5 Included in Top 100; Some Raise Caveats About Rankings
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Some educators play down or dismiss the rankings. Others tout them. But none disputes the public fascination with lists of top high schools in America, especially when there's a local connection.
Newsweek stirred school circles last week with a cover story on "America's Best High Schools," complete with a list of the top 100. The magazine also posted online the "1,000 Top U.S. Schools," which actually named 1,042.
Seventeen schools from Maryland, Virginia and the District landed on the short list. About 110 made the longer version. Their accomplishment? Pushing a high proportion of students to take classes and tests considered at or near college level.
Newsweek's ranking used a ratio invented by Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews: the number of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate tests all students take in a given school, divided by the school's number of graduating seniors.
Private schools were excluded for lack of data. So were about 40 elite public schools with admissions criteria deemed too restrictive; Newsweek said it wanted the ranking to measure schools serving students of diverse ability.
Many Post readers are familiar with the ratio, known as the Challenge Index, which has ranked local schools by AP and IB test-taking rates annually since 1998. Periodically, Mathews has teamed with Newsweek researchers for a national version. Their last list was published in 2003, using 2002 data.
The latest list draws on 2004 data from about 11,000 public schools with AP programs and more than 400 that offer IB.
Ten Virginia schools were spotlighted in this year's top 100, led by H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program in Arlington, ranked No. 5. Maryland had six in the top 100, headed by 11th-ranked Richard Montgomery of Rockville, and the District's Banneker placed 46th. Two dozen schools in Fairfax County and Falls Church made the longer list.
The profusion of D.C.-area schools on the list reflects the premium local education officials put on AP and IB access. The College Board, which administers the AP program, found that Maryland and Virginia -- in that order -- led all other states last year in the rate of AP test-taking among high school juniors and seniors. (The District, in comparison with states, was in the middle of the pack.)
Some experts call the Newsweek rankings a useful gauge of access in an educational system that often shuts doors to students not perceived as academic stars. But they also raise numerous caveats.
For example, the rankings give no information about test scores. Nor do they show how much high schools are able to lift achievement from entry to graduation. Social class and the quality of the elementary and middle schools that feed the high schools are hugely significant.
"There's no single measure that can be used that would take into account the complexity of U.S. high schools," said Trevor Packer, executive director of the AP program.
Packer said the College Board is planning to roll out a new measure this year, tentatively labeled "equity and excellence," that tracks the number of students in a graduating class who have achieved a passing score on an AP test (at least 3 on a scale of 1 to 5) during their high school careers. For The Post, Mathews has reported this year on early uses of this measurement in Montgomery and Fairfax counties.
For now, the Challenge Index still shapes discussion of high school reputations in the Washington area and elsewhere. Consider Einstein High in Kensington, one of 21 local schools on Newsweek's online top 1,000 list this year that were not on the magazine's expanded list in 2003.
Principal Jim Fernandez said he was ecstatic that Einstein had reached a ranking near those of its highly regarded peers in Montgomery County.
He hung a framed cover of the Newsweek edition with an appended list of the county's recognized schools outside his office -- a memento from equally elated county School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast.
"We want our kids to feel successful," Fernandez said. "We don't have a big self-esteem situation here. Something like this is great for us. You want that positive, positive, positive stuff."
At H-B Woodlawn, which rose to fifth in the national rankings from 10th in 2003, Principal Frank Haltiwanger said AP access is a given.
"This is the way we've always been," he said. "It's great to be high on Jay's list, a wonderful honor, but it's not what it's all about." Haltiwanger said he was concerned about possible academic overload by students who take as many as five AP courses at a time.
Patrick Welsh, a veteran AP English teacher at T.C. Williams in Alexandria -- which did not make the top 1,000 list -- said the index has spurred a "mad rush" by "publicity-hungry administrators" to pack into AP classes students who might be better served with another curriculum. Welsh, a frequent critic of the list, said The Post and Newsweek were promoting the Challenge Index at the expense of other educational measures.
"That's an enormous amount of power," he said of the two publications. "Nobody is fighting back. The PR thing is too important."
A senior official for Prince George's County public schools, which over the years have not fared well in the Challenge Index, declined to comment on the Newsweek rankings, citing the perceived power of the press. Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt, the county's only school on the list, ranked 748th.
Jo-Ann Armao, The Post's assistant managing editor for metropolitan news, said the newspaper recognizes the limitations of the Challenge Index and has reported on other educational yardsticks and on criticism of Mathews's approach.
"I don't think it's something where The Post is saying, 'Hey, this is the only way to measure schools,' "Armao said.
Mathews said advocacy for AP and IB access should be a "mom-and-apple pie" issue. "Anytime you rank high schools," he added, "a lot of educators get very upset."