Newsweek 2010 "America's Best High Schools" list

[alp227]

(note: I originally meant to base this thread off this local news article but as I read the list I edited this to focus on the list in general with some local flavour from me.)

Two charter schools from my metro area were nationally ranked by Newsweek as among the best American public high schools:

"Santa Cruz charter ranked No. 19 among public schools in nation"
by Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News

Pacific Collegiate School, a charter school in Santa Cruz, has been named by Newsweek magazine as one of the top 20 public schools in the nation.

The magazine ranked the top 1,600 high schools in the nation, representing 6 percent of the public schools in the nation. Two local schools placing highest were both charters: Pacific Collegiate was ranked No. 19, and Summit Preparatory Charter in Redwood City was ranked No. 76.

And of course in case you're interested here's the public schools on the list:

Among other schools on the list: Gunn in Palo Alto, No. 134; Mission San Jose in Fremont, No. 169; Lynbrook in San Jose, No. 212; Monta Vista in Cupertino, No. 244, Aragon in San Mateo, No. 341; Andrew Hill in San Jose, No. 390 and Mountain View, No. 396.

What Noguchi omitted from her report though was that Newsweek reported that charter schools are usually worse than public schools. Typical mainstream corporate media apologetics by omission.

Glancing at the top of the list I notice several magnets and charters. My high school was ranked on the 731st, down from 689th last year. Although that school has the highest standardised test scores in the district it's lower ranked by Newsweek than Hill (as mentioned earlier was 390th) because Hill has the International Baccalaureate program while my school (Evergreen Valley) didn't.

[rurallib]

1. Serious question - can these charters kind of 'pick' their students?

[zazen]

6. ours are by lottery with 1 in 10 chance; but you have to provide transportation

That's the one way it does discriminate. I've lost so much work I've been eligible for food stamps for 18 months, but I keep my daughter there and scrape by to do the driving and volunteering because it's a better school than most privates and it's the best way she can get a merit scholarship to a really good university.

Our leading charter schools have a very, very progressive bent, but you'd think from reading posts on DU that we were the spawn of the devil for sending our daughter to one. They're not all bad.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. The ones in my city suck

And they drain kids from the public schools by promising them Wiis or cash.

[mzteris]

15. yeah yeah and you think all hs'ers suck, too.

We get it. Really.

You probably hate virtual schools and online schools and correspondence schools and magnet schools and schools of choice and private schools, too. :eyes:

[LWolf]

17. Those who can afford the time and gas to transport their students

are in the demographic that tend to do better in school...any school.

It's a subtle way of filtering.

It also points out the purpose of charter schools and privatization: to filter and segregate.

If public districts were fully funded and not under authoritarian standardization policies from feds and states, they could allow district schools the flexibility to use different approaches, and allow ALL to choose. But that kind of choice requires a massive investment in transportation.

It's the use of charter schools as a privatization and union-busting tool, as a way of providing "tiers" of education instead of equal opportunity to all, that is the foundation of the opposition you are hearing.

If public districts and schools had the same freedoms, there would be no reason or purpose in "charters," and they would no longer be relevant, or useful as the privatization and union-busting tools that they are.

[mzteris]

11. No.

It's done by blind lottery drawing.

[Dinger]

16. Not Just that, but they can pick their standards too. (nt)

[dsc]

18. they often don't pick their students before

but they nearly all do after by expelling students they don't want.

[pnwmom]

2. ALL of our city's schools are in the top 100 -- and the list is a crock.

Our superintendent years ago figured out the way to get on the list was to REQUIRE all students to take at least one AP exam, and to strongly encourage as many AP attempts as possible.

That's because there is only a single criterion for being one of Newsweeks best schools: how many AP exams are taken compared to the number of students in a school. All of the students in a school could FAIL to get credit ((in other words, score a 1 or a 2 out of 5) and the school would still be one of Newsweeks top schools.

[zazen]

3. is that Newsweek or US News&World Report? one takes into account overall achievement

You're right about the AP strategy--that's one reason my daughter's charter HS stays in the top 50-- but I thought one of the ranking systems denominated that by other factors, like the SES and/or ethnic diversity of a school and that sort of thing. Is Newsweek the one that does AP only?

[pnwmom]

5. Newsweek uses the AP only, and counts all tests, no matter what the score. n/t

[WinkyDink]

4. By freakin' definition, "charter" schools are NOT "public" schools.

[zazen]

7. we have non-profit, board-run charters open by lottery and publicly funded n/t

[mzteris]

13. 80% of all charter public schools are run locally.

Only 10% (and shrinking) are managed by for-profit management companies - the same ones that run some traditional public schools!

Another 10% are managed by non-profit management companies.

[jody]

9. By law in most states "charter schools" are "public schools". I agree with your intent as I

understand it but the law is as I stated.

[mzteris]

12. Actually the DEFINITION of "charter school"

is that it is a FREE AND PUBLIC school.

By every federal, state, and local definition.

typo

[jody]

8. #2 is Alabama's Jefferson County International Baccalaureate School (JCIB) n/t

[mzteris]

14. Diane Ravitch slammed that Stanford report

saying it was inaccurate and poorly done.


edit:

I counted 20 out of 100 as charters.