Well, here's the official list of the top 100 high schools. Despite the fact the US News list is probably not very accurate in terms of identifying the top high schools, I wonder if there is something these schools have in common?
I did notice many of the schools included on the list are considered "alternative schools" (i.e., charter schools, etc.).
I also found an interesting article on school rankings in WaPo. The analysis, unbiased of course, found NY schools to be the best in the U.S., followed closely by Massachusetts and Maryland, while D.C ranks as the country's worst. The assessment is based on a report from Ed Week.
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Hi Gang,
I did my own little non-scientific perusal of this list and I think I know what a lot of these schools have in common.
1. A lot are schools of choice. I noticed a number of magnet schools, schools attached to "institutes of higher learning," and charter schools in the mix.
2. A lot of schools are located in areas of great affluence. At the risk of offending Kim (and, by some strange coincidence, my ex-wife), it's pretty easy to be Torrey Pines High when you are located where Torrey Pines High is.
I did my student teaching in the Del Mar Union District. I subbed extensively in Oceanside. The schools in Oceanside were fully a year and a half behind those in Del Mar. Two reasons: the parents and the parents' money. In Del Mar, if a teacher thinks of something he or she may need, a parent will telepathically connect with this need and provide it before the teacher is even consciously aware of the need. I student-taught at Del Mar Heights Elementary School--from with you can see the ocean through a thick fog--and I know that all my students were given new recorders for the music program--simply because a single parent, two decades before I taught there, thought that might be a good idea and started what to her was a small endowment.
I am wondering, though, on a more personal note, how Preuss School stays on top of such lists even after the scandals associated with it.
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