Newsweek’s ‘Best High Schools list’ has plenty from California
More than one out of six – about 18 percent – of public high schools on this year’s list of Newsweek’s “best high schools” are from California. They make up 285 of the 1,663 schools on the list, which comprise 6 percent out of America’s 27,000 high schools. Ten California high schools made the top 100, including four charter high schools.
The top three are Oxford Academy (#11) in Cyprus, a school for the academically gifted that requires an entrance exam; and two charter schools: Preuss (#16), which is affiliated with the UC-San Diego and consists totally of low-income students, and Pacific Collegiate (#19) in Santa Cruz, whose low-income students comprise only 3 percent of the student body.
“Best” is subjective, difficult to measure and disputable in many instances. In Newsweek’s case, it is narrowly defined as those schools that score high on the Challenge Index, the ratio of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests given at a school each year divided by the number of graduating seniors. Those that score 1.0 or greater – the number of tests taken exceed the number of graduates – make the list.
The Challenge Index’s creator, Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews, argues that the index is a simple and transparent indicator of excellence, if not also equity. He points to studies showing that students who take an AP or IB course experience the rigor of a college course and are more likely to excel in college.
Mathews chose not to measure only those who pass the AP or IB test, with a score of 3 out of 5, because some high schools encourage only the best students – those most likely to pass – to take AP or IB courses.
Critics like Andrew Rotherham, creator of the blog Eduwonk.com and co-founder of the Education Sector, examined the index and found cases where high-scoring schools had wide achievement gaps among its racial groups and even high dropout rates. This year, for example, at Van Nuys High (#55) in Los Angeles, there’s a 145 point gap between API scores of white and Hispanic students.
The Challenge Index also doesn’t measure school culture, extracurricular activities, college acceptance rates and other important factors. But it is useful in distinguishing those schools that push large numbers of students to take rigorous courses and those that don’t, whether they’re in low-income or middle-class neighborhoods.
In about a third of the 285 California high schools on the list, at least half of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches, a measure of poverty. Newsweek also includes an Equity and Excellence measure of the percentage of seniors who actually pass at least one AP or IB exam. At Preuss, every student did, while at Jordan High in Los Angeles (#1570) and Magnolia Science Academy (#1284), a charter school in Reseda, only 6 percent – about 1 out of 17 – passed the exam.
At Summit Prep, a 400-student charter school in Redwood City, all students, regardless of background, are required to take six Advanced Placement exams and are given extra help to succeed in them. Its student body, one-third low income, comes close to matching the surrounding Sequoia Union School District. Three-quarters of its students passed an AP exam, and, over the past four years, 96 percent were admitted to a four-year college.
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I believe that the sound journalistic response to this invalid and corrupt feature is to either ignore it or debunk it. It should not be promoted or given credibility. Here’s why: … The “rankings” are based on one single measure — one that is invalid as a gauge of quality and simply does not measure how “good” a high school is. They also violate journalistic ethics, as the gauge is one that directly promotes increased profits for an enterprise run by Newsweek’s parent company. … The rankings are based entirely on the single criterion of how many AP (or two other similar) tests are taken by the students in the school. That’s it. How the students perform on the tests is not part of the equation. Holly Hacker of the Dallas Morning News reported that at the No. 26 school, Herron High School in Herron, Ind., an average six exams were given to each graduating senior — but only 5 percent of the graduating seniors passed one or more of the exams. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/New_Story_3.a2595cee.html … But the sheer number of exams given qualified Herron as one of the nation’s supposed top high schools, despite the students’ abysmal performance (or quite possibly deliberate sabotage, I would add, knowing teens all too well).
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More on the bogus and corrupt Newsweek high school rankings — Here’s why this feature compromises Newsweek’s ethics. Newsweek’s parent company, the Washington Post, also owns Kaplan, the test prep powerhouse. It’s also hardly necessary to explain that encouraging more students to take AP tests directly correlates with increasing Kaplan’s business. … Standard journalistic ethics call for avoiding the appearance of conflict of interest. The Newsweek high school rankings emblazon the appearance of conflict of interest across the heavens. … One obvious problem with the validity of Newsweek’s criterion is that it’s subject to easy manipulation, as we are apparently witnessing with the Herron, Ind., school. All the school or district has to do is prod its students to take many AP tests (bribe,require, whatever) — AND pay the $86 fee per test. So there’s a little further issue. There is fee relief at the very, very, very low income threshold that qualifies the student for free/reduced lunch (to restate in plain English, they have to be dirt poor) — other than that, fee relief is at the discretion/ability of the school/district. … The superintendents of 38 high-performing districts sent a stinging renunciation of this feature to Newsweek a couple of years ago. There isn’t a link to the original letter that I can find, but I and other bloggers have posted it: http://www.sfschools.org/2008/04/school-supes-boycott-newsweek-hs.html
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One more thing: You do know that the Preuss school has a history of being busted for cheating, don’t you? Information on Preuss is not really complete without that disclaimer. http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/2010/05/preuss-school.html
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Setting a baseline for improvement and standardizing the national curriculum, while making it more rigorous, voluntarily is no small thing. Newsweek should be congratulated.
Furthermore, the criticism of the rankings from a broader perspective is valid FROM AN EDUCATIONAL BUREAUCRAT’s PERSPECTIVE. Parents care about THEIR children. What schools push rigor matters more than what each subgroup does in a school to a parent. This is as it should be. Think about it.
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Newsweek is not “setting a baseline for improvement and standardizing the national curriculum.” It has created an artificial criterion for judging the “best” high schools that encourages schools that have the financial means to connive to artificially manipulate it, in a way that does nothing to improve students’ learning. In addition, Newsweek’s artificial criterion aims at boosting its own financial fortunes, and is thus ethically tainted.
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@ Dennis: While i believe that nationwide standards and high levels of rigor are incredibly important and will make the difference to our students and our country in an increasingly competitive, global community, subgroups matter. Schools are not only meant to serve high achieving kids from families with educational capital who know how and when to push thier kids academically, they are meant to serve all kids. In schools where some groups are succeeding, but others are failing miserably, that is unjust. We cannot allow and accept that students who are low income and who are of color are destined for low achievement and then still call ourselves a democratic society.
This number that newsweek publishes (# of tests given/by # of graduating seniors) is not the only measure of success that should be considered. it is easy to figure out and it makes for great headlines. this does not take into account other statistics that matter, such as dropout/graduation rates, college acceptance rates, performance on state tests (arguably more valid since it considers all students at the school not just the top kids), etc… When determining a top school, I believe it is necessary and valid to ensure that school is serving all students and not just AP students.
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CarolineSF get your facts straight! The problem was teachers inflating course grades, not cheating on exams! Yes, it impacts transcripts, but NO STUDENT was EVER SUSPECTED of cheating on any STANDARDIZED TEST.
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I didn’t actually specify — I just said they cheated. In my view, a cheating scandal of that magnitude (the previously hailed principal resigned) calls all the school’s claims into question. Fool me twice, shame on me and all that. … Here’s an interesting commentary on the Preuss scandal.
http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071216/news_1m16braun.html
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One of the points that isn’t made often enough is that what “works” from a parent perspective is not the same as what “works” from an overall policy perspective — and lists like these add to the confusion. Is Newsweek’s list a guide for parents choosing a school? Or a guide for policy makers looking to improve education in their community? Or a bit of both?
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Any measurement of excellence will always have a bias. Having had four boys go through Van Nuys High in Van Nuys, CA which ranked #57 on the list I have appreciated the push that the teachers gave each of the boys to excel and do well on the AP tests. Without a doubt I know that the homework they did and the preparation they did for the AP tests instilled within them crucial study habits that prepared them for College.
It certainly helped the budget also when they were able to transfer 25 credits or more to the college from the AP tests. That’s almost one years worth of college. It’s not that they were able to graduate from college in less than four years but they were able to focus in on their major much sooner. They were also able to take lighter loads, and able to take a semester here and there to work full time and still graduate within the four year period. I’ve told them more than once that the hard work they did in high school helped them to reap those benefits in college and made college much more enjoyable for them.
It’s not that they attended a light college either. They all were able to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah which is very challenging to enter because of the many LDS students from around the world that desire to attend the University.
You’re right–this ONE criteria does not fully validate the excellence of a high school overall. But I do attest that there is value that comes from preparing for and taking the AP tests! As a parent it is nice to know what schools have this as a priority in order to more successfully gain entrance to a great University. The other statistic that these high AP schools record is the percentage of kids entering college is greater–a natural outcome of this focus I believe.
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