WE'RE NUMBER 545! WE'RE NUMBER 545!
That's the rank enjoyed by my old digs, San Mateo High School, in Newsweek's silly ranking of the top 800 or so public high schools in the USA.
The rankings were based on:
Of course, such criteria is rather narrow, and the result, as Jim points out, schools could act narrowly with the single purpose of improving their position on such a glamorous list, at the possible expense of the local taxpayers, and worse, the students.
Another note is that because the criteria for the list is heavily weighted towards AP tests, schools that lack AP and IB programs yet feature solid standards and programs of other forms for students get short shrift in lists like this. And of course, if your school is anywhere near a prestigious country club, that will most likely bump you up a spot or two (Torrey Pines HS, #79). More generally, though, if you are white and live in an affluent neighborhood, chances are your local high school is on this list. Take my old district, for example. San Mateo High School (#545) has a higher percentage of non-white students (57%) as those of the two district schools that finished ahead of them in the rankings, those being Burlingame (#373) and Aragon (#502).
All this being said, this is a dumb list. Next?
That's the rank enjoyed by my old digs, San Mateo High School, in Newsweek's silly ranking of the top 800 or so public high schools in the USA.
The rankings were based on:
the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2002 divided by the number of graduating seniorsJim C at Rittenhouse has some analysis.
Of course, such criteria is rather narrow, and the result, as Jim points out, schools could act narrowly with the single purpose of improving their position on such a glamorous list, at the possible expense of the local taxpayers, and worse, the students.
Another note is that because the criteria for the list is heavily weighted towards AP tests, schools that lack AP and IB programs yet feature solid standards and programs of other forms for students get short shrift in lists like this. And of course, if your school is anywhere near a prestigious country club, that will most likely bump you up a spot or two (Torrey Pines HS, #79). More generally, though, if you are white and live in an affluent neighborhood, chances are your local high school is on this list. Take my old district, for example. San Mateo High School (#545) has a higher percentage of non-white students (57%) as those of the two district schools that finished ahead of them in the rankings, those being Burlingame (#373) and Aragon (#502).
All this being said, this is a dumb list. Next?
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