POST Local

Critics say public charter schools have an unfair advantage over regular public schools because they are less likely to have students with learning disabilities. That is not always true. Consider one D.C. charter management organization, DC Prep, with more than 1,000 students.

Its Edgewood Middle Campus, a fourth-through-eighth-grade middle school, has a larger portion of special education students than the District’s average. Seventeen percent receive services and are showing progress.

I do not mean to disparage regular D.C. schoolteachers who are doing special education work. I have seen enough programs for students with learning disabilities to know that fine work can be found at schools otherwise labeled as failing because of their low test averages.

Emily Lawson, founder and chief executive officer of DC Prep, describes her school’s methods this way:

“We employ an inclusion model, with special education teachers working alongside the general education teacher in the classroom. This general classroom experience ensures that special education students master grade-level content.

In the 30 years I have been studying the growth of Advanced Placement and other college-level courses in American high schools, no development has been more surprising or controversial than what I call the “Catching Up Schools.”

That is my label for about three dozen schools across the country in low-income neighborhoods that offer an unusual number of AP classes despite the fact that very few of their students are able to pass the difficult three-hour final exams.

Each year, I rate local and national high schools based on AP test participation. My latest rankings appeared this week. In 2008, I removed schools from the main lists of what we call the “High School Challenge” if their passing rates were below 10 percent. I put them on a separate “Catching Up” list. I calculated that once a school with high participation rates reached a 10 percent passing rate, it was producing as many successful AP students as a school with average participation and passing rates.

Many readers said the educators running these schools were hurting their students by having them take tests they could not pass, and doing so only to look good on my lists.

I disagreed. I had spoken to principals and teachers in several of the schools and was convinced if the teaching was good, struggling in an AP course would be a better educational experience than sliding through the relatively easy regular course that was the only practical alternative in these mostly urban schools. The students shared that view. They knew they were unlikely to pass the AP exams, but they said they were learning much and were more likely to succeed in college having experienced the academic demands of higher education. Several who went to college said that proved to be true.

Okay. Maybe I’m not totally unbiased. One of the three high school rankings that just came out is mine. But I had something to do with the other two. One was partly inspired by a friendly argument I had with other education experts and the other was created to replace my list when I moved it to the Post last year.

All three lists are produced by good people waving the tattered but still proud flag of American accountability journalism. They are the Washington Post High School Challenge using my Challenge Index, and lists by U.S. News and Newsweek using different methodologies.

If your school is on any of these lists, you should be happy. They recognize schools with many admirable features. But still, the three lists are driving high school officials crazy. This is the first time there have been three in one year. People have trouble telling us apart.

My list began in 1998 in Newsweek, where I served as a contributing editor while keeping my day job as an education writer and then columnist for the Post. The U.S. News list was launched in 2007 by people who disagreed with my shunning of test scores in my rankings, and wanted to add high schools to the magazine’s long lists of college lists. The new Newsweek list began last year after the Washington Post Co. sold Newsweek and I moved my list to my newspaper, my professional home for 41 years.

I always say “please” and “thank you.” I tip at least 20 percent. I never abuse editors or waiters. Many people have told me that I am a nice guy.

So why do so many private schools these days treat me like a loathsome intruder? They don’t actually say they wish I would drop dead, but it is clear that they don’t want to hear from me. I am asking them for information — how many graduates and Advanced Placement tests they had last year — that they consider none of my business. Thousands of public schools have provided the same data to me for the past 14 years.

For the first time, I am including a sampling of private schools in my annual high school rankings, just posted. Most people think the main difference between public and private schools is that the latter charge tuition, sometimes exceeding $30,000 a year. That’s true, but there is also a great gap in accountability to the public — particularly for parents trying to find the best school for their children — because most private schools withhold vital data about their academic programs.

Since 1998, I have prepared a ranked list of public high schools based on what I call the High School Challenge Index. I divide the number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Advanced International Certificate of Education tests at each school by the number of graduating seniors. If the school’s participation ratio is 1.000 or higher, it goes on the list. Only 9 percent of U.S. public schools have reached that level.

The little schools that dominate the top of The Washington Post’s 2012 high school rankings confirm an accelerating trend in American education: We are moving away from the something-for-everyone shopping mall campuses that were once a national model.

Instead of big schools that offer football, auto shop and a wide choice of easy courses, the schools that lead the new national list are small magnets and charters that focus on college-level courses and tests.

There are hints of the same change in The Post’s local high school rankings, led by small schools seeking rigor for average students. They include St. Anselm’s Abbey and Washington International, among the first private schools to appear on The Post’s list. These small, intense schools reflect a movement to apply international standards to American education, using programs like Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and the Advanced International Certificate of Education.

The Post’s full High School Challenge list of more than 1,800 schools, the national top 9 percent, plus local school rankings can be found online at www.washingtonpost.com/highschoolchallenge..

Until now, most American high-schoolers have shown a tendency to slide through courses that demand little attention or homework. The past 30 years have seen no significant gains in reading or math among 17-year-olds.