By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 10:24 AM
Once again, the best public high school in Missouri is a St. Louis Public School, according to Newsweek magazine. Labels: Schools
Metro Academic and Classical High School was ranked #139 on Newsweek's list of 1,200 top schools in America. The next highest ranking schools from the Show-Me state is Ladue-Horton Watkins (#263) and Clayton High (#321).
Metro High has for years consistently ranked near the top of annual list and is the highest ranking Missouri public school. Last year it was ranked #40. In 2005, it ranked #48
Ironically, despite being one of the best high schools in the nation, Metro is scheduled to lose its state accreditation and be taken over by the state on June 15 along with the rest of St. Louis Public Schools.
12 Comments:
The best public high school, that is.
5/23/2007 11:36 AM
There are lots of students with tons of potential who can surpass expectations... They just need the motivation and support of teachers, parents, and the community. It's good to see something positive when it comes to a St. Louis Public School being in the news.
5/23/2007 11:54 AM
The ranking system that Newsweek uses actually rewards teachers for encouraging students to excel. Essentially it places greater weight on AP and other advanced class enrollment against the number of subsidized lunches. This is a great system because it doesn’t discredit good schools simply because they’re in lower income areas! I hope that with the takeover (something needed to be done just wish it wasn’t the state….) Metro will continue along its path and not have to change their methods due to state pressure.
5/23/2007 11:58 AM
Right you are, Anony #1. I've added "public" to the lead. Thanks.
5/23/2007 12:39 PM
Anony 2, something was done. It was called an election, and it fixed the problem of an immature and uncaring school board. Go to a meeting now and see the difference.
5/23/2007 1:02 PM
Metro actually has its own accreditation, so it is isolated from the district losing it.
5/24/2007 1:23 PM
That's great for Metro, but I'm so tired of hearing the district hang its hat on having "4 of the top 10 schools in the state" (or whatever) -- when each of those top schools are competitive admissions campuses -- while simultaneously getting all sanctimonious about "serving all comers." Then they say we can "learn a lot" from the things that work in those schools -- "like lower class size." No, fool, it's not the lower class sizes (if there even are any) that make Metro so great -- it's that they can pick and choose students, and to even suggest otherwise is disingenuous and self-serving.
5/24/2007 2:26 PM
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5/24/2007 8:10 PM
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5/24/2007 8:14 PM
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5/24/2007 8:19 PM
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5/24/2007 8:22 PM
> Essentially it places greater
> weight on AP and other advanced
> class enrollment against the
> number of subsidized lunches.
They report subsidized meals, but they don't figure into the ranking at all. You can use that data to see that the "top schools" aren't all in rich neighborhoods, but again, socioeconomic status isn't a term in the index.
Jay Mathews' Challenge Index is the basis of the ranking, nothing else. What he does is divide the number of AP exams taken by students by the number of graduates last year. That's it.
This explains the rationale, in the author's own words. In summary, he thinks schools that make AP courses available to anyone who might possibly be able to get through them, even with an unreasonably great struggle, better support students' educations by being more demanding and supportive of all students regardless of socioeconomic status. It had turned out that some schools (even in rich neighborhoods) discouraged "average" students from even trying AP — that tyranny of low expectations thing. But some schools in poor neighborhoods (notably LA's Garfield of Jaime Escalante "Stand and Deliver" fame) made AP widely available and seemed to use it as a motivational tool, as well as a norm that couldn't be gamed by either the students or the instructional staffs.
So, take it for what its worth. Mathews doesn't claim its the be-all and end-all, and you don't have to like it. It seems to me it adds another dimension to the "good school/bad school" debate by surfacing the attitudes and motivational capabilities of the faculties as captured in an easy-to-understand index.
t
PS: if you're entering a link in an HREF a-tag, don't end the link with a trailing slash, or it confuses the blog software. The preview will look fine, but the actual post won't.
5/24/2007 8:24 PM
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