a score of 70.0. This would put us at #54 on your list of Gold Medal Schools.

If there is some way we be included on your list, our students and faculty would be very grateful for the recognition.

Best High Schools?

The endeavor to rank high schools was an admirable one, but the methodology selected to determine these schools is questionable. To illustrate this, six out of the seven high schools in Washington County, Maryland were named to this list. This sounds quite impressive and would certainly have to rank this county as one of the top in the country if these results are indicative of the ability of schools “to provide a good education across their entire student body”. However, for the same time period of the study, Washington County scored below the state and national average in the SAT. Its passing rate for the Advanced Placement tests was also significantly lower that both the state and national averages. In addition, the percentage of Washington County students completing a college-prep level curriculum in high school was below the state average. Even more telling though is the report published by the Maryland Higher Education Commission which showed that Washington County students in college required more remedial coursework than the state average in all six of the measurable categories. These factors certainly don’t indicate that Washington County is among the best in Maryland let alone the best in the US.

Private schools?

Why were independent and religious schools both left out of the rankings?

Lack of larger schools

In looking at your report, it seems that all the schools that ranked in Tennessee were the lower enrollment schools. Were all schools ranked including the larger schools. If so, it seems that the larger schools need to get to work...

Say No to IBO

I wouldn't work too hard at trying to get IBO officials to cooperate. When it comes to numbers and data, IBO is expert at only highlighting "growth" and covering up failure.

Rankings

Are all high schools ranked or is there an application procedure involved to request to be ranked?

IB

I have found as a school teacher, that students that can select a school, choose from your rankings as one of their criterian.

I thank you for working to inlcude IB, as it is still new to many, students are not aware of the advanced placement for college credit they get from IB and could make a more informed decision with your development of IB quality question, so it was adequately presented.

That was very cool of you to mention it in your article.

Bronze High School

The University of Maine at Machias was fortunate enought to receive recognition as one of America's Best Colleges and they are using a "sticker" on their mailings announcing this recognition. Is there any type of "recognition" that our high school could use to advertise our "bronze status". Given the current trend in our state toward consolidation... this type of recognition is very important to us and we would like to like to advertise the recognition.

David Morrill, Guidance Counselor

Greenville High School

207-695-2666

dmorrill@ghslakers.org

Frequently asked questions

I was fortunate enough to have taught in both IB and AP mathematics programs over a nine year period (IB Methods, IB HL Mathematics, AP Statistics and AP Calculus). While I absolutely love the AP Calculus AB syllabus, I have never seen anything that prepares students to think critically like the IB Program. It is essential that a way be found to include both. My experience with the IBO suggests that they do not have the resources to respond to you like AP.

Once IB is considered, some may clamor for the inclusion of the Cambridge program. I briefly taught this program and, with all due respect, it does not appear to be on the same level as the others.

Jay Matthews (Washington Post, Time, etc.) deserves much credit for initially attracting attention to this area. However, I have proctored classes in other subjects where not a single student passed the exam, yet the school received "credit". This is disconcerting. The subject is being taught in name only. Your second generation methodology addresses many issues. I feel that any methodology should always contain the following:

A. All students enrolled in the class must take the exam

B. The class must achieve an average score equal to or greater than the subject area average in order to be "counted".

Jim Podlesni

County participation

Why did Loudoun County Virginia schools not participate?

School Types

Thank you for your work in publicizing secondary school efforts to prepare our students for college. I would like to bring your attention to an error appearing in the school type column for my high school and one of our sister schools. Gold medal school #54 (S. TX Business Ed. and Tech Academy) and #64 (High School for Health Professions) are both open enrollment magnet schools, rather that merit-based application. We are very proud of the fact that our students are as accomplished as they are, especially since all students are welcome to enroll pending available space. Again, thank you. Barbara Heater, Principal, S. Tx. High School for Health Professions

Incomplete and Irresponsible

Considering that AP and IB are generally considered on par with each other, it seems quite irresponsible of the magazine to come out with a list that entirely ignores a good portion of schools due to their choice of advanced curricula.

It would not be bad if the magazine had created a list of "good schools" or "commendable schools," but to actually go as far as to list the supposed "100 BEST (PUBLIC) HIGH SCHOOLS" can be 1) somewhat deceiving, and 2) insulting to other great high schools that use IB in lieu of AP.

It is indeed a good thing that the magazine intends to factor IB information in for future lists, but that does not excuse the publishing of this incomplete and biased one (even though the bias was presumably not intentional.)

There are SO MANY different factors that are indicative of a great high school, a multitude of which have nothing to do with AP, IB, or standardized testing. Therefore, to base your rankings largely on college-level coursework and standardized testing is ALREADY problematic. BUT, to not even have a complete set of information for this, and nonetheless create the list is inappropriate and bound to generate dubious selections.

I can totally understand that not being able to obtain IB data is not necessarily the magazine's fault. But, what is wrong is that U.S. News was so dead set upon making this Best High Schools List that it willfully ignored the obvious shortcomings of their data.

I am sure that I am not going to get the list taken down or renamed, but I do believe that everyone should realize that this particular version of the list should never have been up in the first place.

Best High Schools---List

How and where can i find a complete list of all the winners receiving gold, silver and bronze?? I am doing a story in journalism because my school received a silver, but I can not find what number we received.

Am I the only one wondering why the best public high school, my alma mater, Hunter High in NYC, could have been missed?

Can't wait for the answer.

Thanks for allowing me to ask.

Larger schools perform better as they offer more opportunities to learn

Congratulations to Adlai E Stevenson High School, enrollment 4510, for being named #77. Stevenson is one of the largest schools in Illinois.

The "small schools are better" mantra is often something you will here from the ignorant and uninformed who use this as an excuse to raise taxes and build unnecessary schools.

Larger schools offer a greater breadth of programs and opportunities for students to learn. Schools like New Trier and Stevenson are proof of that!

States Included

Why are only 40 of the 50 states included in your assesment? Is there some special reason the smaller states were left out?

Not rating all schools within the geographic area

Jackson High School in Jackson Twp Stark County Ohio was not mentioned. I guess I wonder how you are able to come up with this list if ALL schools are not rated

"Best High schools" is misleading

The title of this list is very misleading. According to this criteria if your students are not black, hispanic or poor, you can't have a good school.

This is a limited list of schools that perform better than people outside the school expect them to. A list of high schools that beat the odds sounds like a good story however this list should be called "Best Disadvantaged High Schools"

High School Rankings

Your Article failed to address, or even mention, Math and Science Technology Charter High School in Philadelphia, PA. It was selected as the oustanding Charter School in the nation for 2007!!!

With the current interest on Charter Schools, which are basically public schools primarily answering to the parents rather than the school board, this is a MAJOR error!

Science program

Where does College Preparatory School, located in or around Oakland rate? I don't see it listed in the top l00. Which high school -- with a good science program -- is the highest rated in Alameda and/or Oakland?...

High School rankings

My name is Paul Casseri, and I am the Principal of Lewiston-Porter High School in Youngstown,NY. Our school has traditionally cracked the top 1000 on the Newsweek Poll. Most recently were 486. I would like to see how we were ultimately rated with the USN@WR methodology. A neighboring district not ranked through Newsweek cracked your top 1000 and we do not. My Superintendent and Board of Ed asked me and I had no response. Please let me know if you can help me with an explanation.

Best High Schools

I was very encouraged by this article and would like to see it year over year to see how/if the schools are improving. I would like to understand the decison in calling the schools 'disadvantage' based on the fact that they are inclusive and representative of all and that that somehow means they are disadvantaged. Lastly, it would be wonderful if there were also a middle school ratings process, after all if the student haven't been prepared prior to entering high school they are greatly impacted. Thanks for the information, it was greatly appreciated and timely!

Best High Schools is an Honor

My school made the bronze list....I think that is amazing. This program is an honor to be a part of!

celpjefscycle

Thanks for information.

many interesting things

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all school ranking

Where can I find a complete list of all schools included in the study? I am interested to see how the schools in our system ranked.

Include IB data?

I would be very careful on how you include the IB exams, if you end up doing so. In Fairfax County, VA over 50% of the IB exams taken are the "SL" level. The SL level exams are not accepted for college credit nearly as readily as the HL exams (in fact, UVA and William & Mary do not SL exams for college credit.). Some HL exams even provide less credit than the AP exams (VA Tech does not accept HL Math unless the student owns the whole IB Diploma -- taking the one class and being an "IB certificate holder" isn't enough). There's even an IB class that is the equivalent to remedial math!

Don't think I'm trying to slam IB. I won't deny that the IB exam may test critical thinking better. However, that doesn't seem to be what the colleges want or teach, by evidence of the difference in credits granted.

The IB Organization doesn't seem to care about that. And that's OK. But not many understand that and will assume the two tests (AP and IB) are interchangeable when they read your rankings.

AP Not the Only Way

I was pleasantly surprised and honored that our school, Middle College High School in Stockton, CA, (Lodi Unified School District) was a Bronze level school in your recent rankings. I believe that our school was disqualified from a silver or gold ranking because we don't offer AP classes. Unfortunately, this doesn't paint the whole picture for our school. All students are required to take college classes during each of their four years at our school with the goal of completing many IGETC (Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum for Univ. of California/California State University) transferable courses that will allow them to enter college immediately after high school with advanced standing. In addition, we have students who take sufficient college coursework during their high school years to be awarded an Associates Degree at the same time they are granted a High School diploma. I write not to complain that we weren't considered for silver or gold; rather to urge you to think about the alternate routes students take to complete college level coursework beyond the AP courses and tests. That may have been the best or only way for schools in the past to show who "produced the best college-level achievement for the highest percentages of their students." I think that it may be time to look at the other ways to reach the same goal.

Well-being

Maybe a more useful evaluation of high schools (and universities) would be based on a school's ability to produce citizens that create a better world. The most commonly accepted indicator of success--high paying jobs--seems kind of shallow considering the real issues that currently affect humanity: war, resource depletion, pollution, climate change... Americans' desire to maintain high levels of consumption is not improving lives. Just because kids are good at math, reading and are taking AP classes, doesn't mean they will be doing the things needed to create well-being in the 21st century.

Minority

My children attend Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. On your web site you indicate that the minority student enrollment is 7.7%. That is incorrect, Asian enrollment is over 30%. When did my children suddenly become a non-minority?

Honesty in Rankings

Although your criteria in ranking the nation's high schools may be well meaning, it penalizes schools who do not have a high enrollment of disadvantaged students. I understand you are trying to bring recognition to those schools who do a good job despite their disadvantaged student populations, but in doing so you have eliminated many schools, particularly in the Midwest, from consideration.

No school in Missouri ranked above the Bronze level and in Kansas only 1 school scored a silver. And yet in Johnson County, Kansas where that school is located, there are at least 7-8 schools whose students routinely score far above most of your Gold Medal schools on state assessments, Sat and Act scores, number of students taking AP courses, as well as number of National Merit Scholars.

I would guess many other fine suburban schools across the country were not included for the same reasons. Excluding white middle class students and schools from the pool does not reflect any true ranking of schools in this country.