The 100 BEST High Schools in America

[FenrisWulf]

Sadly not, I imagine. :( Class of '05 here, and I'm afraid that I didn't have much of a chance to fraternize with the Seniors during my busy Freshman year. :P Though there's a chance (hah, stretching it a bit here) that my roommate's brother knows your younger brother, since I think that he was also class of '02; then again, considering the minimal number of people that I know from my own class, I may be grasping at straws. :)

[Bun-Bun]

Just to point out that the survey is incomplete - it excludes private schools. The young fellow who who won this year's national Spelling Bee came from a private school, St. Mark's of Dallas.

Which just happens to be my alma mater. :)

[Isolde]

It doesn't exclude private schools specifically, just schools that receive more than 50% of their students based on testing. That's probably most private schools but not all.

[Isolde]

Oh, sorry, I was talking about high school class (our meta discussion topic). Both of 'em went/are going to (ahem) Cal :D I have a few cousins who're Cardinals though, the most recent being '04 (college class), however, she's at Oxford atm.

[Bun-Bun]

If you'll excuse my flogging Jimmy a bit, from the original article ...

That means that 245 more schools are eligible for the 2003 Challenge Index, which ranks 739 public schools according to the ratio of AP or IB tests taken by all students divided by the number of graduating seniors.

Emphasis added. I interpret this to mean the list is public-school-only.

[Isolde]

My bad, I misread kandrathe's post earlier in this topic re: private schools.

[edit] Though now that you mention it, I'm wondering how the top public schools fare against their private school counterparts. My parents sent me to a private school at first (they were told that it was the best school in the region), and the education I got there was absolutely terrible. I had a lot of ground to make up when I switched to the public system.

[Kevin]

Well in WI it appears that they aren't as good as public on some counts at least. Points 13 and 14 in this little list (http://www.nea.org/publiced/goodnews/wi01.html) indicate the public schools are doing more AP classes and that students are doing better on at leas the physics versions. My personal experience (class of 93 so the data is getting old) is the the public school students in southwest Wisconsin at least, didn't have any better education than the private school students. Some areas were better some were worse. But the better teachers tended to be at the public schools, and we all know how important the teacher is in the learning process.

Of course as you pointed out quite well the list that started this debate is worthless. How many tests given per students is a very poor metric for education quality. If you factor in the average results on those tests and maybe throw in the other standardized tests such as the ACT, SAT, etc, and maybe even do a money per student factor as well, graduation rates, yadda yadda (essentially make it closer to some of the college ranking systems) you might be able to get a much better metric of education quality, but using just this one component for a complex ranking like this is silly.

[kandrathe]

Sorry. :o I can be obscure at times.

I also would like to find statistics that compare schools in my area. I did find2002 US Census -- Educational Attainment of the Population 25 Years and Over, By Metro Area

Interesting to compare the regional demand for college graduates to their manufacture. Also, you can see their importation, as many of the HS graduation rates do not corrolate to the demand for higher degree'd individuals.

[Bun-Bun]

I suspect (based on absolutely no data whatever) that private schools are slightly higher on the quality curve than public, if for no other reason than they have more money to spend per student. That's an average estimation, though, and the vast range of quality, or even the wide spread of what we consider "quality" makes generalizations questionable.

I was talking to a real parent today, and she noted that different school districts were better for different students. One has a great special needs program, another a good advanced students program, etc.

From my experience, I went to two private schools; one was pretty bad, the other pretty good in academics but not good on teaching social skills. The good one was probably better than most of the public schools in the area, but certainly not all. They did (an apparently still do) teach you to spell. If they only had taught me to type as well, I wouldn't have to edit my posts all the time. :(

I t makes me rather glad I don't have to deal with it as a parent. :)

[Mephista]

Schools that select more than half their students by exams or other academic criteria are not eligible, because they have few, if any, of the average students who need a boost from AP or IB.

This survey also excludes the magnet schools like the one where I went. I'd really like to see top ranked public schools without compensation for admissions process. IE how does the best school on the list linked to above compare to the top public high schools?

Was at first surprised that Stuyvesant (my high school) wasn't on the list at all, then saw that it wasn't counted.

(Eep, I need to go back there and visit before my favorite teacher retires!)

[Isolde]

Heh. I doubt that they emphasized spelling much in the public system. Grammar even less. ;) I have quite a few friends who went to Bellarmine in San Jose, and they definitely got a quality education with regards to history, but I get the feeling that they might be a bit soft when it comes to maths (which fits with my personal experience, science and math being the areas where I was most deficient).

[Isolde]

Stuyvesant is obviously one of the top public schools in the country :D It would be a silly comparison, I think. The South Bay Area doesn't have magnet schools (it's against our educational philosophy I suppose). Personally, I like the diversity. Going to Lowell (the magnet school in SF) would have seriously messed with my life skills :lol:. And so far as I can tell, it wouldn't have helped my academics any either.

[edit]

this might be interesting to you:

http://www.edina.k12.mn.us/district/curr_s...earch/tophs.pdf

Gunn isn't on the list (though our rival school is :blink:). Guess it's not comprehensive :lol:. Stuyvesant's there though.

[FenrisWulf]

@Isolde:
Ah, my mistake. :) Hm, my roommate is going to Oxford next Winter, in fact. :D Cool.