Why Newsweek's Best High School List Is Useless
Photo by rjs1322
Earlier this week, Newsweek released its 2010 "America's Best High Schools" list, designed in part by the Washington Post's Jay Mathews. This year, two D.C. public high schools made the top 100 -- Bell Multicultural High School (#37) and Woodrow Wilson High School (#100) -- along with a smattering of campuses in Maryland and NoVa.
It's great to see Bell and Wilson -- two DCPS schools that really are among the top-performing and most innovative high schools in the District -- receive some national attention. But to call a place like Bell, which was labeled a "dropout factory" in a 2008 national study, one of America's best high schools? You've got to be kidding.
Here's how Newsweek arrives at its rankings: Take the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge (AICE) tests given at a school each year, then divide by the number of graduating seniors. That's it. Newsweek doesn't even adjust for whether the students pass the exams. Bell does well under these metrics because Bell requires all its upperclassmen to take at least one AP test every spring. Plus, Bell has an extremely small graduating class.
DCist has written before about why the Newsweek list is problematic. And a 2006 report by Education Sector found that many campuses included on the list fail to meet "a reasonable definition of a good high school."
But for me, this year's rankings are very personal. I taught AP English at Bell from 2005 to 2007. I graduated from Highland Park High School* in Dallas, which at #36, scores just one place above Bell. These two schools have almost nothing in common, from their percentage of students receiving subsidized lunch (HP: 0%, Bell: 84%) to their 10th graders' proficiency in reading (HP: 99%, Bell 58%). When I think about the quality of education that I was fortunate enough to receive, and compare it the one given to my former Bell students, the contrast is almost offensive.
This gap only underscores the massive misrepresentation that Newsweek perpetuates in publishing this list, year after year, under the title of "America's Best High Schools." Even "America's Hardest High Schools" wouldn't be accurate, since the metrics don't examine how well students are prepared for the exams. These distinctions matter -- especially as DCPS tries to draw more families into the District and our local elections are caught up in issues of school performance and teacher quality. It is important that we have metrics that reveal how our local schools stack up. But those metrics must have meaning for the families that send their kids there. A meaningless formula designed to sell advertising and newsstand copies doesn't cut it.
*Another HP graduate? Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America -- which is about to place 215 new teachers in D.C. area schools.