If you have ever wondered about the validity of the U.S. News & World Report rankings of high schools, you will enjoy reading Gary Rubinstein’s explanation of how the rankings are calculated. This year, 34 of the top 100 high schools, according to U.S. News, are charter schools. Readers of this blog know how assiduous many charter schools are in choosing their students and in getting rid of the low performers. Without information about attrition, it is hard to know what to make of these rankings.
Gary teaches at Stuyvesant High School, which is an extremely difficult school to gain admission to. Incoming students must pass a rigorous exam and must receive very high scores. Yet one of the New York City KIPP high schools was ranked higher than Stuyvesant.
This piqued Gary’s curiosity, and he looked closely at the KIPP data. What he discovered might surprise you. If nothing else, it will persuade you–as it did me–that the U.S. News rankings are baloney.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://wfpl.org/teachers-continue-lawsuit-state-underfunded-pensions/
[http://wfpl.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/scales-1.png]
Teachers Continue Lawsuit Against State For Underfunded Pensions wfpl.org The Teachers Retirement Legal Fund argues state leaders have broken the law by not setting aside enough money for the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System.
Hi Diane!
UPDATE from Louisville, Kentucky and the battle to save Kentucky Teachers’ retirement pension.
Regards,
Dr. Randy Wieck
teacher, duPont Manual High
Louisville
________________________________
LikeLike
Doesn’t every school try to game the rankings?
LikeLike
Cynical reply!
LikeLike
Gaming test scores has always occurred, but it’s now pandemic, Public schools do it as a (misguided) survival strategy, whereas charters do it as a matter of policy.
LikeLike
Not by gaming the student population to that degree .
LikeLike
The School Dr. Perry’s bragged on in CT did same thing
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/connecticut/amistad-academy/900024-school-district/high
Notice anything about their enrollment trends?
of Students in Pre-Kindergarten: – –
of Students in Kindergarten: 92 92
of Students in 1st Grade: 93 93
of Students in 2nd Grade: 90 90
of Students in 3rd Grade: 90 90
of Students in 4th Grade: 79 79
of Students in 5th Grade: 102 102
of Students in 6th Grade: 102 102
of Students in 7th Grade: 81 81
of Students in 8th Grade: 79 79
of Students in 9th Grade: 59 59
of Students in 10th Grade: 57 57
of Students in 11th Grade: 34 34
of Students in 12th Grade: 26 26
of Ungraded Students:
And here are their scores –
Click to access hss_ct_pub2015.pdf
LikeLike
In general it is easy to game the system. The year I earned extra money for being in a school that had improved its scores was the year we opened a magnet of mostly native English speakers. Scores up!
Another year the SPED teachers placed as many students on modified exams as possible. Scores up!
One year, the school scheduled half-days and tested mornings. English and math first tests given. Scores up!
First year of mandatory Sustained Silent Reading. Scores up!
Teaching test-taking skills through reading comprehension program. Scores up!
Cheating–unnecessary. Kicking out low scorers–unnecessary.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“In general it is easy to game the system”
It really is. What surprised me as an “outsider” is what an open secret this is- everyone knows it happens.
There was a younger superintendent if a district that borders mine who was recommending to certain parents that they enroll their child in an online school. His scores were always higher than surrounding districts, everyone who understood how it works knew why, but every year like clockwork the local newspaper would print Ohio’s “school grades” and there he was, at the top.
It must be really disheartening to the other public schools, because the way we have set this up any objection from them would be portrayed as “an excuse”.
It must be absolutely crazy-making 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
That principal who obviously lacks certain principles sounds like a text book example of an adminimal.
LikeLike
Nicely explained. The phenomenon of scores rising dramatically for the first years in much-reformed states right after NCLB was mandated actually had much more to do with administrators/specialists figuring out how to beat score penalties than it had to do with any changed student knowledge. Some states, in fact, did their penalty avoiding so well that they became known as the states to watch…and this premature lauding never stopped even after the penalty avoidance game stagnated and scores began to drop.
LikeLike
Having test scores up because a documented instructional practice, Silent Sustained Reading, is associated with higher test scores doesn’t seem to quite fit the critieria for “gaming the system.” In addition while I too would question the reason for the modified testing schedule (mornings only), having watched the kids drag themselves through days of testing makes me want to applaud someone who figures how to test them all within the test window with a more humane schedule. As a former special ed teacher I know that modified testing can be used inappropriately, but the push in recent years has been to limit access to IEP required accommodations. I certainly don’t condone cheating, but I can’t condemn attempts to circumvent the system when the system is illegitimate to begin with.
I don’t mean to sound like I am criticizing your comment, WCT, because I know there are instances where actions are taken with little thought for the benefit of anyone but those in charge.
LikeLike
cross-posted https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Did-KIPP-Game-the-U-S-New-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Media-Fake-News_Public-Schools_School-Reform-170428-909.html
LikeLike
The problem here is less that KIPP gamed the system than that US News is allowed to create their own quality definition, assign scores to schools, and then have their self-determined rankings treated as if they are a legitimate measure of great schools. We should focus less attention on their rankings and more on delegitimizing their rating system.
LikeLike
If you want to begin delegitimizing their rating system, the technical report is the place to begin. I have no desire to spend any more time than I already have on a brief trip through the technical report. It shows that quite a few states had missing data and had changed tests from the prior year. I found no effort to establish equivalency among the tests, also sloppy definitions of proficiency, exclusions of many schools for various reasons and so on. Researchers sometimes picked up data from prior years. There were big issues with sizes of groups for disaggregated scores.
Also be aware that the other less publicized but a more pernicious rating scheme can be found at GreatSchools.org
That website sells and leases its data to many charter schools and companies who want to push visitors to specific schools, and zip codes. It is a tool for redlining. That is why zillow pays for data.
Like US News, GreatSchools relies on the data supplied by states. GreatSchools is hoping to include more data from student, teacher, and parent perception surveys and assorted “school climate” surveys as available in state data systems. GreatSchools is also underwritten by the same foundations who are intent on making all schools market based, privatized, profit-centers.
Click to access best-high-schools-technical-appendix.pdf
LikeLike
It’s a shame that this gives credibility to the “fake news” mantra. It used to be that you could read the paper (most places had 2) and know that what was printed was truth. Now, the media prints everything and anything and they cry when they are called out for printing false information because they didn’t want to do the research.
LikeLike
If they did the research, would real facts, be what got published .
The key is when we had many competing News sources and the competition helped keep them honest.
LikeLike
“If you have ever wondered about the validity of the U.S. News & World Report rankings of high schools. . . ”
No, never have. I’ve known they are 100% Grade B Bovine Excrement from the start.
LikeLike
As a former dairy farmer, I would hasten to point out that all bovine excrement is grade A because of its origin. Moreover, there is way more excrement than there is milk. Our fields were always thankful for that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What the author left out , was that probably none of those kipp students qualified to get into the specialty High School he was teaching at . As that 4 years ago few if any of the Charter school students attending any of the charters in NYC qualified for any of NYCs elite specialty schools .
Just another joke that the media gets wrong. Comparing a High School with 58 students, to schools with a graduating class of 700 or over a 1000 should be a statistical non starter.
LikeLike
A double sawbuck says not one person at US News who worked on this project — not one of the editors, the researchers, the writers, the copyeditors, the IT staff — would send their kids to KIPP instead of Stuyvesant.
LikeLike
Sawbuck, learn something new everyday. Thanks, FLERP!
LikeLike
US News = JD Powers
junk awards that get used to promote
LikeLike