Jay Mathews
Washington Post Education Reporter
Tuesday, May 2, 2006; 2:00 PM
Washington Post education reporter Jay Mathews was online Tuesday, May 2, at 2 p.m. ET to examine the Washington, D.C., area's top high schools and other education-related topics.
From The Post:
What Makes a High School Great? (Newsweek, May 1)
Jay Mathews's Challenge Index (May 1)
Why AP Matters (Newsweek, May 1)
Md. School Resolved to Finally Pass AP Tests (Post, May 1)
A transcript follows.
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Washington, D.C.: Jay, we're trying to get KIPP to co-locate with an elementary school in my neighborhood. Considering the barriers being thrown up by the teachers' union regarding the Montgomery ES/KIPP co-location deal, what's the future for these kind of partnerships?
Jay Mathews: Thanks for the good question, and please forgive me for my late start.
My email address is mathewsj@washpost.com. I suspect I will, as I am about to do with this question, ask you to send me more information. The co-location deal for KIPP in Mont. Co, as far as I know, did not fail for lack of teacher's union support. It failed because KIPP could not find a good young principal---they train their own---who wanted to have a school in Montgomery County. KIPP puts all the emphasis on having the best principals possible and give them all the power, including deciding where the school will be. So all is not lost for Moco, but they may have to wait for some KIPP person who grew up in Beltsville and longs to return home.
If you know a different story, tell it to me, and good luck on getting that deal through in D.C. It would help both KIPP and the local school.
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Arlington, Va.:
Hi Jay,
I won't ask about why TJ got left off, again (smile), but I am curious about what you think about the recent press about schools being too tough after recent events in Montgomery County. Is high school too competitive? and if so, what do we do about it? And (more introspectively) do your rankings help or hurt the competitiveness?
Jay Mathews: This I suspect is from a reader who knows this is a pet peeve of mine, and wants to push one of my buttons. The suicides at Einstein were heart-breaking, but it is pretty clear to me, from reading our stories, that they had nothing to do with the pressure from that school's IB and AP programs. While the rate of AP and IB test taking is going up, the youth suicide rate in the US is declining, both good trends.
There are certainly some kids who overdo and stress themselves out to the point where they are paralyzed, or worse. They need kindness and professional help, but they are a very small number of kids. Most of the kids I have interviewed in what are considered schools full of academic pressure love the competition. It makes them feel like they are star football players, and the upcoming AP test is the big game against their cross town rival.
And remember, in general, high schools in America are places where most kids do little work at all. Two thirds of students who reach college---the most ambitious kids---say they did no more, and often less, than an hour of homework a day in high school, while they spend three times that watching TV, talking on the phone and playing with their computers. If we have a pressure problem in US schools, it is too little, not too much, pressure.
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Arlington, Va.: Can you discuss why the Arlington County high schools did so well, and the things that distinguish one Arlington high school from another? John
Jay Mathews: The most important reason is that the Arlington high schools are led by educators who realize that the way AP and IB are used in most US schools---as rewards for A students---is educational malpractice. They open their AP and IB courses to all students who want to take them, and then go looking for more students who just need a little encouragement. HB Woodlawn is a magnet for kids who want to work hard, but with not so many rules. Yorktown is a classic rich part of town school, but with lots of Hispanic kids and the right attitude toward A P. W-L is a wonder, making both IB and AP work in the same school, and Wakefield may be one of favorite high schools of all time. It is a majority minority school, and about half the kids are low income, but no school is better at coaxing kids into and preparing them for AP, and they are the only public school in this area that requires senior project. Arlington is the best.
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Fort Washington, Md.: I have three children, two that have completed high school and one that will enter high school next year. My family lives in Prince Georges' County. Both of my sons (the older children) were a handful and neither achieved up to their potential. I am not blaming the schools but my husband and I reached out time and again for help. Mostly we received platitudes and told not to worry because our boys weren't doing drugs or getting arrested. My sons will have to live with the poor decisions they made in high school for the rest of their lives. I say this as background to my question - how much help should a parent expect from school counselors or administrators?
Jay Mathews: A lot more than you got, but you are going to have to look for a different kind of school to get it. You need a small high school with a focus in every classroom on academic achievement, and teachers who create a bond with each student so they want to get to school to learn with their friends, and please that teacher. There are some attempts to start charter schools in PG. That might be the way to go, or you might think about moving to DC and looking at their many charter options. Or, move to Moco or Northern Va. where the regular public schools do this much better.
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Washington, D.C.: I just came from your speaking engagement about AP reform. You must be on a tight schedule! Thanks for a great panel discussion.
Jay Mathews: Thanks. I suggest counseling for anyone who wants to read my answers in a live chat after getting an hour of hearing my platitudes on a panel.
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Washington, D.C.: Jay, it never ceases to amaze me how utterly useless your rankings are. By ranking schools based upon AP/IB exams vs. total # of students in the senior class, you have essentially made it impossible for some of the largest schools to make your list. Also, your delineating the 1300 SAT mark is very arbitrary, and just goes to show how you are not compiling an inclusive list. Your list will never be the one of "best" schools until you compile an all-inclusive list of schools that combines standardized testing with AP/IB programs, thus accounting for magnets and school districts that do not offer AP/IB due to financial or philosophical considerations.
Jay Mathews: You will have to explain to me how the formula excludes large schools. Here are some schools on the list that graduate more than 700 kids a year---New Trier, Plano, Garfield, Robinson Secondary, TC Williams, many more. It is a very long list. By dividing by the number of graduating seniors, the size of the school become irrelevant. As for using standardized test scores, they are mostly measures of the student, more specifically the affluence of the parents, and not the school. I want to measure which schools are doing the best job to help kids improve, and you have to come up with something else that does that better than standardized test scores. This is the best quantitative measure of a SCHOOL's quality that I know.
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Alexandria, Va.: Hi,My wife, who teaches high school math, frequently complains about students in her classes who don't belong. They get there because of ambitious parents, ignorant guidance counselors or random error. Whatever the cause, these students aren't self-motivated, don't do homework, and are sometimes disruptive .The guidance counselors don't recognize that math is a cumulative subject, so that plunking unprepared students into a level for which they haven't preparation is a disaster. There should be appropriate terminal classes for those without the aptitude to do more advanced math. This is just recognizing the facts, not trying to cover them up.
Jay Mathews: I have discussed this problem with many great AP teachers, and they have pretty much the same view. I can't speak to yr wife's situation, but if you message me, we can talk more. In many cases the teachers I know have faced the same situation and found those students improved if they buried their own suspicions that the kid was not smart enough for the class and forge an individual relationship with each one. They looked for ways to make small improvements in each kid and found many of the kids respected that effort and were more likely to respond. It is hard work, but the teachers who have influenced me say it is worth it. Kids are generally capable of much better work than we give them credit for. You won't win all the battles, but you will win more than you expect.
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Waldorf, Md.: Why is the total number of AP courses taken used instead of the score received on the actual test?
Jay Mathews: It is NOT, and this is important, the number of AP courses taken, but the number of AP TESTS taken that I count. Many kids take AP, but do not take the test, and miss out on this crucial part of the college experience. Also, without the test, you cannot evaluate how well the student has done, a crucial part of AP. And I look at participation rather than the scores because most schools restrict access to the courses and the tests, letting only their A students take test. Then they say, well, we're good because 90 percent of our AP tests got passing grades (even though they may have given only a couple of dozen of tests.) They cant do that in this system and look good.
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Astoria, N.Y.: Jay, I'm frustrated by your list because it seems to provide no help to NYC residents. We have a million students in our public school system - are you really saying there are -no- good public high schools to send kids to? I couldn't find a single NYC school in the top 200, but found plenty from Dallas, D.C., etc. ... what is NYC doing wrong ???????
Jay Mathews: They are not trying hard enough to involve high schoolers in AP and IB. Their magnet schools do well. You see Stuyvesant on our list of schools with lots of AP, but no average students. In most cases the regular NYC schools are getting better, and raising expectations, but they are not yet where they should be. The KIPP schools, which have won the high expectation sweepstakes for middle schools, will have a high school in NYC soon, and then you will see something/.
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Roanoke, Va.: Why isn't Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax on the list?
Jay Mathews: It is on our list of elite publics, which you will find in the magazine. The Challenge Index list was designed to show which schools are doing the best job preparing average students for college. It doesn't work for schools like TJ that have few or no average students.
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Arlington, Va.: I sometimes wonder when people criticize your rankings if secretly they know that factors such as SAT scores reflect more on the economic status of the kids that attend school there rather than the school.
I'm guessing the people most interested in the rankings are people who are trying to figure out where they want to buy a home (like me), people who want to see how their school ranks, and to some extent people who want to see how their neighborhood ranks.
It's like you said, these rankings give all schools a level playing field. But perhaps that's what irks people so much, whether its unintentional or not.
Jay Mathews: I am afraid you are right. It is interesting to me that if we had a ranked list of the top 100 schools by SAT averages, there would be no school on the list with even 30 percent low-income kids. But our list has several schools like that, which shows that no matter what your demographics, you can lead the league in preparing kids for college.
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Washington, D.C.: Why do so many of the schools on your list not have an "Equity and Excellence" number? I understand your reasons for not basing your rankings on the AP pass rates, but I do think the ability to pass the test is worth seeing. (The story about Potomac High today being one example why.)
Jay Mathews: It is a new statistic that the College Board just developed, and still in its developing stages. The CB was not able to calculate a number for every school, and the IB schools, that dont get that statistic at all, had trouble in some cases calculating it for themselves when we asked them to.
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washingtonpost.com: Newsweek: The Public Elites
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Washington, D.C.: Jay,
In general, I support your notion that high-level work should be encouraged and perhaps even required of students who come from all sorts of non-privileged backgrounds.
However, I'm left scratching my head as to how integrating lower-performing and less-prepared students wouldn't be done at the expense of the high-achieving AP students.
I went to an extremely diverse public high school (which I believe is rated on your challenge index). In spite of some pretty heroic efforts by school administration and individual teachers, there were a great number of students who just didn't have the academic grounding to perform in the AP classes.
If a teacher is having to spend class time to teach remedial material, the rest of the class is not being challenged. It doesn't seem fair to neglect the kids who are ready for new/better/challenging material.
I'm all for working towards social and academic parity, but the fact of the matter remains, you can't make up for 10 years of academic stagnation in a year full of intensive AP classes. Even if you were able to require mandatory after-school tutoring.
Jay Mathews: I had the same fear when I started to see districts with tons of high-performing students, like Fairfax and Arlington Counties, open their AP and IB classes to all students who wanted to take them. I waited (this happened in 1998 in Fairfax) for a deluge of emails and phone calls from the A students or their parents telling me this big social experiment was a disaster. I got NOT A SINGLE COMPLAINT! And have not to this day. I think that is remarkable, and proves this: when you have a course based on an incorruptible high level exam that the school cannot dumb down, since they don't write it or grade it, the course still works great even if the students are mixed. The A students are still getting what they want, and the B and C students get the challenge they need. It is hard to believe, but it is true.
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Falls Church, Va.: We have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old and are currently house hunting. We're searching according to the current standing of schools -- are the chances pretty good that if the school is good now, it will be good in a decade and a half?
Jay Mathews: Absolutely. Schools usually don't change very quickly. That is both good and bad.
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E-in-E: Maybe they should have their students taking college level calculus calculate the equity in excellence rating.
Jay Mathews: I am laughing. I will pass on that excellent suggestion. Then I will ask those kids to help me put together my list.
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Manassas, Va.: Showing the number of kids taking an AP test does not prove anything without the scores on that test.
Jay Mathews: Actually, it does. The more kids who take an AP test, the more chances those kids have to PASS an AP test, and we have plenty of research showing that passing the test correlates with higher college graduation rates. But if you measure schools just by how well kids do on the exams, then there is less of an incentive to work with the kids who have to struggle to pass, which is the whole point of the list. I can send you the email addresses of scores of experienced AP teachers and principals who say this way of rating schools helps the schools and kids that need help the most get better.
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Washington, D.C.: The Equity and Excellence metric seems like a good start at improving these rankings. How about going further - divide the number of passing scores by the number of graduating seniors? This would combine the better aspects of the main index and the E&E approaches - schools aren't rewarded for throwing every student into an AP test, and you have a better way to distinguish among top schools who get 100% (or close to it) on the E&E rating.
Jay Mathews: It is an intriguing idea. we will think about it some more.
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Rancho Penasquitos, Calif.: Most of the schools out here in CA insist that all students take the test if they take the course. A student--or many--could score a zero and it would still reflect well for the school, though the quality of the course might be minimal. In fact, some students could sign up for the test who never took the class.Why not an appendix to reflect the pass rate of the tests taken?
Jay Mathews: As I noted, the new equity and excellence rate, which we provide for most schools, does just that. But I think those schools that require all AP students to take the test are doing the right thing. Sure, you will get some 1s and 2s, but that gives you very useful information. Was the teacher not engaged enough with those students? Should another teacher be given a chance? Are some students taking too many APs, and perhaps the extra grade points should be awarded just for passing scores? All that information helps schools get better. You don't have it if kids don't take the tests.
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Washington, D.C.: Jay, you can't seriously think that merely taking an AP test counts for anything. My parents forced me to take at least 4 AP tests and I got 2s on all of them- totally useless and reflective of my 2.8 final GPA in high school. I did "ok" at Maryland, btw, but I was not AP material.
Jay Mathews: You may be among the very few who already knew what a 3 hours exam with half of it being free response was like. Perhaps you didn't need it. But only 23 percent of graduating seniors take even one AP test, and 67 percent of graduating seniors go to college. Don't you think it would help that 44 percent who didn't have AP to experience a really difficult college level exam? For most kids, that taste of college trauma is very helpful, and they have told me so.
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Springfield, Va.: Wouldn't it be better to measure both the number of students taking the AP test AND the number passing?
I graduated from an FCPS HS in '99 and not only was every student encouraged (required)to take the take test FCPS paid for the tests - isn't this an example of a school system with a lot of money in a sense buying their way onto the list?
Jay Mathews: We measure the number of tests, which correlates almost exactly with the number of students taking the tests. As as I said before, a system that makes sure all AP students take the tests is helping improve education for all those students, and making it more likely that their kids will be ready for college. Would you say that school systems that pay reading specialists to help their kids do better on state tests are buying their way into reaching the new federal goals? Helping kids is not bad, even if it costs money.
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Arlington, Tex.: Jay:I saw you on CNN Headline News last night around 9 p.m., ET. Then a panel discussion, and web chat today. You sure are one busy guy!
Jay Mathews: I need a nap. But thanks for the compliment.
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Boston, Mass.: there sure seems to be a disconnect between a high score on your index and # of high schools in my state. You know...the one with the most colleges and universities all concentrated around one city. Guess the high school kids' professor parents don't have enough sway in our local schools.
Jay Mathews: Actually, I have found that the higher level the incomes and test scores at a school, the more likely it is to resist letting all kids into AP or IB. we well-educated middle class types love our pecking orders. Don't let those kids in our class! It is the same spirit that leads kids to look down on classmates who can't afford the best sneakers, and not want to associate with them. Remember, only 5 percent of US high schools make our list, because most restrict access to AP.
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Washington, D.C.: Jay,
It is difficult to get an example of the difference between public schools against private schools. I'd like to know if there is any evidence that suggests private schools do better than the better public schools in the area but cannot seem to find any numbers on private schools.
Jay Mathews: Most private schools refuse to release their AP figures, but I have found that the big names do about as well as the big name public schools. Exeter is somewhere in 3.000 to 4.000 territory, where some of the best Fairfax County publics are. And there are a few special privates, like little St. Anselm's Abbey in NE Washington, that get up to 7.000. But principals like Father Peter are very rare.
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McLean, Va.: If you are going to exclude Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology from the challenge index rankings because it is a competitive admission high school with no average students, then under the same rationale, you should exclude all the AP or other scores for the students in the science and technology magnet program at Montgomery Blair HS because those students are only selected by competitive admission and are not average.
Jay Mathews: Ah, but we are rating the whole school, and dividing by ALL of its graduates, not just the IB magnet kids. And remember, one of the reasons why RM and Blair do so well is that they are encouraging non-magnet kids to take lots of AP tests,and they do very well on them.
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New York, N.Y.:
Good afternoon Jay,
I don't have a question about your ranking so much as a comment about private schools. I know that you have stated that you don't include private schools in this ranking primarily b/c they are uncooperative when it comes to giving out the necessary information for a qualitative ranking. I know its a no-win from their position (St. Albans or Sidwell would find it pretty hard to justify $20K per year if 10 area public schools rank higher), its irritating nonetheless. As a grad of one such institution, it annoys me that they wont put their sales line to the test. First, if the education is worth the money, you should be able to demonstrate it and, if not, a poor showing provides an impetus to improve the curriculum (something that I think they currently lack). The worst part is that I think most area private schools would do well. I spent 9th grade in a Montgomery County School, where I was an A- student with minimal effort, and then transferred to an all-boys private school for the following year, where I had three times as hard to maintain a B- GPA. I certainly think I was a better college student for having made the switch.
Jay Mathews: What a smart message. Send it to yr alma mater and give them my email address. I always love to see numbers from private schools. Maybe I can find a way to publish them, at least the ones that cooperate.
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Brentwood, Calif.: While all of this AP/IB is one indication, I would like to know if you have ever looked at ranking schools and school districts for their Special Ed programs.
Having an autistic child, I literally almost had to take MCPS to Federal court to get an appropriate inclusive education with the potential for a H.S. diploma. BTW, my child was and is at grade level and scored just 4 points below advanced in the 4th grade MSA testing and above average (state, MCPS, and school) in reading.
However, no one in the press seems to care about these kids and never seem to want to come up with a unbiased method of grading the school systems and schools for them. Only NCLB seems to be trying to force school districts to finally count Special Ed in how schools are rated.
Finally, I have found California to do an extremely better job of educating my autistic child than MCPS ever wanted or was willing to do. So much for a "world-class" school system for all (only for the few in MCPS who take AP/IB classes).
Jay Mathews: It is a good suggestion. But I have been unable to think of a useful quantitative measure. Got any ideas?
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Springfield, Va.: Hi Again, Thanks for answering - your answer to Maryland clarified your thinking for me. I can certainly see the benefit to having the experience of taking a college type test before it "really" matters. I didn't understand before you said that why having students take tests they might not be prepared for was a good thing.
Jay Mathews: What a kind response. Thanks for giving me a chance to share what I have learned.
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Baltimore, Md.: Re: the list of the best in the country: Where do "specialized" high schools fall into the list of the best in the country? I attended a PUBLIC performing arts high school which had some of the most "at-risk" students in the state (it was the "Fame" school, and many of the students came from NYC's poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods, across 5 boroughs). Yet our school had something along the lines of a 98% college acceptance rate.
Jay Mathews: Those are great schools, and we talk about many fine schools without AP or IB programs in the Newsweek cover story. The thing is to find what works for each kid, but even those artsy schools can use AP. Ellington in DC is above average on AP participation.
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Doylestown, Pa.: I couldn't help but notice that no Pennsylvania high schools made the top 200, yet I know from living here and in Northern Virginia that the public high schools in Bucks and Montgomery Counties are as good as any in Virginia. My local high school has won numerous national awards and sends upwards of 85% of its graduates to college. It's in the top 5 in the state in SAT scores. Yet it is not even listed as a top-1000 school on your list.
Jay Mathews: You are measuring schools the old way --- which have the fewest low income kids. The problem with the Penn. schools is that they restrict access to AP.
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Washington, D.C.: So, if I've got a gifted kid who's probably going to do well on AP tests no matter where I send her, what sort of high schools should I be looking at? Is it better to send her to one of the "challenge" schools, one of the "elite" schools, or someplace else?
Jay Mathews: Ask her. If you are in this area, No. VA or Mont County, you have a wealth of choices. She could go to TJ, or Westfield, or George Mason, or Wakefield, or TC Williams, or Springbrook. All are going to provide a great education.
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McLean, Va.: Why is Dallas Talented & Gifted shown at the top of your index with regular high schools, and not with the public elites? Judging by the name at least, it doesn't sound like a school with average students.
Jay Mathews: If you read more deeply into the Newsweek issue, or my FAQs on the web site, you will see that we wanted to include magnets like TAG that still have lots of average kids, including minority kids. So if a magnet's average SAT is no higher than the highest SAT for a regular enrollment school, just under 1300 for the class of 2005, we let them on the list. It seems only fair because we have always allowed those high scoring regular schools on the list.
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New York, N.Y.: Doesn't the Newsweek list simply demonstrate that highly selective schools best prepare for highly selective colleges? The top 100 schools are mostly either magnet institutions -- which can pick the smartest students from huge districts. Or they're in Bloomfield Hills or Great Neck or Bethesda - where property taxes pay for schools that don't differ significantly for elite private prep schools(and where students have the benefits of endless special tutoring).
Jay Mathews: I have gone over my time limit, and this is an excellent question to end with. There are, as you say, many schools in affluent neighborhoods on the list, but you have neglected to mention what makes the list special---the fact that there are many schools on the list that are NOT in wealthy neighborhoods, and have lots of low income kids. As I said, if you ranked schools by SAT score, the way we usually think of high school, there would be none in the top 100 that had even 30 percent of their kids qualify for federal lunch subsidies.
I just counted the number of such schools on this years top 100. There are 29 of them, and several are in the 40s, 50s and even as high as 75 percent free and reduced lunch. That is what makes this list different,and why I am so proud of it. It shows the potential of kids who in most schools are overlooked.
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Jay Mathews: Thanks very much for the great questions. And if you have something personal you have to tell me, my email address is mathewsj@washpost.com
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