Entries for December 2008

How about some good news already? Geez, what a bleak run of luck. We have this fascinating presidential election, and even people who voted for the other guy feel good for about five minutes, then the bottom drops out of a stock market that we thought was already on the bottom, and we find out we've been in a recession for 12 months without knowing it—did anyone really not know it?—and we're going to be in it for a lot longer. Unless it becomes a depression, in which case all bets are off. Happy New Year.

So I'm sure you'll understand if we take a few minutes to focus on some good news. Or at least news that might turn out to be good, depending on what you do with it. Believe me, this is not an easy feat for your standard hard-boiled journalist. Bad news is our stock in trade. "We don't write about the banks that don't get robbed," an old city editor of mine used to explain somewhat impatiently. True enough, but my other favorite definition of news—I tend to stick to the basics—is man bites dog. And at this point, the least hint of good news would qualify as a dog-biting man.

Rankings are a powerful force. People take them very seriously. Believe me, I know. I hear the complaints, the whines, the special pleadings. And the praise, too. People love rankings because they play to the deep American fascination with winners and losers. They're also a quick read on complex subjects like high schools or hospitals, and that can sometimes be troublesome. But I think the real value of rankings, if they're done well, is that they become useful instruments to help demystify institutions and even promote best practices. We appreciate the power that comes with publishing such information and work to use it responsibly.

In producing our second annual "America's Best High Schools," we drew on our long experience with data and rankings methodology ("Best Colleges" debuted 25 years ago). Our partners at SchoolMatters, a unit of Standard & Poor's, are equally experienced and thorough. We explain the criteria in detail, but trust me when I say it is a sophisticated, fair way of comparing these important schools. In the past year, we've received a good deal of professional scrutiny, and the methodology has held up as a breakthrough in education assessment. We list the top 100, compared across 48 states. At usnews.com, we give you a state-by-state ranking of the top 1,900 schools and an array of features to help you understand why some schools are better than others.