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…

Last week, we told you about D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s controversial new merit pay plan for teachers, as well as the impressive jump in DCPS test scores, both of which continued to provoke opinion throughout the weekend. Rhee’s compensation plan, under which teachers could choose to waive seniority and tenure in order to earn significantly higher pay tied to their performance, attracted the attention of both The Economist, which liked the idea, and The…

This week, Newsweek and Jay Mathews (both of the Washington Post) released their annual Challenge Index of top U.S. public high schools, which ranks schools based on the number of AP or IB tests given divided by the number of graduating seniors. People like lists, and the Challenge Index always gets a lot of attention despite being heavily criticized for inaccuracy and irrelevance. For example, the highest-ranking District school, Bell Multicultural High School, comes in…