Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, has written a brilliant critique of the rankings of America’s high schools. She looks specifically at Jay Mathews’ list of “America’s Most Challenging High Schools,” but her critique applies equally to U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of “America’s Best High Schools.”
As she points out, charter advocates jumped for joy when they learned that the lists were dominated by charter schools, and they urged the nation to learn from the success of these schools.
Burris points out that the highest ranking school on Jay Mathews list is BASIS Phoenix (the U.S. News & World Report had BASIS charters as numbers 1, 2, and 3 on its lists, albeit not the one in Phoenix). And consider what the lessons might be:
The BASIS Phoenix graduating class of 2016 had 24 students — fewer than the average New York City kindergarten class. It began four years earlier with 43 ninth-graders. The drop from 43 to 24 represents an attrition rate of 44 percent. Jay’s list says that the school’s enrollment is 757 students, but that is deceiving because BASIS Phoenix is both a middle and high school. The entire high school population (which is what the list is about) in 2016 was only 199[3].
BASIS Phoenix does not have a free or reduced-price lunch program, and it does not provide transportation. It asks its parents for a $1,500 donation per child each year, along with hefty fees to participate in sports and extracurricular activities. In 2016, the school had so few students with disabilities, the state could not list the number without violating privacy — not even to give a total for the entire school. Thirty-three percent of its students were Asian American and 57 percent were white. In Maricopa County, Arizona, where the school is located, 3 percent of the students are Asian American, and 41 percent are white. The majority of Maricopa County students are Latino, and 47 percent receive free or reduced-priced lunch.
Burris points out that Jay Mathews uses the senior class as the denominator, not those who started in the high school, and this rewards high attrition rates:
Because Jay’s formula uses the senior class enrollment as the denominator to create the Challenge Index, schools with high attrition rates that give AP exams to underclassmen are rewarded. This results in BASIS Phoenix’s absurdly high Challenge Index of 26.250. If you used the original number of students who entered the high school as the denominator, the Index would drop to 14.65. Losing kids who can’t keep up has it rewards.
The number 2 school on Jay’s list had 11 graduates, out of 17 that started. One of the best high schools in America?
Jay gives credit to schools where students take AP classes, whether or not they pass them. Some of the schools on the list offer incredible numbers of AP classes. His list has encouraged this practice.
Burris writes:
What, then, are the lessons public schools should learn from the “top schools?”
Should our neighborhood schools follow the lead of the top charters and cater to the strivers and the gifted so those who cannot complete 11 AP courses, or pass an AP course, are forced to move out?
Should ranking lists call high schools “the best” when their program keeps teenagers with Down syndrome and serious learning disabilities out, or when they shed 10 percent or more of their students who cannot keep pace? Should we then have “default” public high schools where the students who can’t keep up are segregated from more academically able peers? If we continue down the path of unfettered choice with vouchers and boutique charters, that will surely be the outcome.
If, however, we believe that the good school equitably serves all children, there must be a balance between reasonable challenge and inclusivity. Asking all students, with the exception of students with the most challenging disabilities, to take an IB or AP course or two before graduation is an idea I support.
However, when we establish schools that create exclusivity by design, or by their unreasonably difficult graduation requirements, we are not furthering equity. And that results in lists more appropriate for Ripley’s Believe it or Not, than “best schools” lists.
In the current atmosphere, the one created by NCLB and Race to the Top, schools are congratulated when their scores and graduation rates are high even though their attrition rates are also high. Is the best high school the ones that set standards so high that a large number of students are pushed out? Is the best high school the one that is most selective? Or is the best high school the one that aims to educate all kinds of students and does a good job of preparing all of them for citizenship, for life, and for whatever path they choose after high school?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“100% Graduation”
It really can’t be beat
Our graduation rate
Our senior, you should meet
His scores are really great
LikeLike
The liberal left thinks that going to a private preppy school means that it’s good. SAVE ME.
Then there’s the GOP and their money grubbers along with the DEMS.
The two party system is broken.
Yes, High School ratings is a HOAX meant to deceive.
DEPRESSING.
LikeLike
What is your definition of liberal . Because my definition of left looks at golf as an elitist sport (LOL). So prep schools are off limits . I guess this FDR/LBJ liberal must be a commie really be a commie or tghe social liberals aren’t liberals.
LikeLike
Lets try that again edit . :
must really be a commie or the social liberals aren’t liberals
LikeLike
Another great piece. Carol Burris is a wonderfully clear writer.
She should be the official “explainer” of all things ed reform to people like me, who aren’t in education.
LikeLiked by 1 person
YES.
LikeLike
If you look at the technical report for US News & World Report’s rankings, you can see that this rating system has missing data from many states and the missing data is not the same in every state. This missing data problem was no minor affair.
The test scores were from 2014-2015 when many states were moving from PARCC and SMARTER. The comparability of referents for the term “proficiency” was impossible to esptablish and therefore conjured up as a statistical fiction.
High Schools offering an International Baccalaureate diploma refused to provide data for this shameful exercise. More states should follow that lead.
Indeed, more than anything this report seems to be a marketing tool for the College Board’s Advanced Placement Tests. The more a high school has on the books, the better.
US News would probably be dead in the water if had not gotten into the rankings business, not just of high schools, colleges and graduate programs, but also hospitals, law firms, and a long list found at the website.
Click to access best-high-schools-technical-appendix-2017v4.pdf
LikeLike
The saddest thing is that there are many parents that just LOVE these ratings. They like comparing their children. They push the kids to take all AP so that they can brag about how smart their children are or how many college credits they got out of the way, or the great college that their child will be attending because of the AP scores. Funny thing is….in a year or 2, many of those kids have dropped out of college, or have developed major depression issues or are now living in the basement working a minimum wage job. The parents are now having to come up with excuses as to why this has happened. The counselors keep pushing AP on my daughter for her Sophomore year and I keep telling them “no thank you”.
LikeLike
This article certainly puts the rankings in perspective. Any system that ranks anything is only as reflective of the reality as the designer of the system wants to create. Hence, charter schools dominate lists because the wealthy interests behind charters want to shine a spotlight on their “accomplishments” by disregarding any notion of negativity such as high attrition rates in their tally. As Burris notes, the list is more reflective of excellent cherry picking the best and discarding the bottom. In market based education, high ratings on a list equals money in the bank.
There are many more criteria for a formula that could be created to highlight the accomplishments of public schools, but public schools are a public service. They don’t have an advertising and marketing department, billionaire backers and a host of foundations and spin doctors assisting in peddling their wares.
My reaction to the list is that it highlights the unnecessary expense of being “elite” in a charter. This is a waste of tax dollars. These same students could have excelled just as well in a comprehensive high school that offers AP classes or an international baccalaureate. A diverse neighboring public school district offers “Le Bac” to a group of highly selective students. Each year several of these students attend Ivy League colleges. This is much more cost effective selective approach than setting a separate parallel school for these students, and nobody profits from their achievements. Also, these students get to attend a diverse school in which they can learn to get along with all types of students, a much healthier life lesson than being educated in a separate ivory tower.
LikeLike
Jay Matthews, still shilling for so-called education reform after all these years…
LikeLike
I still waiting for a BASIS Charter High School to be built in South Phoenix. Oh that’s right. That is NEVER going to happen. BASIS? Response? Insert soundtrack of crickets.
LikeLike
BASIS is now opening up for-profit schools in states where the privatizers want to continue the myth that charters are there to serve the at-risk students failed by public schools. BASIS didn’t have to pretend to want to serve at-risk students in states like Arizona, but that doesn’t fly in NY State. So instead they are simply opening (relatively) low-cost private schools.
If there is one small silver lining in Trump’s forcing vouchers upon us, it will be watching BASIS competing with Success Academy’s charters that are now desperately marketing to college educating parents in affluent neighborhoods. The people worried the most about vouchers are the dishonest charters who have found it very profitable to teach the cheapest at-risk kids and throw back the rest while making Trump-like claims of turning 100% of their students into top performing scholars. Instead of competing with public schools that have to take any students that charters decide are too “violent” or “extremely disturbed” to teach, those charters will have to compete with private schools like BASIS who don’t have to pretend to care about students who can’t keep up and can offer the “best in the country” education to the very same students those charters want. And now parents can use their vouchers for BASIS instead of Success Academy.
And maybe then we can have some honest assessments of which schools really try to teach all students and which schools are most “excellent” at weeding out unwanted ones without getting caught. We can have honest assessments about which schools are following the rules and which schools have politically connected billionaires and somehow are exempt from any real state oversight. Maybe charters will start saying “hey, maybe attrition does matter, why aren’t you talking about BASIS losing kids?” .
It will be ironic after all the years the charter industry — even the good ones — were complicit in never demanding any look at attrition because that complicity benefitted them as well.
LikeLike
I can appreciate Carol Burris’s critique of Jay Mathews Challenge Index. But her criticism falls far short in that it fails to address the key, nefarious role of Advanced Placement in the rankings. Advanced Placement is NOT what Mathews – or Burris – thinks it is.
The Challenge Index has always been a phony list that doesn’t do much except to laud AP courses and tests. The Index is based on Jay Mathews’ equally dubious assumption that AP is inherently “better” than other high school classes in which students are encouraged and taught to think critically. The research on AP makes clear that it is more hype than anything else.
Let’s examine only a few of the ludicrous statements that Mathews makes, and then dig into the research on AP.
Mathews: “AP courses mimic introductory college courses in state universities. The final exams are written and graded by outside experts and thus are immune to the tendency in high schools to go easy on students…”
Oh, dear God. The truth is that AP courses do not come close to replicating college courses.
As one student remarked, after taking the World History AP test, “dear jesus… I had hoped to never see “DBQ” ever again, after AP world history… so much hate… so much hate.” And another added, “I was pretty fond of the DBQ’s, actually, because you didn’t really have to know anything about the subject, you could just make it all up after reading the documents.” Another AP student related how “high achievers” in his school approached AP tests:
The “outside experts” Mathews cites as the “graders” of AP exams are mostly high school AP teachers who read (rapidly) AP essays (the rest of the exams are machine scored). One of these “experts” discussed the types of essays he saw:
“I read AP exams in the past. Most memorable was an exam book with $5 taped to the page inside and the essay just said ‘please, have mercy.’ But I also got an angry breakup letter, a drawing of some astronauts, all kinds of random stuff. I can’t really remember it all… I read so many essays in such compressed time periods that it all blurs together when I try to remember.”
Many colleges and universities are finding that AP courses offer relatively little to students. A very large number of colleges restrict AP credit to test scores of only a 4 or 5 (for example, Baylor, Boston University, Chicago, Colorado, Northwestern,William and Mary). And many limit the number of credits that can be used. More (Boston College, MIT, Michigan, Washington University) are limiting scores to 5s or or not allowing AP credit whatsoever. As one AP test grader said, “the scores signify less and less. Anything under a 5 should be suspect. I wouldn’t give anyone college credit for an AP test grade if I had anything to do with it.”
Here’s another Mathews doozy:
“The growth of AP…participation has also been fueled by selective college admissions offices using that as a measure of a student’s readiness for higher education.”
Yet, more and more colleges are finding that AP is – in fact – NOT a measure of much of anything, except of a student’s desire to ge into the college of his or her choice, It’s a game.
The primary reason many students take AP is not to “learn” or to gain “college readiness,” but to game the admissions process. Students feel like they have to put AP on their transcripts or they won’t get into the college of their choice. It’s all about “looking good,” and boosting the grade point average.
One very honest AP teacher wrote recently that “Our district has told the counselors to promote the AP program with scare tactics that they will not get into the college of their choice, the district has incentivized taking the courses with up to 4.5 G.P.A. credit.” Yet, research chows clearly that the more weight AP courses are given, the less predictive power the weighted GPA has for college success. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
And, Mathews gives us this pearl:
“ The National Math and Science Initiative has spent more than $200 million encouraging schools to add AP courses and motivate students to pass them, while training more teachers.”
The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) pushes for more STEM training in public schools, and purports “to bring best practices” to classrooms in order to “to reverse the recent decline in U.S. students’ math and science educational achievement.” NMSI claims to be the only group in the U.S. that “rigorously researched and replicated math and science programs that have produced immediate and sustainable results.” Three big problems present themselves though. First, there is no STEM crisis in the U.S., far from it. Second, there has been no “recent decline” in math and science achievement, And third, the “proven program” cited by NMSI most often is Advanced Placement, and the research just doesn’t support the claim.
Researchers Lindsay Lowell and Hall Salzman note in “Into the Eye of the Storm, that there is no STEM crisis in the U.S. They point out that “the math and science performance of high school graduates is not declining and show improvement for some grades and demographic groups.” They add that on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) “there has been no decline and even some improvement” in U.S. student scores. And they add this:
“The weight of the evidence surely indicates not decline but rather indicates on ongoing educational improvement for U.S. students. This improvement is not only in math and science but in all subjects tested and, importantly, occurs at the same time as a greater and more diverse proportion of the population is remaining in school…The notion that the United States trails the world in educational performance misrepresents the actual test results and reaches conclusions that are quite unfounded.””
Moreover, Lowell and Salzman make clear that there is no shortage of STEM workers. in fact, “the U.S. has been graduating more S&E [science and engineering] students than there have been S&E jobs” for quite a while, and “addressing the presumed labor market problems through a broad-based focus on the education system seems a misplaced effort.” They add that “policy proposals that call for more math and science education, aimed at increasing the number of scientists and engineers, do not square with the education performance and employment data.”
Beryl Lieff Benderly wrote this stunning statement recently in the Columbia Journalism Review:
“Leading experts on the STEM workforce, have said for years that the US produces ample numbers of excellent science students…according to the National Science Board’s authoritative publication Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, the country turns out three times as many STEM degrees as the economy can absorb into jobs related to their majors.”
This STEM focus may be trendy, but it is based on a fallacy. It’s a myth.
The National Math and Science Initiative is funded by the Gates and Dell Foundations (which seem to have a distaste for public schools), by defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin (which have laid off STEM workers), by ExxonMobil (which has funded and disseminated disinformation on climate change), by JP Morgan Chase (which sold toxic securities, defrauded the public, and helped to cause the Great Recession), by Boeing (which is subsidized by US taxpayers, pays a lower tax rate than most American workers, and has laid off thousands of STEM employees), and by the College Board, maker of the PSAT, SAT and AP courses and tests.
Meanwhile, some of the world’s biggest banks and trading companies gamed a “market” of some nearly $400 trillion interest-rate trades, and not in favor of the public. And, more recent disclosures reveal that traders and bankers have rigged the foreign exchange (FX) market, one that involves daily transactions of nearly $ 5 trillion, which is “the biggest in the financial system.” As one analyst noted, this is “the anchor of our entire economic system. Any rigging of the price mechanism leads to a misallocation of capital and is extremely costly to society.”
We have a person in the White House who ran a decidedly racist, xenophobic, and misogynist campaign, and who was helped into office by Russian intelligence agencies who hacked, leaked and falsified documents to harm his opponent, and who has fired the FBI director in an overt attempt to quash investigations into subversion of democracy. Yet, Jay is still pumping out drivel about America’s “best” schools based on a deeply flawed Index that he cooked up and that has no basis in research.
Sadly, while Burris criticizes the very real shortcomings of the high school rankings, she does seem to support Mathews’ (misplaced) belief in AP, and she doesn’t connect the dots between AP, high school rankings, STEM, and corporate-style ‘reform.’ They’re all part and parcel of the very same thing.
If Albert Einstein, the great theoretical physicist, were alive today, he’d likely double down on his statement that “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
LikeLike