Newsweek magazine has just published, for the fourth time since 1998, my list of the most challenging public high schools in the United States.
That means I have to start practicing my bobbing, weaving, ducking and other defensive measures as the many intelligent and conscientious people who don't like what Newsweek and I have done come after me. The list is based on what I call the Challenge Index, a list of the top public high schools ranked by their success in persuading their students to take Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate college-level tests. Many people, particularly educators, think this is an awful way to measure schools, and I put my e-mail address at the end of the list so they can tell me so.
Fortunately, Patrick Welsh, the author and star AP English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, gave me an opportunity to get in shape for the onslaught by agreeing to debate the worthiness of the Challenge Index in the Post's Outlook section April 10. Pat did such a good job that most of the e-mails I received afterward gleefully declared him the winner. I tried to reply to each one. Here is a sample of messages and responses, with a few pro-me letters thrown in to make it clear that Pat's victory was not entirely unanimous (but almost). I think they highlight the most important issues that surround the list, and why Newsweek and The Post continue to run the rankings despite the criticism.
· Q. Your premise seems to be that high schools are 'failing' the students by not providing wider access to AP. But isn't that simplistic?
By the time one gets to high school, study habits, attitudes and ways of learning/thinking are pretty firmed up. That doesn't mean a kid can't learn to think better in high school, but by placing an undue burden on AP, you frustrate those kids who mentally aren't on the college track yet and need more teacher attention. To put them in AP classes is cruel.
Bear in mind that half of high school grads go to college, and only half of them graduate with a degree five years later. That means college is competitive, since one's peers are roughly in the top 25 percent of the high school class. So if you want to assure wider college access/success, a better answer is to design instructional programs for kids on the margins who belatedly (or half-heartedly) decide they want to go, but haven't yet developed the mental skills needed to cope with classroom instruction that is designed to challenge the top 25 percent. -- Robert W. Goranson
· A. I have been studying for many years the education of those who, as you say, "haven't yet developed the mental skills needed to cope with classroom instruction that is designed to challenge the top 25 percent," and I have a different view. The mental skills are already there. What is missing are high schools that give those kids the time and encouragement they need to exercise those skills and learn the material.
A century ago, only 25 percent of American teenagers went to high school, and people then believed the rest lacked the mental skills to handle it. Blessed with hindsight, do you think they were right? I sure don't.
My favorite teacher, Jaime Escalante of Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, worked in a school FULL of Mexican American kids who allegedly lacked the mental skills for AP calculus. And yet he had more kids taking that course than all but four high schools, public or private, in the country, and most of them passed the AP test.
The time and encouragement he gave them, he said, had to have a goal. That was the AP test. Research indicates that even a kid who tries hard in AP and flunks the exam is more likely to graduate from college than someone who is not allowed to take AP at all.
· Q. Is it really that interesting to say that students who have taken AP or IB coursework do better in college than those who have not?
What you are saying, in effect, is that the more college-level experience you have when you get to college the more likely you are to do well. Your parents' college-experience can also serve as a proxy.
The 100 Best High Schools in America: The goal: Never has high school had to do so much for so many. Newsweek unveils the top schools across the country and suggests what others can do to make the grade.
