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The best public high schools
Filed under: Teens, Day Care & Education
Here's a list of the 1,200 best public high schools in the US. I'm not sure how useful this list is, though; I'm not moving to Texas just so my kids can attend #1 or #2. I will note that, while it's no surprise that our Lowell is listed pretty high (#57) on the list, I did not expect to find the School of the Arts (#331) on there.Of course, the high school I went to isn't on the list although in the decades since I went there, it has purportedly become one of the most requested schools in The City. I suppose, if you're moving somewhere, something like this might be helpful if you've got teenagers in the house.
Mind you, I'm not sure I totally go for their methods of rating schools; they take the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and Cambridge tests taken by students and divide that by the total number of students. All of the schools on the list have a resulting average of at least one, meaning that pretty much every student took at least one of those tests. While it could be a good sign that all the kids are interested in taking them, it could also be a case of pressure from the school.
I also wonder about the experience of going to one of these schools; I know that a lot of kids have ended up not enjoying Lowell because of the intense pressure to study and excel. While I'm a huge proponent of education, I don't think it should be at the expense of a well-rounded, self-confident, personality. I worry what all that pressure does to kids. What do you think?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
5-23-2007 @ 2:15PM
Anna V. said...As soon as I saw Dover High School on the list (Dover, Delaware), I knew I couldn't take these results seriously. They may have a bunch of test-takers, but it's not a good school (among other problems, gang and student violence led to metal detectors being installed. In a tiny city in a peaceful county.) We had school choice in DE, and my mother made sure I did not stay in the Capital School District. I went to Caesar Rodney instead, a smaller school that doesn't have the sheer number of students to make that silly list.
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5-23-2007 @ 3:23PM
rachel said...i agree with you anna. there are local schools on this list i would NEVER send my kids to. what a joke.
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5-24-2007 @ 10:05AM
Caelligh said...THAT was the ONLY criteria?
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5-24-2007 @ 3:36PM
kate said...The data that would impress me more is, of those who took the IB or AP tests, how many passed? Some schools require students taking upper-level courses to take the AP test just so data like this will be inflated. I did attend a school on the list (#1026) and I can tell you that our school was/is a lot more academically competitive than some that were ranked higher. It's simply that not everyone was compelled to take the AP test.
Oh, and I do also work in a high school (very much *not* on the list) and my skepticism is shared by one of our AP teachers. It's apparently quite a misleading bit of information. :-P
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