Some thoughts on U.S. News & World Report's 100 best public high schools

My father-in-law gave me the January 2010 issue of U.S. News & World Report. It features a number of articles on P-12 education and includes detailed tables of its ‘100 best public high schools’ in the United States. I’ve been playing around with the data a bit…

1. Nationally, it helps to be rich and/or flexible

The tables show that 72 of the top 100 schools are magnet schools, charter schools, or have an application process for students. Only 33 of the top 100 high schools are classified as open enrollment schools. What’s not apparent from the online tables (but is in the printed version), however, is that 5 of those 33 also are labeled as magnet or charter schools and that 26 of the remaining 28 have fewer than 10% of their students classified as economically disadvantaged. In other word, only 2 of the 100 ‘best’ public high schools are traditional open enrollment schools serving a socioeconomically-diverse student population:

• High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies (#52; New York, New York)
• Hidalog Early College High School (#97; Hidalgo, Texas)

2. In Iowa, small homogenous schools reign

No high schools in Iowa were given a gold medal by U.S. News. Only 1 of the 47 Iowa high schools given a bronze or silver medal has a sizable number of students in it:

• Washington High School (1,463 students; Linn County, Iowa)

The remaining 46 high schools have fewer than 600 students. Over 3/4 have fewer than 300 students, often spread out over grades 7 through 12, not just grades 9 through 12. Only 4 of the 47 high schools (including Washington High School above) have racial/ethnic minority student percentages greater than 6%.

3. Are these schools good models for others?

No doubt these are good schools. Some of them appear on the U.S. News list every year. But many will question whether they are good models or exemplars for traditional schools. Are they doing things differently in terms of curriculum, instruction, expectations for student work, teacher training, etc.? And to the extent that they are, how much is due to their greater flexibility compared to more traditional schools?

I’m not disparaging these schools. I’m just thinking out loud here…

Comments

[Tony Baldasaro]

1.

Scott,

This article was circulated in our community by those that are, shall we say, not supportive of some of the current, more progressive, movements in our school district. With the circulation, there was a simple question: What are these schools doing that we are not?

My frustration lies in the data that you unraveled above, so I really appreciate your analysis. Having said that, I think there is value at seeing what more progressive schools are doing. For example, your observation that part of the success of these schools is due to their flexibility is perhaps something of which our more traditional schools can learn.

I'm never in favor of these lists because each school has its own character, culture, and context within which it works. There are too many qualitative properties that go into the success of a school to standardize categories and develop a "score" from which a list of "bests" can be created.

[twitter.com/NancyEH]

2.

Glad to see some of these thoughts being put "out there". I'm sure many of us have had our doubts over the years.

In Maine, the sole gold-medal high school is our only magnet school - a state-chartered HS for math/science with just about 100 students.

As to Silver and Bronze categories, several of the schools are TINY - fewer than 200 students. That's certainly not a model the state itself wants as it pushes for more and more consolidation. A few schools I know relatively well have not done well achieving AYP; what that says about either the U.S.N.&W.R. ranking or NCLB's, I can't say.

[j.edgar burt]

3.

Some interesting questions, but take a closer look at the methodology and even more questions arise. How can states be compared if the standardized tests they implement are not even remotely comparable? See what Arne Duncan has to say about state tests.
While success on the AP or IB exams does have some correlation to success in college, can anyone who follows Scott's blog say that the best we can expect from our high schools is to prepare students to be good test takers in college?

I would like to see what criteria the collective intelligence of this readership could establish to determine the best high schools. My guess is that it would be far more insightful.

I'll start - the best high schools encourage innovation in teaching that fosters collaboration and creative thought among all students.

[j.edgar burt]

4.

Sorry, wrong link for Arne Duncan - try this one (Washington Post).
http://tiny.cc/BjGRN